Day 2

March 6, 2018

Esplanade Below Kanab Point


 


Click on photos to see larger image.

Yikes, it was cold last night.  I managed to stay warm enough for most of the night, but just barely.  The potholes were covered with a thin layer of ice.  I stayed in my bag until the sun peeked over the rim. 

I was feeling better this morning and decided to continue on with my original plans.  I strongly suspect that descending the extremely steep and loose talus is what gave my back the most trouble.  Now that I'm done with that, I hoped to do better from here on.  I also had plenty of pain meds (Tramadol) if needed. 

Today I planned to hike over to Scotty's and explore the plethora of branches cutting down from the Esplanade.  It was a beautiful morning, warmer than yesterday.  I left camp with only 1-1/2 liters of water, assuming I would find plenty along the way.  I was in no hurry and I took my time as I hiked in and out of all the side canyons

 

Morning on the Esplanade. Morning on the Esplanade. Morning on the Esplanade.

 

Esplanade Panorama.  Main SW Arm of Scotty's.  Jumpup Point in Distant Center.

 

I think it took me about two hours to get to the location of the helicopter rescue from last April.  I contoured around and above the dripping spring that we used last year, but today it looked to be dry.  I don't think there has been enough rain to saturate the ground and thus feed the springs.  I eventually got to bottom of the main SW arm of Scotty's.  Rich Rudow had told me about large potholes in the upper reaches of this arm.  I found them, but they were below a chockstone and difficult to access.  With another helper it would not have been too difficult to get to them, but I found a very small pothole (shown in center photo below) just above the chockstone where I collected another liter of water.
Main SW Arm of Scotty's. Chockstone Above Potholes. More Esplanade.

 

I ate lunch near these potholes, then continued on.  While looking across the long arm of Scotty's, I spotted the mushroom rock that George Steck mentions in his book when describing the final leg of the hike out of Scotty's.  When I did this route in 1998, we didn't see the mushroom rock.  I took a photo of it as shown in the center of the left photo below.  I suspect that if you were to continue up Scotty's beyond the mushroom rock, you would soon encounter the chockstone that stopped me from accessing the large potholes.

The next couple of hours involved endless contouring in and out of more side canyons than I could keep track of.  Once past all the side canyons, the going was again pretty easy.  In late afternoon I spotted a couple of large potholes on a bench below me.  It looked like such a great campsite that I decided to stop there for the night.

It had been much warmer today than yesterday, so I decided to not set up my tent.  I just hate sleeping in a tent.

 

Steck's Mushroom Rock in Center.

Endless Side Canyons.

Potholes Near My Camp.

 

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