Travel: The Hole-In-The-Rock Road bears southeast from UT-12 at mile marker 64.4, east of Escalante. 4WD with high clearance is recommended. The road is impassible when wet with keeper mud holes. Davis Canyon intersects the track in approximately 50 miles; allow two hours. When you pass the sign to Dry Fork Coyote you have gone half the distance. Travel by Dance Hall Rock, Sooner Rocks, and Cave Point. Northeast of Fiftymile Point the road descends a 150-foot hill and crosses a sheet of Navajo Sandstone, just west of BM 4,315' (on the Davis Gulch quad). That was 51.4 miles from UT-12 for us but your odometer may vary. There are several excellent primitive campsites nearby east of Davis. Come supplied with plenty of fuel, water, and food in case you get stuck on the road.
Distance and Elevation Gain: 10.5 miles roundtrip overland to the floor of Davis Gulch; about 1,400 feet of climbing. Your mileage will vary. It is another 1.8 miles upstream to Bement Arch.
Total Time: 5:00 to 6:30 for the overland segment.
Difficulty: Off-trail; navigation challenging; mild exposure descending into Davis Gulch. Perennial water in Davis.
Map: Davis Gulch, UT 7.5' USGS Quad
Reference: Canyoneering 3: Loop Hikes in Utah's Escalante, by Steve Allen. He writes, "Davis Gulch was named for the Davis brothers, George and Johnny, both early residents of Escalante. They ran sheep above the gulch." For a detailed description of the slot consult, The American Southwest, Slot Canyons, Davis Gulch.
Date Hiked: October 28, 2018
Poem:
Oh but the desert is glorious now
With marching clouds in the blue sky,
And cool winds blowing.
The smell of the sage is sweet
in my nostrils,
and the luring trail leads onwards. Everett Ruess
Everett Ruess inscribed "NEMO 1934" on a wall near Bement Arch, shown. Davis Gulch was his last known campsite. The overland hiker will traverse over and around slickrock features while peering into Davis Gulch and looking afar to Navajo Mountain, the Straight Cliffs, and Fiftymile Point. (Thomas Holt Ward, photo)
Route: There are typically a few vehicles parked at Davis Gulch. The difficult Class 5.2 slot in upper Davis is renowned for near-vertical walls, pools, and ten-foot drops over chockstones. In the second set of narrows a 15-foot slide into a deep pool is irreversible. We arrived on a chilly day after recent rains and opted for an overland trek.
This hike hovers near the canyon rim for five miles. Stay on the west side of the gulch while bearing north-northeast. Drop to the canyon floor on an abandoned stock trail. On the return, you may walk further from the canyon on a blackbrush plain, heading southwest back to the start.
The hike begins at the intersect of Davis Gulch and Hole-In-The-Rock Road, elevation 4,300 feet. First, get your bearings. Southwest (behind you), locate Hole-In-The-Rock Arch and its relative position on Fiftymile Point. It is rather small in this image but the arch will be visible for most of the hike. This is your landscape marker for the return, or worse case, if you get disoriented at any time.
The soft but dominant Navajo Mountain dome is in the south. Walk northeast toward the three blocks of the Henry Mountains, shown. The low-slung red mesas off to the sides are composed of the Carmel Formation. It overlies buff-colored Navajo Sandstone, the most prominent rock formation on the Colorado Plateau and the home ground for this hike.
Davis Gulch slots up almost immediately. Pull out onto the canyon's west side, keeping it in sight throughout the journey. Progress is slowed and complicated by twisting and swirling globular petrified dunes cut with small drainages. Come with an innate sense of direction and a knowledge of how Navajo Sandstone tends to lay on the land. This hike will appeal to those who enjoy solving navigation puzzles.
At 0.3 mile, jog west to skirt a minor side canyon. Water pockets are rim-full after autumn rains. Sand island gardens are tucked in recesses of rock. Deer tracks wind around snakeweed, rabbitbrush, yucca, sage, Indian ricegrass, and prickly pear.
A deep rift slices across our intended path at 0.6 mile. Ascend west and head the incision. Moving northeast once again, climb 100 feet and top a small brush-covered hill (elevation 4,360 feet) at 1.0 mile. This is a good place to form a strategy for maneuvering through the giant field of dunestones stretching out before you. We decided to aim for the blackbrush flat, image-center. A large cairn sits on the hilltop and subtle rock stacks led us down a somewhat tricky drop from the little butte.
Encounter another side canyon at 1.6 miles forcing a bigger westward go-around above the precipitous slot.
Then, bear intentionally northeast toward the canyon rim. Gnarly concretions rest inexplicably on baldrock and pea-sized Moqui balls gather in clusters.
By about 2.7 miles you will be walking on the canyon rim with excellent views of the floor. Davis is at its broadest here (between two tight passages) with cottonwoods growing on sandy bottomland. Travel quickens on whaleback fins through a soft-flowing, inter-connected fossilized dunescape.
Deep, massive alcoves are chain-linked. (THW, photo)
Bement Arch is just coming into view left of center in this image. At the time I didn't realize the best view of the arch might be captured from the upstream side.
Bement Arch Overlook
At 3.7 miles we arrived at the downcanyon arch overlook. This is located at the "v" in Davis on the quadrangle. The massive and bulky arch is located on the west wall of the canyon. The span has a long interior sidewall. Sun alights on discarded boulders and adds a brilliancy to the vibrant green grass mats on the benches.
We had every intention of walking up to the arch from the stock trail. Steve Allen writes about features near the arch. He notes that toward the end of the slot just upstream of the arch is an Everett Ruess memorial plaque etched with the poem sited at the beginning of this post. Bement Arch is known locally as Nemo Arch.
We wondered if we could access the arch from the rim. Steve writes that there are three sets of Moqui steps downstream of the slot. The steps, downcanyon-left, do exit the canyon but they are rated Class 5.7 and cannot be protected. Expert climbers only!
Old Stock Trail
The constructed cattle trail is the only non-technical entry into Davis Gulch. At about five miles, look across the canyon and locate a Carmel mesa, Point 4,512'. Notice the deep vertical crack in the Navajo Sandstone at the contact point between the two formations, shown just left of image-center. The stock trail begins across from this feature. Two draws lead into a bowl. We went down one and came up the other. Both are marked with small cairns (which may or may not be present).
Descend on comfortable friction slabs to the inner canyon rim. Upon nearing the edge walk downcanyon on a lateral for about 0.1 mile. In this image I am moving from the bottom of the bowl onto the traverse. There is mild exposure here. (THW, photo)
Tread on the historic route, a foot-wide chiseled cowpath.
Below is an image of the lateral looking downstream.
A series of chiseled steps lead down onto the canyon floor at 5.3 miles, elevation 3,740 feet. As Steve Allen points out, the entry point is between "l" and "c" in Gulch on the topo. A broken log fence rests at the foot of the trail, a distinctive marker should you travel from here. (THW, photo)
Bement Arch is 1.8 miles upstream and we launched out on a trail. The path devolved and within a tenth of a mile it was nonexistent. Apparently, there are not enough people walking from the lake to the arch to keep the trail viable. We were completely entangled in all manner of riparian vegetation: willows, cattails, horsetails, and vines that tripped or trapped us. It was both mentally and physically demanding. By our agreed-upon turn-around time we had progressed just 1.3 miles in 1:45. There is a human in there somewhere.
Davis Gulch seen from the occasional bench is quite beautiful. The perennial stream harbors a lush habitat of maple trees, grasses, fern-lined seeps, sacred datura, and gamble oak. The tiger-stripped wall below is located across from the trail out. (THW, photo)
At full pool, elevation 3,700 feet, Lake Powell is just 0.2 mile downcanyon from the stock trail. On October 28, 2018, lake level was elevation 3,590 feet, about a mile downstream. If we had a margin of time we would have gone to the lake.
Below is a shot of the stone steps leading out of the canyon.
On our way back we returned to the Bement Arch overlook and then swung away from the canyon onto an extensive blackbrush plain. We held a southwest bearing, aiming for Fiftymile Point. This shaved both time and distance.
The region in and around Davis Gulch is varied and beautiful. There is no way to capture its essence in just one hike. We will return to explore the slot, to get a better angle on Bement Arch from the northwest rim, and to walk downcanyon to Lake Powell.
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