Hole-in-the-rock trail
The Hole-in-the-Rock Trail is a 320-kilometer historic overland route in southern Utah .
history
Since the mid-19th century in particular, settlers, most of whom were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , moved from central Utah to the outskirts of the settlement area of the Navajo and Ute in present-day San Juan County in the southeast of this present-day state. The church leaders decided in 1878 to establish permanent settlements in the border area of the Four Corners , the valley of the Montezuma Creek , a northern tributary of the San Juan River, was chosen as the settlement area . Various routes have been explored to gain access to this area, including along the Old Spanish Trail and also south of the Grand Canyon . The expedition leadership ultimately decided on the shortest, but largely unknown, route along the high plateau above the Escalante River , the crossing of the Colorado River and along the canyons and mesas on the east bank of the river towards the present-day city of Bluff .
In the fall of 1879, the approximately 230 expedition members, led by Silas S. Smith and Platte D. Lyman, gathered at a spring at the beginning of Fortymile Gulch on the plateau between the Escalante River canyon and the Kaiparowits Plateau with their wagons and their cattle. A scout team was sent out to find a route through Glen Canyon and over the Colorado River. Near Cottonwood Canyon, this discovered a promising path on the opposite bank of the river, on the west bank a narrow chasm offered the possibility to reach the bank of the river. The trail owes its name to this crevice - referred to as the Hole in the Rock by the expedition participants. The work of several months was necessary to make this path passable for the cattle and the covered wagons of the settlers, in the lower part wooden rails were built, which made it possible to move the covered wagons over a ditch filled with loose rock. Various anchor points were created to bring the covered wagons into the valley by means of cable pulls. The descent began on January 26, 1880, and all settlers and their possessions reached the bank, where a wooden ferry built by Charles Hall was ready for the crossing. A participant in this expedition, Kumen Jones, later wrote:
"After about six weeks of work and waiting for powder, etc., a start was made to move the wagons down the hole. I had a well broken team and hitched it on to B. Perkins wagon and drove it down through the hole. Long ropes were provided and about 20 men and boys held on to the wagons to make sure that there would be no accidents, through [brakes] giving way, or horses cutting up after their long lay off, but all went smooth and safe, and by the 28th, most of the wagons were across the river and work had come again on the Cottonwood Canyon another very rough proposition. (After about six weeks of work and waiting for explosives and the like, the start was made with the transport of the wagons through the gap. I had a rather disorganized force and harnessed them to B. Perkins' wagon, which we went down through the opening Long ropes were used and 20 men and boys secured the wagon to make sure that no accidents would occur due to braking failure or weaned horses falling from the long break, but everything went smoothly and safely and by the 28th almost all wagons were gone across the river and the work on Cottonwood Canyon began, a new difficult undertaking. "
The route explored by the scouts as an exit from Glen Canyon turned out to be useless, instead the cliffs and canyons of Cedar Mesa forced the participants to bypass the Grand Gulch to a route that was far more northerly than planned. At Salvation Knoll near today's Natural Bridges National Monument they finally managed to climb the plateau, the exhausted expedition members moved further east and through the valley of the Comb Wash back to the San Juan River, where they were about 30 kilometers away from their original location Target near the mouth of the Cottonwood Wash in April 1880 founded the settlement Bluff. The expedition, originally planned to last 6 weeks, took almost 6 months, none of the settlers died and two children were born.
The first shift in the route of the trail occurred after around a year, when Charles Hall shifted his ferry further upstream to Halls Crossing at the end of today's Burr Trail and Notom-Bullfrog-Road , as there is easy access to the center from here and northern Utah was possible. The eastern part of the trail was soon forgotten, the western part of the Colorado served local ranchers and prospectors as access to the hard-to-reach areas of what is now southern Utah and the Arizona Strip . It was only after the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam that tourism increased again and that interest in the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail increased again, and in 1982 it was finally included in the National Register of Historic Places .
Hole-in-the-Rock-Road
According to the National Park Service, the 99-kilometer western section of the trail now forms the Hole-in-the-Rock-Road, which provides access to the middle part of the Grand-Staircase-Escalante National Monument, known as the Canyons of the Escalante, and the remote western part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area offers. The unpaved route can - assuming dry weather - be driven on with normal vehicles at least as far as Dancehall Rock ; after longer rainfalls, we strongly advise against using the route due to the loamy sections.
From Hole-in-the-Rock-Road, which is run as BLM -Road 200, there are numerous branch lines, the most important of which are listed in the following table:
| mile | kilometre | Surname | BLM Road | direction | target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.4 | 13.5 | Cedar Wash Road | 210 | southwest | Escalante , Covered Wagon Natural Bridge, Cedar Wash Arch |
| 10.8 | 17.4 | Harris Wash Road | 220 | Northeast | Harris Wash, Silver Falls Creek |
| 12.7 | 20.4 | Devils Garden Road | 225 | southwest | Devils Garden Wilderness Study Area |
| 13.9 | 22.4 | Left hand on Collet Road | 230 | southwest | Page about Smoky Mountain Road |
| 17.2 | 27.7 | Egypt Bench Road | 240 | Northeast | Twentyfive Mile Wash, Neon Canyon, Golden Cathedral |
| 24.2 | 39.0 | Early Weed Bench Road | 250 | Northeast | Early Weed Bench, Brimstone Arch |
| 26.6 | 42.8 | Batty Pass Road | 251 | southwest | Batty Pass Caves |
| 26.6 | 42.8 | Dry Fork Road | 252 | Northeast | Peek-A-Boo-Gulch, Spooky Gulch |
| 31.5 | 50.7 | Red Well Road | 254 | Northeast | Coyote Gulch |
| 33.4 | 53.7 | Chimney Rock Road | 255 | north | Chimney skirt |
| 33.4 | 53.7 | without | 256 | south | Cottonwood Spring |
| 34.7 | 55.8 | Willow Tank Slide Road | 260 | south | Fiftymile Bench, Blackburn Canyon, Straight Cliffs |
| 37.1 | 59.7 | Fortymile Ridge Road | 270 | Northeast | Sunset Arch, Stevens Arch, Coyote Gulch |
| 38.4 | 61.8 | Fortymile Springs Road | without | east | Fortymile Springs |
| 42.1 | 67.7 | Cottonwood Springs Road | 275 | south | Sooner Rocks, Cottonwood Springs |
| 43.0 | 69.2 | Willow Tank Road | 276 | east | Broken Bow Arch |
| 48.9 | 78.7 | Sooner Slide Road | 280 | southwest | Fiftymile Bench, Hole-in-the-Rock-Arch |
| 52.0 | 83.7 | Davis Gulch Road | without | Northeast | LaGorce Arch |
In addition, hiking trails starting directly from the road provide access to various sights, such as the slot canyons at the upper Harris Wash (zebra slot, tunnel slot) and Dancehall Rock.