Thursday, October 17 -- Sand Hill Crack Trail

Today was clearly going to be our challenge hike of the week.  We drove about fifteen minutes past the motel and then turned onto a faint sandy dirt track toward the Vermillion cliffs.  We parked near the ruins of a deserted cabin, said to be one of the places that Zane Gray lived while writing his novels.  

Mike led us through this desert area to some gray and purple mounds, remains of ancient volcanic action.  From here the trail started steeply upward, mostly on very sandy slopes where two steps forward meant one step backward.  Our goal was a notch or crack at the top of the Vermillion cliffs. There really wasn’t a trail, just an occasional rock cairn, so we all just followed Mike as we climbed steadily toward the top.  This hike had about 1400 feet of elevation gain, our greatest for the week.  

As we climbed, the view back toward the vans became more and more dramatic.  .

We finally reached a large flat area – but this was only a resting place, not the cliff top.

The final climb to the "crack"

So we had one final rock scramble.  Those of us with hiking poles either put them into our packs or passed them up to someone ahead of us – we needed both hands to complete this last ascent.  The view from the top was breathtaking!

We each found a scenic, peaceful spot for enjoying our lunch, and then Mike took us “exploring” on the relatively flat cliff top.  We found evidence of the ancient people who frequented this area, including many pottery shards and even an arrowhead. 

Our descent was equal in excitement to our way down, as we climbed over and around the rocks and navigated the steep sandy slopes.