Day 1 - Collins Trailhead to Big Pour Off Ruins

After a night of van and tent camping at the trailhead we began our five day backpacking journey up Grand Gulch.

At the trailhead

This is Mike’s first big backpacking journey, and the first one in a long time for Jim. Lots of consternation about weather and water before we took down the Starlink and hit the trail.

Two main concerns without knowable answers: will we find enough water to make the full journey? And what impact will the pending half to 1” of rain on our second day have?

Cowboy camp

As we fell into the Collins Canyon we found the “cowboy camp”, a cool collection of (likely) early 20th century artifacts.

Bannister ruin

The big highlight of any hike in Cedar Mesa is finding old ruins and rock art. Our first big stop was bannister ruins, including an unusual above ground kiva.

We past another set of backpackers in this area, heading out to our starting point. This is the usual way of doing this trek - Kane to Collins. They gave us some intel on water ahead of us. The higher we will get the less ample pools we will find.

Pictographs in Deer Canyon

In Deer Canyon we had to scramble up the side canyon and scout for more ruins as well as a path to get to them. We found both, with the big payoff some beautiful pictograph drawings.

Julie soaking feet

After about 9 miles we made camp near ruins at Big Pour Off, a great spot with sheltered overhang cliffs and a perfect pool for collecting cooking water and soaking our feet.

Dinner at Big Pour Off camp

Dinner about 6pm and in the tents by 7:30 - “backpacker’s midnight.” Rain coming tonight - Jim and Mike have their tents nestled under the overhangs while Julie and I are in the open meadow. Will see what tomorrow brings.