April 19, 2013 Bull Valley Gorge and Willis Creek, UT

The whole hike is 17 miles. You go down Bull Valley Gorge, turn left where it intersects with Sheep Canyon till you come to Willis Creek and come out Willis Creek and walk back down the road to Bull Valley Gorge. We did not want to hike 17 miles. So we started in Bull Creek till John encountered knee deep sucking mud quicksand and then came back out drove to Willis Creek and hiked it. We only had to hike 9 miles. Beautiful sunny  day in the high 60’s.

We start out with these warnings at the trail head. Bull Canyon is known to be very difficult when it has water in it.  We walked along this very deep, very narrow slit in the ground to the entrance to the canyon. We could not see the bottom.

We came to the beginning, which seemed awful shallow, I was wondering how it got so deep so fast.  We only saw one other group, a young man with his two you daughters, who he lowered with a rope down the drops. They did not go very far. Then we were alone the rest of the way. 

It dropped rapidly, starting with this 9 foot drop where you squeeze between the rocks and shinny down this log.  More drops with difficult down climbs.  It was very dark, narrow and tortious. You could touch both sides at the same time most of the time, and it was cold, there was ice on the ground and thick mud.

It opened up here, you could look up at the new bridge we drove over it. It was a wrecked pickup, with rocks piled on top, then dirt. The truck went over in 1954.  Over the old much skinner bridge and no one knows how they ended up in the canyon., There were three men who were out hunting in it. Two fell out and the third body they recovered from the truck.

The canyon tightened back up , got deeper and tighter.  More down climbing.

It was lovely. But very cold.

About half way down John encountered this sucking  thick  mud quicksand up to his knee. He was able to pull out, and save his chaco.  We could not find a way around it so we turned back and hiked back out.

We then drove to Willis Canyon.

 

Which was this beautiful, highly colored, warm canyon with a lovely gurgling stream running down it.

There were many more people in this canyon. It was  mostly an easy two and a half  mile walk.

There was this old weathered bike embedded into the gravel.

Lots of cool lines and colors here.

Waterfalls.

Back up past the bike. Some lines, mud-o-glyphs, paw prints, and colors on the walls.

And wild flowers.

John got a couple of me, taking photos and negotiating one of the up climbs in Bull Valley Gorge.

Keeping my feet dry in Willis Canyon.