Return to Hidden Canyon

As you no doubt recall, last Friday we hiked the Hidden Canyon trail, but were prevented from entering the canyon by the boulders on the right.  We noticed the chain on the rock to the left of the top boulder, but failed to appreciate its significance.

To get past the boulder one must climb up the rock face on the left and then down the other side hanging on to the chain for balance.  It was good to do the hike with other people.  They do a fair amount of hiking that requires scrambling and were excellent route finders.

It's pretty in there, the rocks have a lot of color.

This is the arch.  It's easy to walk by it and miss it entirely.  Gayle is in the arch providing perspective on its height.

This is behind the arch, it's still pretty close to the canyon wall.

We made several successful scrambles up dead trees leaning on rocks, crawling through rocks and tree roots.  However, this stopped five of us. We had to walk up those ramps, which were narrow, there was no leaning in, and they were sandy.  I felt like I could make it up, but wasn't confident in my ability to get back down.  So, that's as far as we went in the canyon.

There is spectacular color.

The hike really exceeded expectations.  It's not that far of a distance, but it provides climbing, exposures, chains and scrambling.  Everything you need, nothing you don't.

For reasons that are not clear to me, the park service has quit running the shuttles in the park.  Therefore everyone must drive to their trail head.  There is not enough parking.  Farther up the road in the park, people weren't even pulling off the road, they were just parking everywhere.

Is this not one of the prettiest places there is?