[Matt Lemke]

As I start planning for 2011 spring break coming up soon, I was reminded about my epic trip I did last year over spring break. After classes ended on that Friday we took the 6 hour drive to our starting point for the first day. The first day we descended the main fork of Bluejohn slot canyon...in the middle of nowhere in Robbers Roost Country.

Robbers Roost Country

Sunrise on the distant La Sal Mountains

Below are the better photos I got from that difficult descent.

Looking down the major descent

Deep into Bluejohn

Bluejohn canyon

A Wedged tree

Large chalkstone about 20 feet up

View from the rim of Bluejohn canyon

Exiting out of the slot

Exiting out the west fork of Bluejohn

After the Bluejohn loop we drove out back to highway 24 and stopped in Hanksville. By now the weather system that was heading our way was upon us and it started raining. After waiting out the rain in the Hollow Mountain store in the redneck town of Hanksville we continued towards Capitol Reef National Park on highway 24. Camped that night on random BLM lands.

Hollow Mountain store in Hanksvile

Sunset on North Caineville Mesa from Highway 24

The next day turned out to be a long drive in a blizzard. I'll spare you the details because I don't even want to describe the epic drive we did that day. We got to the southern end of Capitol Reef National park on the Notom-Bullfrog Road...nuff said. We planned on doing the Halls Creek Narrows via the shortcut route the next day (Monday)

Back on pavement in the clouds

This turned out to be the best day of the whole trip. We walked down into the valley where Halls creek was still flowing and made our way to and through the Halls Creek Narrows.

Panorama of Capitol Reef from Big Thompson Mesa. Fog from Lake Powell engulfed the valley

Entering the Halls Creek Valley into the fog

Capitol Reef panorama from the valley

Another panorama

Wading through the narrows

Panorama from the inside of the narrows. These canyon walls are gigantic

Panoramic view upon exiting the 4 mile long narrows

From there we just retraced our steps back to the car and drove at night to the next starting place which was Escalante where we sppent the next three days. See the Escalante portion of our trip in part 2.

[wildernessed]

Sweet !

[Josh Journey]