Hiking down Fiftymile Creek to Lake Powell | GEL Part 8

I am right outside Escalante Utah getting ready to set out on a 3 to four week hike to Escalante Utah that's right I'm doing a big loop this year day two day four day six day eight day 10 day 12 day 14 just getting started [Music] bees have invaded my tent buzzing around all morning soon as I got out they got in okay I've been going cross country this morning through the land of this little shrubs and headed down towards sooner wash which will then take me down to 50m wash you can start to see the Canyons taking shape out there so I'm going to go that way a little diversion and then over the mountain down in sooner wash and out of the Sun which is nice there's a um dryfall in the upper part of sooner wash and a set of Narrows so you have to bypass quite a long ways along the rim and I knew that was the case I just didn't know how long the byass was but uh I'm down in the canyon now it feels good in the shade looks like the canyon continues to be narrow for for a ways down last night was another miserable night I've got a hole in my pad and it's just I can't patch it so it's basically like I'm sleeping on the ground every night I contemplated hitchhiking into Escalante to get a new pad and come back but uh that was just so much work it's a disappointment the uh the new pads at least the static V2 comes with this uh repair tape instead of the traditional glue and piece of fabric to patch and that stuff is just worthless you know it's so funny I've seen so many hikers Rave about it so I've added it to my kit a whole additional roll of it then I saw the sleeping pad came with it too and I thought wow this must be really good stuff everything I've used it on has failed it's it doesn't work for the sleeping mat it's just it's not sticky enough it doesn't adhere it uh I tried on the water bottle that was pointless uh oh I have a hole in my backpack already and tried to patch that and it came off within a day so yeah the the repair tape uh I forget the specific name but I don't see the purpose duct tape is better for me and uh unfortunately I brought less duct tape this time I tried that on my pad that didn't work I've tried so many different techniques I've tried patching it flat I've tried patching it inflated I've tried to patch it with a big piece with little pieces all layered over one another nothing seems to work but uh I don't know it's really impairing my enjoyment of this trip because I'm getting no sleep at night and then I'm just drained during the day so I don't know I'm running out of tape and I don't have any other fixes so I don't know what we're going to do except just have miserable nights all right that's the thought for now W look at this guy I think this is D nice Bloom there's several of them here I was just standing by this tree and scared three owls out of it they're right up ahead now landed on the Rock two of them the other one went the other way but there goes one the other one's up higher he's right there so cool I just keep scaring him farther and farther down the canyon I think they're young ones I can hear making a call they're so beautiful I've gotten close a few times I don't if you can hear that shrill hello Mr Al think he's getting mad at me Mr it's all right I mean you no harm poor guy I know I'm scaring him Mr Al I need to come through here okay this guy's really going crazy he is standing his ground right in the wash that I need to go down come on Mr Al it's okay buddy fly away go that way well I guess this is The Showdown hey buddy come on come on bud fly away okay I finally I finally went up and around him okay goodbye Mr Al you can have your area we are continuing down the canyon wow that was something wasn't it I said this might be the year of the ow and it sure is so when I originally saw them i s by this tree in the shade just to check the time and all of a sudden the tree starts rustling above me and an owl took off I'm like wow that's amazing and uh you know I said my usual bu Mr ow and about 5 seconds later two more take off I am close enough to see the feathers in their wings and then the two that went down Canyon yeah we just kept playing Lea frog and I guess that one guy finally had enough and decided to stand his ground I never knew owls would be aggressive like that all right but anyway we are still going down sooner wash finally at the end of sooner wash where I'm meeting up with 50m Gulch okay since 50 m Creek dead ends at Lake Pal we are doing a diversion now we are free of our gear we're going to go down Canyon see some of the sights and then come back and go out another way all right let's go and one of those SES is 50 m Arch check that guy up there high on the ridgel line right underneath the arch there's actually a lot of rock art on this wall again showing that arches were special places to the indigenous people yeah lots of big figures a whole row of Big Horn there must have been more rock ledges here or they had some type of scaffolding cuz there's some rockard way up there that sand slide can be used as an exit from the canyon glad I'm not doing it today I'll tell you that okay Canyon's narrowing up it's getting good getting exciting [Music] oh may have to get wet here too [Music] another good section [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so much nicer when the water's clear glance I can see how deep it is [Music] [Music] nice that was a little deeper there than I thought all right we in one heck of an undercut here [Music] [Music] [Music] cool spot here Narrows are kind of dark hey there's some [Music] Sal oh man is uhoh oh man I am sinking more and more come on that qualif qualifies as quicksand but man that is wow that is nasty stuff okay hey let's look at these Narrows wow mental note to avoid that spot on the way back wow it's a great little spot well check out this undercut coming up like we just Plunge Into Darkness that's cool let's go check it out yep quite the place we're deep back under this undercut [Music] holy [Music] mama what a place [Music] [Music] it's kind of a weird feeling walking to the lake feels like I'm reaching the end of the world or something have mixed feelings about it all right let's keep going the lake was at a record low earlier this year since being filled I'm in a part of the canyon now that hasn't been free of water for that long that's why that's so devoid of life unfortunately with the record snow pack the lake has been rising one foot a day that's been going on for the last month or so so I'm actually not going to get to go down as far as I'd hoped amazing feature Gregory Natural Bridge actually became visible again because of the low water it's probably not visible anymore though either way it's part of the lake so I would not have been able to get to it I would have been close though another sign there was once a lake here lots and lots of trash this is the third piece of litter I've seen probably from the days when people could float in here massive silt deposits affect of the lake as well that white is the bathtub ring shows you how far we'd be underwater right now if Lake Pal was at full pool as I walk down here I keep thinking how special it is at this moment this moment in time that I can see this much of this Canyon and I have to remind myself that that this is what's natural you know the lake being here is what's not natural so that's a shame you know I've never been a drain the lake type person I always thought that was a little crazy you know there's a lot of benefits of Lake Pal but uh I see the point I mean we have to recognize all that was lost and if it comes a time that it's Lake me or Lake Pal yeah I'd say save Lake me and restore Glen Canyon thoughts for now we have reached Lake Pal into the road 50m Creek Lake Pal actually I was hoping to go a little bit farther but the runoff has just been crazy as I said the lake has been going about a foot a day so if I would have been here like a month ago yeah I would have been able to go a lot farther down the canyon what a crazy Place huh it's crazy I gave myself a 4:00 turnaround cut off look at the time right on the dot fact I can get on that bank over there and we can go a little bit farther let's do that transition zone is never pretty oh boy past the transition zone and it's pure lake over here there's Lake Pal [Music] it is time for us to get back up Canyon we have a long ways to go to get back to our stuff and camp or go a little bit farther all right the way the lake is rising right now all this will be underwater pretty soon within the next month I'd say [Music] I have just spent 45 minutes looking for my bandana went back down the canyon twice I can't believe I just wasted that much time I dropped it when I stopped to take a picture and then got frazzled couldn't find it didn't see it around me it fell in the water thus changed its color so I walked back to where I thought it might be wasn't there came back couldn't find it went all the way back back to Lake Pal and all the way back I was so dejected I gave up started to walk away there it is all right let's get up this [Music] Canyon just so impossible to judge size here the undercuts are enormous great spot for snack break we are back to the Narrows okay reminder to myself not to fall in the quicksand [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] these old growth cottonwood trees means we are above Lake Pal's high water mark which is [Music] cool okay 50 m Canyon that was a pretty good day that was fun it's funny there are some amazing parts of that Canyon but I don't think I'll recommend it to many people and that's just because the hike was tedious there were a lot of boulders to walk over and a lot of sand and a lot of brush so I know a lot of people would not like doing all that even though the Canyon's amazing it's the uh pleasure versus Pain principle again okay we are almost back to where we're going to Camp signing out day 18 [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Jamal Green

Views: 1,423

Keywords: Fiftymile Canyon, Fiftymile Gulch, Fiftymile Creek, Across Utah, Backpacking, Mexican Owl, Rock Art, Slot Canyon, Lake Powell

Id: 5qPJqrngO2c

Length: 23min 31sec (1411 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2024