This page is about the Hole in the Rock Trip
This is a great trail ride one that I have wanted to do for many years. In fact My family set out to conquer the trail in about 1972 or 1973 in those days the approach roads from Blanding were all dirt roads and about 80 miles of them, so time and fuel were a great concern. On this particular trip during an Easter weekend the rains would not stop making the journey from Blanding to the approach take forever, and way slippery and sloppy. This trip was abandoned somewhere between Blanding and the trail head.
After years of yearning and talking with anyone who had ever been there and settling for boat trips to the West side of the Chute and hiking up, I finally had a good chance. I had come to learn that having the right equipment (Jeep) was going to be very important part of completing the trail. We also secured a copy of my wifes Grandmother Enone's journal from her trip on horses in 1945, we also talked with her about it.
Then in 1996 Four Wheeler and 4WD and Sport Utility ran articles and pictures by Allen Merritt. My brother in law John and I started to formulate a plan to take our families on an outing on the trail. We had spent the past several years working and upgrading our jeeps and John had built a great trailer to carry gear and still do all the rough stuff. We had also taken trips to the Moab and Canyonlands area so we felt we might be ready.
On a October Weekend in 1996 we found ourself finally on the road, we were taking my two jeep CJ's one of which I had acquired earlier in the year and had spent most of the summer working on and hoped it would be up to the journey, John was in his '86 CJ-7 with his trail trailer loaded with all his gear and half of mine, along this trip was our friend Jeff with his highly modified Wrangler and his older jacked up Blazer. A few hours into our journey we "lost" Jeff on the road only to discover several hours later he had blown the engine in the Blazer (while towing his jeep) on Soldiers Summit, we rolled into Hanksville, Utah at 3AM to hit the sack, this lead to a late start out the next morning as our bodies and families were rebeling.
We drove from Hanksville to Hite on Lake Powell and around to Halls Crossing where we filled up with gas and then backtracked to the airport to discover where the un-marked trailhear might be, the first night on the trail found us only a few miles past the old Fort Ruins, we figured with an early enough start we should pack up camp and try to get to the end of the trail and then somewhere on the way back out make camp next. Breaking camp and some mechanical problems on my 83 CJ-7 slowed us even more. This trail is a LO 4wheel drive trail that is very slow going and tedious to drive and at times is very challenging as the slickrock becomes very steep or uneven.
My almost 16 year old daughter drove this trail with my wife or I as her co-pilot, at only one sandy place was she unable to persuade the jeep (no limited slip on this one) to go up a sandy part, I had to drive the jeep to get it up this one hill. We discovered along the way that a large group of folks from Blanding were also on the trail making their annual pilgramage on the trail, amoung the participants were some second and third cousins of John and my wife who pointed out some items of interest to them. We discovered this group had made their base camp at the foot of grey mesa and found the frame twisting trail blasted into the side by miners especially challenging.
From the top of Grey Mesa the views were spectacular. If you have ever boated on Lake Powell and wondered what you would see if you were up on top of the cliffs, well this was it. The views into the San Juan arm of Lake Powell were very memoral, and the further you progressed on the trail the larger Navajo Mountain became as you got closer to it. We encountered the Blanding group of about 50 vehicles coming back up the chute and found that by the time we waited for them to clear it and then for us to go down it, we would be way to late, so we turned around and headed out in front of this group, camping along the way. On the way back we decided to take the ferry from Halls Crossing to Bullfrog, this was pleasant and saved us some time.
For the next year John and I formulated plans to do the trip again right and make it this time! We set out again in October 1997 with my two jeeps again, my 83 with a new engine and paint job and other fixes and John now had is Scrambler rebuilt and lifted and ready to tackle the trip. We had also invited another of his siblings to accompany us bring their ATV's but not jeeps, with John's jeep and trailer and his Scrambler and my two jeeps and 4 ATV's we would take 3 families into the wilderness (17 people) with all their gear to sleep two nights on the trail. We orgainized this trip for all families to rondevous at Bullfrog on Lake Powell where we rented a huge mobile home for all to sleep in for the night. Planning to be on the first ferry in the morning we got up early and staked our place in line at the ferry landing This good start made everything work well and allowed us to camp at the base of Grey Mesa the first night.
We were very facinated by this area at the base of Grey Mesa and the little marbles of hard material that was plentiful and sat on top of the slick rock. The dugway up to the top of Grey Mesa was challenging, as we were just about ready to leave camp the Blanding group on thier pilgramage came upon us and proceeded up the dugway, many of their vehicles had difficulty getting up this obstacle and this further delayed us, when it was finally our turn my young son Scott managed to roll the ATV he was riding which shook us all up, No injuries and no vehicle damage we set out again with a shook up Scott not sure he wanted to drive the ATV any longer.
Up until this point the trail has a few tough places but after the flat top of Grey Mesa this trail becomes a challenge. The long slick rock chute and the steep climb back out the other side are quite an adventure that send your heart to your throat. We finally got to the top of cottonwood creek so we could look across Lake Powell and see in the distance the narrow V in the cliffs which is "hole in the rock". I enjoyed the scenery at this point but we also discovered that the hike to the lake was going to be several hours and we didn't have time. Thus we began to formulate a boat trip to this side of the lake to hike up to this parking spot, I guess I just want to cover 100% of this trail one way or the other.
Our return trip back up the chute found us waiting in line with the Blanding group. As we waited and waited the word came back down that a wrangler had rolled coming out of the chute, I wasn't able to see any of the action but I was told this jeep had tried to take a different way up the steep slick rock side hill to get out and that the angle was too much for the lifted Wrangler.
The next morning we awoke to a beautiful sky with pretty clouds, we knew that a storm was approaching and this was the calm before it reached us. We broke camp and raced patchy rain and winds all day. Finally back on the highway home we took the ferry to Bullfrog and worked our way back North to our homes near Salt Lake, finding snow on Soldiers Summit.
This is indeed an usual journey, I think the words of my wife's Great Grand Father Albert Lyman, son of Platt Lyman sum the journey up nicely; as he wrote for The Record, May 1959 "The most thriling and unforgettable feature of our latest pilgramage was not the spell of the unusual scenery; nor the soul-stirring hush of the splendid faraway; it was not even the sight of the old dugways on dizzy rims, and camping places that recal tales of hardship and adventure. It was something more, something intangible yet positive--what shall we call it? Whatever we call it, it is the gentle pull of this shrine in remote wilderness which, as it draws people to it, draws them together in a new and generous friendship."
"This influence got right into the heart of everyone in our caravan as we inched our way through difficulty and danger. With some of our company we had never met before, and with others we had but an acquaintance, but at once we were all akin." "We escaped for a little while into a peculiar Eden where we just wanted to linger on indefinitely, and let the gentle persuasion revamp us into the men of good will the Creator intended"
A map for you to view (The map is a large file, but worth the wait as it is readable)
More Pictures (under construction)
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