ADAM HAYDOCK

White pocket is located on the border of Arizona and Utah, on the Arizona side which is accessed by a remote a deep sandy road on top of the vermilion cliffs.

White Pocket, Arizona

White pocket is a beautiful mosaic of sandstone structures, hoodoos, small buttes, and miniature monoliths.  

White Pocket, Arizona

There are some beautiful color layers with some of the buttes that resemble vein like figurines that that have been fossilized into where they stand today.  

White Pocket, Arizona

It appears various minerals have tinted the sandstone color and water played a role in the formation of these figurines. 

White Pocket, Arizona

Furthermore, wind erosion continued to free form and cut these wavy like formations that we see today. 

White Pocket, Arizona

Some of the landscape resembled dragon skin like texture as the sun passed around the corner and accentuated the hexagon like landscape.

White Pocket, Arizona

White pocket is one of the many places in the vermilion cliffs that has some fascinating sandstone features.

White Pocket, Arizona

The wave can also be found not too far away and a whole list of other sandstone features that are worth a visit.

White Pocket, Arizona

The road to get to white pocket becomes rather sandy and deep sand can become a factor when you are visiting white pocket.

White Pocket, Arizona

It is important to have high clearance and ideally a 4x4 to gte through the deep sand.

White Pocket, Arizona

The time of travel is around an hour from the highway.

White Pocket, Arizona

Once you get to the parking lot you will be able to see the sandstone monoliths and a short hike will take you around the area where white pocket is located.

White Pocket, Arizona

There is a campground beyond the parking lot but the road to the campsite is especially deep and I highly recommend that you use caution when going to the campground..

White Pocket, Arizona

I don't see why you will not be able to camp at the parking lot area.

White Pocket, Arizona

Our original plans were to head down a technical descent of Tatahatso canyon but when we woke up in the morning, the temperature was reading 16 degrees F. This is a bit cold and if something were to happen in the canyon under those conditions at night, it could have been fatal.

Mark Arnold, Jerry, James Edwards, and I opted to make the best of the weekend and head out to Jackass canyon.

Since we had Navajo Permits and Jackass canyon is a Navajo Canyon, we utilized out permits and headed over to jackass canyon.

This canyon was far easier than the commitments of tatahatso canyon but it was a nice charming little stroll through the canyon to the river.

this canyon is rated as a 2AII which means that we left our ropes and just had a nice hike down to the river.

The canyon was really straightforward and had some great walking corridors through over half of the canyon.

There is a north and south fork to the canyon that both connect back to the parking lot so we came down the south fork and came back up the north fork. 

There is a short narrow corridor that provides some nice views that was accompanied by a fixed line of rope to downlcimb.

After this section opened back up and there were some boulder hoping challenges to get around which was not all that bad.

This could be due to the lack of weight in our packs.

 

The river could be heard in the distance and about a half hour of boulder hopping turned into some nice wash walking and a faint trail to the river formed.

We made it to the trail fairly quickly and immediately noticed where the water line was from the recent water release that occurred in the Colorado river. 

Jackass canyon is a pretty heavily traveled canyon, especially for the Navajo fisherman that come down to the river to fish for the weekend. 

After a short break we started our hike out and headed through the north fork of the canyon which was short but pretty nice in comparison to the south fork.

We made the best of the half day as the sun started to heat up the desert and the ice started to thaw.

It was also nice to see jackass and view badger canyon on the other side of the river.

Nevada has some amazing ranges full of limestone and relatively unexplored mountains of cave potential.

There are indeed a number of caves out in Nevada but their length and depth lack any real on-going exploration. 

This leaves a lot of room for exploration and the search for more caves. There are some very decorated caves in Nevada but there appears to be limitless potential to find more.

On this walk, we checked some high leads on a mesa top that meant packing a lot of equipment a couple thousand feet in elevation gain to the summit.

Unfortunately some of our equipment malfunctioned and made our search a bit more tedious but ultimately we were able to located the leads but nothing substantial came from these leads. 

We checked a few more leads and did not find any going passages anywhere else.

On-going ridge walk will continue to occur and other substantial caves will ultimately be found in the near future. 

 Ash Meadows National wildlife refuge is home to numerous springs and among other special features, rare forms of life.  Plants and animals have found refuge here for thousands of years and continue to thrives from the crystal clear warm water springs that feed the desert oasis. 

 a Massive Aquifer, explained to be the biggest aquifer in the world is under the surface of Ash Meadows and the spring water emerges from the depths.  Jack rabbit spring use to have a pump attached to the resurgence which was removed and the spring was restored to its original condition. There is no swimming in any of the springs and the resurgence is very small so please stay out of all of the springs to protect the endangered species of pup fish and other life.

Cotton ball Basin is a Death valley playa that is located 100 to 150 feet below sea level and is home some amazing life and anomalies.

The basin is a ancient ocean with salt bearing most of the evidence of this once upon a time sea bed. The salt content and alkali levels remain high in this region so it is hard to imagine life living along the Barron and hostile environments with temps rising to over 130 degrees in the summer.

Walking on the basin the ground crackles like broken china plates and the ground is mushy in places, which is where the name of this scenic circular travertine playa comes from.

It can be quite dangerous to talk out here after rains due to the sinking floor and in some area, you can actually get stuck in quick sand. Please do not go out here after rainfall or storms.  It will damage the formations.

Once you get out there which can be from a 1/2 mile to over 3-4 miles from the highway, the little noise from the car disappears and you are surrounded by this alien like world with oblique circular formations on the ground for a s far as you can see.

Whats even more interesting is that under the layer of salt, is some sort of green algae like organisms that exist under the salt, in intense temperatures, and in salt! This is yet another sign of how life can find its way to live in some of the most hostile conditions.

The sunsets in Death Valley never disappoint and this was not exception. the sun casted a beautiful hue over the playa that brought this dreamlike place to life. 

The Bill Hall trail is a beautiful and a very "in-demand" trail within the Grand Canyon National park system. The trail starts off at the Kaibab formation and breaks down into the coconino formation with steep switch backs and incredible views of the the western sections of the Grand Canyon. 

The trail passes Bridgers Knoll and descends around 1500ft to the esplanade. from there you can pick up the Thunder River trail that will take you down into surprise valley and on into Thunder Spring.  

An alternative is to take the Thunder Spring trail onto the Deer Creek trail which will take you into the lower deer creek canyon tributaries.

 On our trip we headed down the middle fork of deer creek canyon which is a technical descent into the lower deer creek. 

This region is one of the most sought after permits so you will want to rsvp them early. There is very little water on the trail so if you go when it is dry bring extra water.