The weekend of 23 Oct 09, Tracy and I headed to the Angel Cove Trail (Google Map) in Robber's Roost
in southern Utah. We had hiked here before, but this time we wanted to actually make it into Robber's
Roost Canyon. We spent Friday night in Green River (as always), and then headed to the trail on
Saturday morning. We hiked down to the small cliff that had stopped us last time from continuing to
the Dirty Devil River, but didn't have any real problems getting down the drop-off. I had brought some
rope, but we didn't need it. Tracy had to lower both our packs to me, but the drop off wasn't high
enough to need the ropes. Then we crossed the Dirty Devil, which was only about knee deep. There
was a trail on the opposite side of the river, and we followed that through the thick underbrush all the
way to Robber's Roost. We hiked about 30 minutes up Robber's Roost, then had to turn around to
make it back to the truck. The hike along the river and the short way we went up Robber's Roost were
okay. We decided, though, that we really like hiking on the slickrock above the river better. I really like
this area, though, and the solitude out there is completely unbelievable...it gets high marks in my books
for the simple fact that we only saw two other sets of tracks on the trail that were probably several days
or weeks old, and absolutely no other signs of people. When we crossed the Dirty Devil on our way
back, my feet and my sandals got REALLY muddy, so I tried to wash them off in the clear water of
Beaver Wash. Unfortunately, I got caught in quick sand...good times! Actually, I had always wanted to
get caught in quicksand, so I really enjoyed it! I sunk up to just above my ankle on my right foot, but
was eventually able to get out. Tracy didn't come help me because she thought my cries for help were
just a joke...I gotta stop being silly about those kinds of things!
Here's a map showing the GPS track we hiked, as well as the specific location where each picture was
taken. Also, here's the GPX tracklog if you're interested.
After getting back to the truck, we drove to Torrey, and spent the night. We got up on Sunday and
hiked in Capitol Reef National Park at the Old Wagon Trail (Google Map), and Capitol Wash. The hikes
were nice, but there were far more people there than I like. It wasn't horrible most of the time, but if i"m
going to drive that far, I expect to get away from people. Capitol Reef might be good in the dead of
winter, but otherwise I think I can mark it off the list.