Escalante and a Hole in the Rock

Barbara, Ron, and I moved on to Escalante and parked at the beginning of Hole in the Rock Road. The next morning I awoke to a beautiful rainbow.

We went to the Escalante Heritage Center in town. They have a model of one of the wagons used to go through the Hole in the Rock.

In January 1880, Mormon pioneers, looking for a shortcut to SE Utah, lowered horses, cattle, and 80 wagons down to the river through this crack in the rock.

Since this was before the river was dammed, the drop to the river below was nearly 2000 feet with an average grade of 25 degrees, although some places were as steep as 45 degrees. It looks even steeper than that.

Back in 2009, I got a view of the Hole in the Rock from the water when I was on the houseboat. Looked pretty scary.

We drove down Hole in the Rock Road as far as Devil's Garden. We walked around all the hoodoos -

Ending up at the famous arch.

The road was pretty muddy, and I got a little dirty, although not as bad as some others I saw.

On our final day I went for a hike along the Escalante River to Escalante Natural Bridge.

It's an easy hike, except for the 4 river crossings each way.

This little Plateau Lizard thought I was being kind of a wimp...

But I finally got to the Natural Bridge. It's the 5th largest in Utah, after Rainbow Bridge and the 3 in Natural Bridges National Monument.

There's also a nice arch a half mile further. You can either hike farther or zoom in on it, like I did...

I'll end things with another shot of our great rainbow.