​​In The Shadow of Longs Peak

Horse Thief Trail

07 May 2007

​The first hike of the trip is following the general direction for hike 2 in Steve Allen's book -- Horse Thief Canyon and Acer's Arch.  We hike directly west from our camp - which is at the standpipe south of the Smith Cabin - and up a shallow gulley.  At the first branch we go left, only to come back into the same gully.  The next intersection is a 3-way split.   Straight ahead look interesting but perhaps not the best route with the dog.  We turned left and scrambled up some loose rock, and continued left to a ridge where we are now, overlooking a sea of Navajo domes, and I took a few pictures. 

We then hike northwest,  up, over, and down a slightly steep gully.  Interesting rock here -- there were bits of ball-bearing looking rock at my feet...and also plastered into the rock on the side.  I wonder what forces of nature formed these. 

We continue, mostly in a NW direction, for a while, this time staying up on the reef instead of negotiating canyons.  There are lots of rounded cones of Navajo Sandstone, lots of blue sky, lots of desert brush, lots of rock.  One thing about staying on top of the reef though is that you miss the various puddles, pools, and hanging gardens tucked inside the canyons.

Up and up we continue, moving more westerly.  We pop out on the edge of the reef (about 2 1/2 hours of hiking) and looking down, we can see the San Rafael River and Mexico Mountain.  We walk south along the rim -- one spot looks marginal but it turns 
that there is a pretty wide ramp for easy passage.  We find a larger sized pinon and have lunch.   

Now we continue South, crossing several gullies till we reach the edge out Horse Thief Canyon.  Reading the guidebook carefully, we hike east along the rim of the canyon looking for a way down to the canyon floor.  Steve Allen describes it as "an unlikely looking cleft" with a cairn at the top.  There is no cairn.  I would describe it as a gully, not a cleft.  And the other thing that mystifies me is that he refer's to "Acer's Arch", as in "scramble down the cleft "class 3" until the double Acer's Arch is reached".  First, the gully that we downclimbed didn't strike me as class 3; second, I did not see an arch.  Then he mentions that the slope below 'looks worse than it is.  Pick your way down...'.  I am wondering if perhaps there is another cleft to descend, though this one definitely has seen some traffic.  Maybe I will google this hike when I get home.

 Once down in the canyon, we decide to hike up to Horse Thief Pass, which does not take long and tried to pick out our high point of 3 years ago, which supposedly is only 150 feet down.  Yet, where I remember turning back is a very exposed ledge --- and I cannot see a ledge below us...perhaps it's further down.

We turn and head down the canyon.  It's a hike at this point, a wide gully with no unusual obstacles.  3 years ago, when we were here, we looked up and saw a mountain goat.  No mountain goats today.  This is a very cool canyon with high sandstone walls. Especially, I find appealing the several easy waterfalls that we decend.  Makes for easy walking, and I can imagine that I can really traverse something steeper.

Down we go.  Soon, we meet the traversing canyon that we've always taken back to the 
Smith Cabin area. 

But here is a goal of this trip:  Find the way down to the bottom of Horse Thief Canyon.   If you continue straight down Horse Theif Canyon from here, you encounter a waterfall with a drop of 20 - 30 Ft -- and there appears to be no way down and no way around.  I keep in mind that this is an old cattle trail, and I don't expect the cattle hopped up or down this waterfall and it seems like a alot of work to raise and lower them here. 

So we amble to the south, scramble up and along a ledge which tops out at the top of 
another gully. We descend this gully to it's bottom and hike down a canyon.  Now we are in the grotto that is at the bottom of the aforementioned waterfall -- it's cool and refreshing with lots of tress.  Gary records a waypoint.  We feel we are on the path.  We look around and still don't see another, easier way down to this spot.  The canyon is somewhat narrow here but with a flat bottom.  We start to move downward.  The canyon keeps it's sandy bottom for a short distance, though the canyon narrows and the walls are higher.

 Then a huge house-sized rock is in the center of the canyon.  We climb and look over the sides...and the canyon bottom cannot be seen.  I stay with the dog while Gary goes to investigate.  Kind of sketchy -- maybe we could probably get down but maybe not with the dog.  Again, no place for cattle. 

We retreat and retrace our steps.  There is another vegetated slope that looks inviting 
but we chose the known path and take the traversing canyon back to camp.  We'll have to 
come up from the bottom to see how this all knit's together.

We continue back over the traverse trail.  After 10 minutes or so, I see cairns up to the 
right.  We decide to investigate and climb up.  there are 2 cairns, but no more once we 
reach another bench.  There is a place we can climb down, perhaps, but it does not look
easy.  There is also a gully to our left, but we decide not to investigate, as it's 
starting to get late and we are tired.  So we head back north, along the traverse trail.  

The trick, of course, is to find where to climb back up to the first ridge.  Luckily, Gary has his waypoints.  I realize that without these, I could not find the beginning.

 Almost back to the beginning, there is a wash intersecting the trail.  We are close to where we need to climb back up to the ridge.  Gary goes to investigate, I stay with the dog.  After 15 minutes or so, I hear him saying "go forward" though I find out later, he is actually saying "go north'...luckily though they are one and the same.  I go north, losing voice contact.  Blow my whistle a few times and continue.  Eventually, I holler for him and he responds. I climb up to meet him; we are just beyond that main ridge above our camp. 

2 lessons:

  1) you need a GPS out here ;
  2) Don't forget the radios

We climb up to the ridge, drop over, into the canyon leading us back to Camp.  We're pretty tired; A beer tastes good; I stuggles to make pizza, eat, then pass out.  This is livin'!   

08 MAY 2007

Back to the mystery of Horse Thief Canyon.

Today, we walk down to the Tidwell Track.  There is a dirt road about 1/2 mi from our camp that takes of directly to the bottom of HorseThief Canyon.   There is water running out of the canyon, along the shale slabs that lay in the bottom. We stop to watch the tadpoles and then proceed up the canyon.  We decide to walk up along the bench, just above the canyon floor.  This canyon has beautiful, large cottonwoods, and lots of brush.

We hike up the north side till we run out of side, then scramble down to the bottom.   Almost immediately, the canyon splits.  Gary has taken the right branch before; the left looks like it might end in an alcove, but we can't quite see.  He stops to take a GPS reading, which shows that we are less than 1/2 mile from the waterfall of the day before.  I head up the left branch. There appears to be more branches that look promising so we decide to 
investigate together. Purple asters abound on a bench we climb up again, to avoid the 
brush in the canyon bottom.  And the end of the bench, we still can't see the terminus of the alcove.  Again, we scramble down to the canyon floor, walk to the end, and decide those promising nooks are not so promising.  Gary takes another GPS reading. Now we are less than 200 ft from the waterfall of yesterday.  We continue to the end of the alcove which ends in a waterfall.

Above us, we see a fissure in the rock and wonder if that is our stopping point of yesterday.  We stop, take a break;  This is a lovely place, with a pool of water reflecting the rocks and pinnacles above.   I take a few pictures, then decide to climb up on another bench to get a better look at that fissure above.  There appears to be a a wide shelf from the bench to the fissure.

Could they really have brought cattle down thru that fissure?  Of course, this does not answer how they would get to the fissure, but that is besides the point.  So I climb up further, thru a break in the bench, across a ledge, up some easy sandstone and immediate decide that this is a bad idea.  Plus the ledge below the fissure turns out to be half covered with rubble.  The half that isn't rubble-covered is more inclined than I would be comfortable walking so it would be mighty brave cow that came out of that fissue.  Exploring that ledge is a bad idea.  I retreat down the length of the bench and escape back to the bottom of the canyon. 

As we hiked into the alcove we noted a rubble gully coming down the right hand side -- cattle could have come down here or gone up.  Since those waypoints indicated we were so close, we decided to hike up.  the gully narrows, but it's still a hike, not a scramble.  We continue up to a boulder that appears to block our way but there is a rock pile on
either side, so we continue.  The gully opens up and Gary takes another reading.  Now we are only 1/10 mile from the traversing trail and 2/10 mile from the waterfall of yesterday. 

 There is an open, southeast trending gully that we climb up then down into another gully.   Interesting enough, we are now on the same bench as yesterday where those cairns were.  We can see a trail down below and assume it's the traversing trail.  We climb down. You can imagine our surprise when we find ourselves in yesterday's grotto, below the falls.

Now we see the route.  Down the Horse Thief Canyon, north on the traversing trail to the cairns.  East, then up and over, north again thru the gully to the park area, then east down the rubble strewn gully to the alcove and on out the mouth of the canyon.
 
Mystery Solved!