December 28, 2002 – 15 miles
Three weeks went by and I felt ready for another hike. We had a great 15-mile hike/run. Participants were: myself, Ed Johnson, Pablo Riboldi, and Paul Hansen. We hiked in the far southwest corner of Zion National Park, through Huber Wash, petrified forest, and Coalpits Wash.
After a nice breakfast in Cedar City, we hit the trail at 7:45 a.m. The trail was much more technical than expected by some. Paul Hansen was a fast pacesetter with his long legs and Ed Johnson with his sprint runs. The running stretches were great, on soft, packed red sand wash and trails. We travels through washes, canyons, ridges, a climb through a rock “chimney”, bushwhacking, rock hopping, dodging boulders, and all-out runs at times.
The terrain was more stunning then expected. Changes were seen every mile. The petrified forest was amazing, petrified wood all over, including full logs of cool colors. My new GPS was very handy getting us back on track a couple times.
One surprise was….snow. About four inches in areas where the trail would take us on north-facing banks or deep wash canyons. But the snow was so dry that it wasn’t a problem except when we bushwhacked down a ridge…skis would have helped. Also we were somewhat surprised to see an icy stream running in Coalpits wash. This presented a challenging obstacle at times and resulted in a wet foot or two, not to mention the comical spills I took on the ice. Ed was in heaven, he loved the run. It was exactly what he likes. Temperatures during most of the hike were a nice 27-35 degrees. The last mile of the trail was a warm 43 degrees with annoying mud. We ended the hike at 12:15 p.m….a 4 1/2 hour adventure.
But the best part was saved for last. We reached the road, and ran one mile on the road back to the pullout where we left the car. When we arrived, we were all stunned to see that Paul Hansen’s suburban was gone! Stolen! We all had our wallets, keys, cell phones, credit cards, everything, left in the car. Paul flagged down a car of people from Park City who helped him call 911 to put out an APB on the stolen car. We were all stunned, trying to consider how we would even get home. We checked out tire tracks showing where the car peeling out.
The Park City folks drove away, but soon returned laughing hysterically. They informed us that our car was 100 yards down the road at the next pull out. We all felt like relieved idiots. In our defense, both pullouts were almost identical, each with a gate to a trail, and each hidden from the other with a hill between. And…we did arrive when it was pretty dark. We had a great laugh and made sure the cops cancelled the APB so we would not be pulled over on the way back. We are sure that the Park City group will have a great story to tell about some idiots from Utah County.
It was a great hike. No real damage other than bruises from my spills on the ice. We arrived home at 4:30 p.m.