Horseshoe Canyon, March 19, 2005

Horseshoe Canyon Trail
Horseshoe Canyon unit
of Canyonlands National Park
Saturday, March 19, 2005

Weather: Starting out fairly cold (mid-40's) with some wind, it warmed to the mid-50's and was partly sunny by noon.
Present were: Gordon, K7HFV; Clint, KA7OEI and his dad, Ron; Mike, K7DOU; Randy, KG7GI
Destination: Horseshoe Canyon - a detached portion of the Maze district of Canyonlands National Park.
Total distance: Approximately 8.0 miles, total, including some minor detours to look at various features, eat lunch, etc.
Times: Leave car - 1020; Reached bottom of canyon - 1105; High Gallery - 1116; Horseshoe Gallery - 1141; Alcove - 1213; Great Gallery - 1302; Left Grand Gallery - 1407; Lunch spot - 1429; Left lunch spot - 1521; Turned around - 1532; Passed Great Gallery - 1554; Passed Alcove - 1619; Passed Horseshoe Gallery - 1631; Passed High Gallery - 1635; Began ascent - 1701; Returned to vehicle - 1740
Altitudes in feet ASL (approx): Trailhead - 5330; Bottom of trail (lowest point) - 4680; Grand Gallery (not the canyon bottom) - 4820; Turnaround point - 4800
Elevation gain/loss (approx): Approx. 650 ft.
Local sunrise/sunset on this date: 6:33 am/6:38 pm

Images (336-1160k each, .JPG):

IMG01805 - Ron (Clint's dad) at the trailhead.
IMG01806 - Down the old Jeep road...
IMG01808 - A view down Horseshoe Canyon
IMG01810 - Mike, getting ready to take a group picture
IMG01811 - From farther down, another view down Horseshoe Canyon
IMG01812 - Across the canyon, remnants of the old (now abandoned) road
IMG01813 - The "High Gallery"
IMG01815 - Rock art at the "Horseshoe Gallery". See also #1816, #1817, and #1818.
IMG01821 - A view up-canyon from the Horseshoe Gallery (similar is #1822.) Some rock art is visible at the right edge of the photo.
IMG01823 - A view up-canyon, along the stream.
IMG01827 - Along the bottom, showing some of the cliffs flanking the canyon.
IMG01829 - The Alcove Gallery. See also #1831 and #1836.
IMG01839 - The Great Gallery. See also #1843, #1844, #1846, #1847 and #1848.
IMG01866 - Up-canyon from the Great Gallery, a view down-canyon. Similar is #1867.

Also:

Horseshoe_panorama (1.7 meg) - A wide-angle shot comprising 4 images, #1869, #1870, #1871, and #1872.

Miscellaneous:

This is what can happen to you if you don't bring enough water when hiking inthe desert... (From the information kiosk at the Horseshoe Canyon trailhead.)

Maps/profiles:

A topo map showing the traveled route and elevation profile, as recorded with a GPS receiver. Information on elevation/distance may be seen below the elevation profile. Note that due to the limited sky visibility in some parts of the narrow canyon, the accuracy of some of the elevation data has been reduced. Some of the most egregious errors have been removed to preserve vertical scale.
GPS track on a more detailed map.

More information:

The NPS has, on its Horseshoe Canyon website, the 69-page booklet The Archeology of Horseshoe Canyon that provides a fairly detailed look at the archeology and geology of this area.
The "Climb-Utah" Horseshoe Canyon page.

Notes:

This was another "3 AM" trips - for me, at least. Gordon and Mike had left Salt Lake the afternoon before and had camped at the Horseshoe Canyon campground overnight. The rest of us (Clint, Ron, and Randy) did the "3 AM thing" arriving at the campground/trailhead just before 8 AM.
After a single-burner breakfast of Omlettes and sausage, we finally got on the trail. At the top of the canyon, the wind was somewhat brisk and in the mid 40's, but as we descended into the canyon, some of the wind's biting intensity was reduced. This, coupled with our own exertion, made the hike quite pleasant with only minimal extra protection.
Very close to bottom of the trail is the High Gallery (image #1813): This is a panel of rock art is situated fairly high up on the cliff face. There, we were joined briefly by a friendly Ranger on her way to the Great Gallery, who explained a few things about the panel and the canyon itself. Continuing on, just up-canyon, is the Horseshoe Gallery(images #1815-1818) (also referred to as "Horseshoe Shelter") followed by the Alcove Gallery (#'s 1829, 1831 and 1836) a bit upstream from this.
The Great Gallery(#1839, 1843, 1844, 1846-1848) is a bit more than a mile upstream from the Alcove Gallery - a gentle uphill grade along the stream bed on the canyon floor. Along the way may be seen some of the remnants of more recent use of the canyon, such as a run of pipe used to feed a large water tank and cattle trough found along the trail down.
At the Great Gallery, we met up again with the Ranger (and her counterpart) who gave us a nice interpretive tour "up close" to the rock art itself. Talking about some of the interpretations of the rock art (some of which were serious, others were just silly) she'd mentioned another example of rock art - probably apocryphal, that seemed to show a rock-art figure being visited by what appeared to be some sort of UFO: Owing to its rather exposed location, she'd expressed serious doubt that it was at all ancient.
Being curious (and wanting to head up-canyon to find a suitable lunch-spot) we got her (rather ambiguous) directions to this panel and set out: While we were unable to find this particular piece of art, we did find a nice area, in the sun and largely sheltered from the wind, to eat our lunch.
The trip back down-canyon and to the vehicles was uneventful. As it got later, the clouds thickened once again and rarefied the sunlight: As far-off virga began to appear, Mike expressed appropriate concern about this, as the 10's of miles of dirt roads can get rather treacherous if heavy rains fall. Fortunately, this concern was for naught, as barely a sprinkle was noted on the way back to pavement.
Dinner was at the usual place: The Price Pizza Hut. After this, we went our ways home, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley at about 10:30 PM.

Comments:

Most of the pictures of the rock art have been contrast-stretched to enhance visibility.
If you want one (or more) of these images and wish some sort of adjustment (color, brightness, exposure, etc.) please let me know: All of these image have been processed in some way.
These images are in .JPG format and are in chronological order.
No-one ever said that all of these images (or any of them) were good. Some of them have definite focus/exposure "issues."
EXIF data is present for these images (except for the wide-angle shot) showing time, date, and precise exposure conditions. Recent versions of Irfanview will show this in the "View->Image Information->EXIF" tab.
As noted in EXIF data, all images taken using a Sigma SD-10 camera using the 18-50mm or 55-200mm zoom lenses.