Brent's Travels: White Rocks Wilderness Study Area

Saturday, March 7, 2020

White Rocks Wilderness Study Area - Revisited

Last year Joanne, Susan and I hiked the White Rocks Wilderness Study Area, but never completed the loop trail. Link to last year’s post below.

http://macaloney.blogspot.com/2019/03/white-rocks-wilderness-study-area-hike.html?m=1

This year we look to complete the hike in the opposite direction.

Above is a screen capture of AllTrails app map of the area. The red is the hike last year and the orange is the hike from this year.

We didn’t have great success this year as you can see the yellow line diverts to the right off the dotted line marking the trail, and doesn’t connect with the red line.

So what happened? We ran into a wall. That’s right we went though a narrow section of the wash and found an 8 foot concrete wall. (Sorry no picture of the wall - I forgot to take a picture)

I hadn’t brought my climbing rope so I decided to look for a way around, and in doing so, climbed a sandstone formation finding my way to the top of the canyon wall. I like the role of pathfinder in the group.

Hiking in this direction is similar to the hike last year initially hiking through a wash. This is the turn up ahead where we ran into the concrete wall.

Here I am on top of the canyon side. It is grassland and open range.

Above is a view back down to the wash. This is the sandstone I found a way up for us.

Across the canyon Are these hoodoo towers seen in my hike last year.

There is the wash above the concrete wall leading up to all the hoodoos we saw last year.

Here is a zoomed in picture of the hoodoo area.

The hike was good as was the views, although a bit disappointed I didn’t connect the loop from last years hike. Not to be totally disappointed as there are always interesting formations like the one above carved by centuries of running water.