And in her excitement, she made some bad decisions. But there was plenty of room for all of us, and we even got to enjoy a backpacker’s version of Thanksgiving (which was pretty darn close to a regular version of Thanksgiving, thanks to Bob’s astounding backcountry culinary skills) and then we got up the next morning and enjoyed the sunrise and ate a hearty breakfast and hiked back to the jeep and lived happily ever after.Įxcept that Karen got really really excited about taking pictures and in her excitement sort of forgot that, you know, she was on the side of a very steep cliff. He’s an absolutely wonderful photographer, and you can see his stuff here: ). Shockingly, we had company: two other couples and another solo hiker (a lovely man whose acquaintance I would later make on Instagram when he recognized my dogs, who introduced themselves to him. Only, and I’m not kidding, on the map that day, Reflection Canyon was marked with a friggin’ camera, and I was actually able to map a walking route from where we were to that little friggin’ camera, which was only about a mile or so away.Īnd we walked that mile and we found Reflection Canyon and there was much rejoicing. I turned on my cellphone and typed “Reflection Canyon” into the googlemap search. (Photographers reading this, did you just gasp in audible pain? If so, thanks for understanding.)Īnd then suddenly I had a brilliant idea. Bob is scrutinizing the map simply, I think, to avoid making eye contact with me, the dogs are fed up, we’re disturbingly low on water because we probably did an extra four miles of unnecessary scrambling over slickrock hills and detouring around slot canyons (which always seemed to magically appear just behind every slickrock hill), and I’m about to cry because the sun is heading toward sunset and forgodssake I’m going to miss the goddamn golden hour. Long story short, five hours later, we’re looking at some part of Lake Powell that is nice and all, but it sure as heck ain’t the view with the pretty cove and the pretty rocks on the parks pass. This is where you’ll want to leave the cliffs and keep them at your back, turning southeast.”) One website read: “Approximately 5 miles into your trek you’ll see a flat, almost squared-off face in the cliffs. Here’s a visual:įrom the X to the star is about 10 miles if you walk the route directly, but no trail marks this route. For the first couple miles, there’s a semi-visible path of footprints to follow, but then you hit slickrock, the footprints disappear, and you’re following directions that previous hikers posted on the web, which are downright mysterious a bit vague.
First, the trailhead is at the end of Hole-in-the-Rock road, about 60 miles off pavement.
Turns out that visiting Reflection Canyon is an eensy-bit challenging. (Well, Bob and I decided, and Daisy and Alice just went along for the ride because, you know, they’re dogs.) Bob, Daisy, Alice, and I decided to make it our Thanksgiving destination. Well, once I saw that picture, I was determined to photograph see that sight for myself, especially after I learned that it was part of the Glen Canyon recreation area, which made it seem like it was just around the corner (“seem,” as you’ll see, is the operative word here). Some of you may remember that in 2017, the Annual Parks pass, also known as the America the Beautiful pass, looked like this:
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