​​In The Shadow of Longs Peak

Sheep Canyon

24 November 2003

Sheep Canyon on the east side of the San Rafael Swell

Sheep Cave Canyon is a nice canyon hike with some scrambling which can always seem significant.

We followed Steve Allen’s directions to the trailhead and used his book as a reference for this hike.  This canyon must be spring fed as the ground was quite moist over a large area.  The hike starts off in a wide, sandy wash which gave way to potholes which were filled with partially frozen water, all frozen in the same circular design which were quite beautiful.  On closer inspection, we could see lighter stripes were actually below another layer of ice and were actually air pockets.  The pattern was repeated over and over again in every puddle we saw. 

Back to the hike.  Like I said, the canyon must have a spring somewhere.  Not too far from the start is a small cascading waterfall, mostly frozen, though you could see water flowing beneath the surface.  The hiking continues to be easy and we pass more potholes.  We come to a junction and go left.  Onward and upward we go we continue, with the canyon beginning to narrow and we are at the first bit of scrambling.  On the left is a ramp angling up to the left to be negotiated.  We move up, face in.  There is a ledge above for your hands and a ledge to step up to.  It is not bad in terms of scrambling and doesn’t last long, maybe 20 feet or so, but uncomfortable, as usual, with a backpack and the sandstone always seems so fragile.  We pop out at the top and continue on, walking, jumping over potholes.  Next obstacle is a canyon-wide pothole.  The walls on each side are vertical and do not present an opportunity to skirt it’s edges.  So we go off to one side, into a crevice, traverse a bit using balance-y moves with just enough hand holds.  Once beyond this, we come to a park as the canyon opens up into a wide grassy area.  Off to the right, it looks like you can scramble up to the top.  We continue up to canyon and left.  Now the canyon begins to narrow and deepen, so we go right, which is not difficult but is loose scree which turns in ball-bearings under our feet.  But we preserve and continue on.

The next obstacle is another series of terraced puddles and falls and the canyon splits again.  Today, there is a wooden ladder on the left side of the falls (that is actually coming from the right side of the canyon).  So up the ladder we go, the up a couple more terraces, then up to the left and down the other side and into the left hand canyon, which looks more like the beginning of another canyon.

After a time, I realize we are still walking uphill and this canyon indeed flows into the lower canyon we were just in.  Now the hiking is easy and it seems like we are running out of canyon.  We hike up the side and miss the natural bridge.  Gary spies it and we hike back down and take snapshots.  Now we really are nearly out of the canyon and continue upward on broken ground and start looking for our descent canyon which Gary has gone down before.  We find it, and start down on easy terrain until reaching a series of potholes until finally we reach one which we cannot determine how to negiotiate it and finally hike up and over, ending at the park mentioned earlier.  Back down we go, reaching the car with about ½ hour of daylight left and drive back to camp. 

The hike itself took 6 hours.   We did not do quite what was in the book and we did drive all the to the TH which is not what the book recommends.  But evidently there are advantages to being here in the cold.