Hole In The Rock, Youth Conference 2010

In the late 1870's church leaders called a group of extraordinary Southern Utah residents to pack up their belongings and move across the Colorado River and establish a settlement. It was to be a buffer between the colonized settlements in Utah and the Indians, outlaws and ruffians who were gathering to this lawless area. It was known as the San Juan Mission.

Many of these pioneers came from Cedar City, Parowan, and even Kanarraville and New Harmony. It was a daunting chore, made even more so by the fact that this was the last area in the lower 48 states to be explored and mapped. The route that was chosen required them to blast and chisel their way through a gap in the rocks on the edge of the Colorado River Gorge in what is now Garfield County. The continued on, when most thought it was impossible. Jens Nielson, a Swedish immigrant who nearly lost his feet crossing the plains with the Willey Handcart Company, is quoted to have said, "We mus go troo, even if we can not!" Then he added, "Vhat ve need now is stickity tooty!"

Our Stake leaders decided that these great pioneers could serve as an example to our youth , and selected an expedition to the Hole In The Rock as our youth conference. We met at the Stake Center on Thursday, June 3rd at 8:00 am and from there proceeded across Cedar Mountain to the rest area at The Pines near Bryce Canyon. We ended up with around 270 youth and leaders. After a brief history break we continued on to the town of Escalante, where we had lunch on the park and a presentation by a history buff named Roundy.

Lunch on the park in Escalante

Just out of Escalante you are on dirt road. It seemed like forever.

We finally arrived at our camp site, 40 mile wash. the boys camped by a cow camp and the girls camped a little to the north down in the wash. Did I mention the wind? I don't think it stopped blowing the entire trip.

After setting up camp we joined a group of youth from the Blanding Stake for an activity at nearby "Dance Hall Rock". A couple of girls played the fiddle and many enjoyed the pioneer dance we had practiced earlier in the year.

Our group photo at "Dance Hall Rock"

Stake leaders prepared Dutch Oven potatoes and pork, with salad and brownies for supper.

Friday morning was about 15 more miles of dirt road, then a four mile hike and we arrived at the "Hole".
It now seems impossible that around 80 wagons were taken through this slot, not to mention some 250 men, women and children and around 1500 head of livestock.
Erosion has taken its toll over the years, and now it is even a little difficult to hike.

This is known as "Uncle Ben's dugway", where the road was built up using Juniper posts and brush to the level of the track you see here that was chiseled out of the side of the rock.

Lake Powell makes the journey to water somewhat shorter than it was in 1879. The kids were told not to swim, and can you believe it, most of them obeyed!

The trip back to our camp was interesting and colorful, yet dusty, hot and bumpy. When we got back to the truck the thermometer read 95 degrees.

Saturday on the way home we stopped at the Dry Fork trail head and hiked some slot canyons there. In this photo we are hiking down into the Dry Fork wash.

Here we are hiking the Dry Fork Narrows.

A rest stop while trying to decide if we are in the right canyon. As it turned out, we weren't. so we went back down and started over.

Hiking back to the main wash. Fifty Mile Ridge is in the background.

After hiking the wrong slot first, we were short on water to finish the hike so some of the boys went back to the truck to get more, then went on to find "Spooky", a short, but very narrow slot canyon.

After hiking up Spooky we cut cross country about a half-mile to Peek-a-boo, another short slot canyon.

Nearing the exit of Peek-a-boo.

Making our way out of Peek-a-boo canyon.

Hiking out of the Dry fork wash back to the trucks at the trail head. Upon arrival there the temperature read 99 degrees.

Back in Escalante we enjoyed sandwiches, drinks and frozen yogurt at Subway. It was air conditioned, and heavenly! the Bishop's truck broke down coming home over Cedar Mountain, but that was the only fatality on the trip. Other than a little heat exhaustion and a few cuts and scrapes we were in good shape, and very appreciative of those great pioneers.