Rock Canyon to Slate Canyon behind Y Mountain

Why take a five minute car ride and turn it into a soaking wet foliage slogging hike? Ask Mark U, he suggested this hike. Mark called an emergency hike of the IUHC late Friday afternoon. Due to a twist of fate and a canceled Father and Sons campout, Dave was equally punished by these unexpected conditions.

We left Dave's car at the Slate Canyon Trailhead and drove Mark's car to the Rock Canyon Trailhead. We left the trailhead at 6:30am and headed up Rock Canyon. I was worried about the stream crossing at the fifth bridge where the trail heads up the first right fork. The last time I was there it was a wet feet affair. Luckily the water level was down and we were able to tip-toe across on a few rocks. Though the trail up to the fifth bridge is very well traveled, the 'first right fork' trail is obviously not. The trail became significantly steeper and much to our chagrin overgrown with several lush varieties of foliage. Even worse, the leaves were soaked with dew that eventually soaked my pants and shoes. Mark and Dave both kept saying "Mike, yer so big and strong, you go first!" I knew this was a pathetic attempt to get me to use my body to wipe most of the water off the leaves. It worked; I led most of the way up to the junction at the back of Slide Canyon.

Mark and Dave started popping pain pills as we neared the junction. We found a cute little spring there that was trickling a small stream out of its non-man-mad galvanized pipe spout. Isn't nature ingenuitive?

I kept warning Mark that there would be "false saddles" so when we finnaly made it to the saddle between Slide and Slate canyons it was fairly uneventful except for the sage hens taking off as we walked u to the cairn in the middle of the meadow. We tried to sit down and eat lunch but Dave and Mark were attacked by killer ants. We had about 3.7 miles of downhill to get down Slate Canyon so we took off even before I could have the granola bar course of my lunch.

The trail was a little more overgrown on the Slate Canyon side since I had been there with Jeffry and Scott but nothing like the climb up in Rock Canyon's first right fork. We made fairly good time on the decent. Both Dave and Mark were complaining about hot spots and blisters near the end. We got to Dave car at 11:20am with a total of about 8 miles traveled, a little higher than the 7.7 that the maps and tracks suggested.

Because of all the water, I didn't take many photos. You can view what I did take at: Flickr

GPS Tracks: kml gpx