It’s not supposed to be raining this hard. I’m laying on my sleeping pad, my quilt draped over me, listening to the rain drum on the fabric of my shelter. If I turn my head and shine my headlamp outside, I can see the rain pounding on the dirt of our campsite, turning the ground to mud. I checked the weather on the inreach several times yesterday, and several times today, and it always said the same thing- 50% chance of rain. The only thing that changed is that yesterday it predicted .18 inches of rain for today, and today the forecast changed to zero inches.
This is not zero inches, I think, as I watch the rain fall. The gentle drizzle we got midday, so light it barely wet the slickrock and we didn’t bother to put on our rain jackets- that was zero inches. Not this. I request another forecast on the inreach. Zero inches. Tomorrow, the same.
It’s day four of the five-day guided backpacking trip I’m leading in southern Utah, and we’re camped in a wide canyon whose bottom is usually a dry wash with occasional small pools. We didn’t pitch our shelters in the very bottom of the wash but rather just above it, on a bench of smooth red dirt with a single cottonwood tree, its trunk wrapped in flood debris. Light rain in this canyon would be fine. Light rain would create a little trickle in the bottom of the wash, a trickle that, by morning, would’ve disappeared back into the sand. Heavy rain though? Heavy rain can create flash floods, and judging by the debris on the cottonwood, that flood would include us.
This is not flash flood season. In southern Utah, flash floods are usually the result of summer monsoons. Shoulder season is supposed to be safer. In fall I expect light, cold rain maybe, but not this- heavy warm rain, flashes of lightning, thunder. Am I experiencing my first canyon country monsoon, and my first real flash flood event? It seems like it.
I text my boyfriend and ask him to look up a local forecast. It’s eleven p.m. but only 9pm in Alaska, so luckily he’s still awake.
Flood warning for Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, he texts back. Flood warning tomorrow too.
God dammit. I crawl from my shelter into the warm, driving rain and wake the others, who are all sleeping soundly except Nina, who was awake anxiously listening to the rain fall, like me. I shine my headlamp into the wash to see a small creek flowing where none was before. Fifteen minutes later, when we’re all packed up it’s larger- roiling and red. I dig a Ziploc from my pack and put my phone in it, so that I can use my map in the driving rain. (Did you know you can use a phone screen through a Ziploc?) The ziploc previously held my instant refried beans, and a few chunks of bean stick to the phone screen. The rest of our route, which we’d planned to do in the morning, consists of walking 3.5 miles down this wash to a dirt road where our van is parked. The wash is now a river. Although it would be easy to get out of reach of the flood- there’s a bench of sagebrush just above us where we would be safe- getting all the way out of the canyon is more complicated, as its sheer red walls rise up hundreds of feet on both sides. Thank god I downloaded the slope angle shading layer on caltopo. I study it now through the Ziploc bag, pushing aside bits of refried bean. There’s a break in the canyon above us, some chill yellow pixels amongst the red and purple. Then we’ll be up on a plateau, with only a few chunky bits to navigate between here and the van. It’s darker than dark outside- the heavy clouds obscure the moon- and my headlamp only shows me what’s ten feet ahead, but if I pay careful attention to the map I know we can make it out.
The world we discover, once we leave our campsite, is stunning. When walking on slickrock, one can see how it’s shaped by water, but the water is never there. Now water runs through every indentation in the rock, gathers in every divot, floods every pothole. The slickrock is covered in a sheet of clear water the runs over our feet as we cross it and all around us the dark night roars as every canyon fills with water. The sound is wild- such movement, such action, in a place that’s usually so peaceful and still.
Nina’s headlamp dies first. She walks just behind me, borrowing the light of mine, and then my headlamp dies too and I have just my flashlight app, shining through the Ziploc bag. I check the map constantly- it’s easy to go in circles in the pitch black. By and by the shadow of a cliff to our right rises up darker than the sky behind it, and we use that to orient for awhile. Every wash is a small creek we must ford, every low-lying area a pool ringed in foam. The ceaseless roar of rushing water grows louder, seems to bounce of canyon walls in every direction, seems to come from everywhere at once. This is honestly really cool. I only wish that it was daytime, so that we could see the flood. I want to see what’s happening down in those canyons!
We sing campy 90’s country songs to keep the dark at bay. The slope angle shading layer gets us through every sheer rock ledge, down every chunky scramble. At three a.m. we finally reach the van, after crossing one last red mud river where just a dry wash should be. We’d all stashed chips in the car for our return- cooler ranch, lime flamin’ hot, salt and vinegar, sour cream and cheddar. We’re soaked to the skin and we sit dripping while the heater blasts, stuffing chips into our mouths, wordless. We’ll camp by the van tonight and in the morning we’ll make the drive back to Escalante, before the next part of the storm arrives.
In town the next day I learn that it rained 1.7 inches in 24 hours. I feel pissed at inreach. Especially since you have to pay for those forecasts. I guess the lesson here is to not rely on inreach forecasts, and to text someone on the outside for a forecast? Because then I would’ve know about the massive storm, and the flood warning? Instead of inreach telling me that zero inches of rain was falling, while it was raining heavily? Seems dumb but ok. It’s raining in Escalante too and we all take baths in our hotel bathtubs, nap, and do our laundry at the outfitter, washing the red mud out of everything.
I forgot to tell you about the part before the flood- the rest of the trip was wonderful and chill. Warm, peaceful, a gentle sand-bath for my nervous system. And the flood part was fun too, in the end- in canyon country I don’t camp in areas (like slot canyons) where I couldn’t get to higher ground if a flood came, so even though it was stressful we were never in any real danger, just wet and annoyed and exhausted.
The next day I’m on a plane back to Fairbanks, my heart aching a little bit because I wasn’t ready to leave. I love the canyons of the Colorado plateau. I want to spend more time there, plant a piece of myself there, but I don’t know how. Maybe I’m just seeing things through rose-colored glasses- I only visit in spring and fall, when it’s not too cold and not too hot, when the leaves are newly green or autumnal yellow, when the light is long but still holds warmth. It’s easy to love a place that you only visit when the conditions are perfect. It’s easy to feel like the grass is greener. It’s my least favorite time of year in Alaska right now- leaves are gone, 36 degree rain, black as shit, no snow yet to create ambient light. On the plane I close my eyes and remember a nap we took midday in a sandy wash, where it was so quiet you could hear the blood rush in your ears. I try to hold on to that feeling.
There are still spots in my April Utah trips! Beforehand, in zoom calls, I’ll teach you to make a route in caltopo. And then you’ll get to practice cross-country navigation on the route itself, in a supportive group of women, trans and non-binary people. We only hike eight miles a day so there is plenty of time for side quests (scrambling to arches, forays into slot canyons, etc) as well as naps in quiet, sandy washes. Plus, I put you up before and after in a cute motel in Escalante, and take you out for meals. And I’ve dropped the price a bit to reflect that I no longer pick people up in Las Vegas. Deets and the application are here!
There is just one spot left in each of my February beginner trips! I’ll take you from zero outdoors experience to knowing how to plan your own backpacking trip. Before the three-day backpack we’ll spend two days at a rental house, practicing our skills while our private chef Kelly Kate Warren prepares our meals- which are insanely good. For women, trans and non-binary people. Deets and the application are here.
You can read reviews from past trip participants here.
That’s all for now,
Carrot
Ahhh, reading these makes me want to backpack again. It's been so many years though. But...maybe