Day
Trip Leader: Jan Studebaker
(with Bill Priedhorsky as primary trip planner)
Trip Participants:
Los Alamos Mountaineers
Author:
Jan Studebaker
Photo Gallery: Jan Studebaker, click
HERE
to view our Lower Fish Creek Gallery.
Bill Priedhorsky
again organized his annual winter day hiking trip to the Bluff, Utah area
to explore more of the beautiful desert canyons, Indian ruins, peaks, and
ridges. Thirty eight intrepid Los Alamos Mountaineers joined him,
including me (unfortunately Cosima was still recuperating from a broken
tibia that she sustained in a Christmas skiing accident at Wolf Creek Ski
Area in Colorado, so she had to drop out)..
Since so many
people wanted to hike, Bill appointed several leaders to take smaller
parties to a larger number of areas. Bill asked me to lead Fish
Creek. I was happy to do so, but had little idea what to expect.
|
Indian ruins abound! |
The single most
daring adventure was getting close enough with Steve Hayes' 4 WD Toyota to
start the hike. We barely made it through the mud and washed out roads.
Comb Wash was full of fast running water. We did one stream crossing
while in the truck, but decided to skip a second that looked even worse.
We waded across the creek and started hiking in the direction of Fish
Creek Canyon. Dave Scudder was already wet from wading across our first
crossing while helping us find a safe route for the vehicle.
Although the lower
part of the canyon was less spectacular than the upper part (which I had
read about), it had one wonderful attribute.......beautiful, well
preserved Indian cliff dwellings! We spent the day searching them out.
We chose to hike out on the mesa top to get better views than the canyon
itself afforded. That turned out to be quit nice, and we happened on our
best cliff dwelling in the process. The hike and drive back gave us
wonderful views of Comb Ridge, and a gorgeous rainbow.
