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| Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
After Hogwarts canyon, we headed on down to Cedar Mesa which is a bit far from North wash, Moab, Arizona...Hell its far from just about everything!! It was a remote 5 mile drive on some nice dirt road to the trail head but we were greeted with a bunch of people that were also enjoying this hike and away from the rest of the world that were going to all of the classic National parks.
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| Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
We hiked in the first 1.75 miles to the rim of Fish Creek canyon which was an impressive vista overlooking Cedar Mesa and the canyon bottom. We grabbed a great tent site and got some sleep for this 16 mile loop trip we were about to embark on which was going to be quite the hike and rather dry!
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| Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
Once the Sun broke over the horizon we started our way down Fish Creek with the goal to make it to Owl Creek and find a good campsite before heading out the following day. We negotiated a steep descent down to the bottom of the canyon.
Once we were at the bottom we could feel the col air breathing through the canyon as the morning heat started to push its way into the varnished 60ft walls of Fish Creek.
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| Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
There is some excellent plunge pools and water that would be great for purifying as you head down the canyon but the water does eventually diminish and I highly recommend filling up your water bottles as you purify this spring water as it will become static and dry up and you will find yourself with very little water for the bottom third of both canyons as well as the connection that needs to be made from Fish to Owl or vice versa.
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| Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
There was nothing technical about the canyon and the crux of the loop is the climb in or out of fish creek with a 20ft 5 nothing to scale in order to get to the top. I hand line can be used and might be recommended for lowering packs or for helping people up the crux.
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| Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
The canyon itself was spectacular as it slowly dog legged into the connecting canyon and along the way we passed beautiful spires, arches including Nevills Arch in Owl Creek Canyon.
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| Nevils Arch, Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
The sun was baking down on us and we took a few breaks away from the desolating heat to revive a bit and continue our search for water as we did not re fill at the last spring coming out of fish creek and going into Owl Creek.
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| Finally found some water Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
Both Canyon were similar in flora and geology but I think the fish Creek was a bit more towering than Owl Creek, yet owl Creek had the Ruins which was fascinating to see.
Finally after passing up a few static pools of water we came up to a perennial flowing stream and spent an hour filtering and boiling water from this location. It was reviving to get a blast of fresh but smoking hot water into our systems.
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| Anasazi Ruins. Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
Once this was done, we worked our way up the canyon and found an amazing site to set up camp where the Anasazi must have dwelled 1000 years ago. We made sure that we set up camp far away from any potential artifact and paid close attention to where we were walking as this site had some artifacts.
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| Anasazi Ruins. Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
We pondered what the Anasazi hunted, and otherwise thought why this would be the best place for them to set up shelter, yet staring into the canyon wall and thinking that this is the same site that they say 1000 years ago was almost like a time machine of sorts that took us back to their time.
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| Anasazi Ruins. Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
Than my big Anges tent started flopping in the wind and quickly snapped back into reality that we have it so good and so much easier than how life must have been in Americas past.
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| Anasazi Ruins. Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
The stars were shinning bright that night and day light came quick so we packed up and headed out to complete the circuit on this loop.
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| Anasazi Ruins. Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
It took a bit longer than expected but eventually we came up to some beautiful hanging garden plunge pools and more ruins that were easy to spot.
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| Anasazi Ruins. Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
There was some interesting picto panel on the ceiling that showed the hands of the dwellers which almost appeared to be hobbit like.
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| Anasazi Ruins. Fish Creek-Owl Creek Canyon Loop. Ceder Mesa, Utah |
The door entrances they made were also quite small so I can only imagine that the Anasazi were a small society of people that just seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. This was an excellent loop hike and I highly recommend this as one of my top 5 multi day hike sin Utah. !!!
