Next up was the main event. I have wanted to go Jacob Hamblin arch for a long time as well. So I was totally excited to have a long adventure day ahead of us. Getting to places in Escalante takes a long time but that's kind of what makes it so cool. We left early Saturday morning and drove almost 2 hours down Hole in the Rock road. If you know that road, you know. It was all so worth it!
It's such a cool entrance because you're just walking through the desert and then you come up to Coyote Gulch 1500 feet down below sandstone cliffs. So pretty!
We headed down Crack in the Wall which was just like it sounds. Just a crack between two rocks that you had to squeeze through to get down to a trail. It was fun.
This is looking back up at Crack in the Wall. That whitish line on the left of the picture that goes along the rock is part of the crack.
We were met with a cool arch right away which was a great welcome!
We made it down to Coyote Gulch and had to get wet pretty much right away. We knew there would be water, we knew it would be cold, we thought it would only be ankle-ish deep. But two steps in I was up to my knees! Luckily that first spot was the deepest of the rest of the day and after that it was only ankle to mid-calf deep.
It was definitely cold! We laughed at all the ice around us and laughed every time we had to get our feet wet again, but actually it wasn't bad. Our shoes would drain quickly and with moving all the time our feet were actually fine. So it just became a joke over and over again!
The canyon walls were amazing. Pictures will never do it justice and it was just so awesome every direction you looked!
Sometimes we got lucky and had logs or rocks to cross on. Most of the time we weren't that lucky. It was fine though.
This frozen waterfall was pretty cool looking!
Coyote Natural bridge was really amazing and huge!
But Jacob Hamblin was the best part of the day. It is huge. Seriously, the pictures don't show how massive it is. It is the biggest arch I've seen and just wow! You have to walk so far around it to get to the other side, but the walk is awesome because it's in this huge cathedral that has the best echo I've ever heard. I mean just this whole section of the hike was stunning. So cool and such an awesome place to have a picnic. I really didn't want to leave.
Coming back from the cathedral to the front of the arch...so amazing.
One reason why I didn't want to leave the arch is because of the hike out...all the beta says if you're scared of heights or edges it will be terrible but everyone else will be fine. And most people talk about having a rope to use as a hand line. But since we came down the crack in the wall we didn't have a rope up above us. And I hate heights and have had more than 1 panic attack climbing up something. So I was not looking forward to climbing out. But I was trying so so hard to be brave and not start freaking myself out so I started up. The first 50 feet are the worst because the sand stone is smooth so it's hard to find hand holds. There are some foot holds but there was a lot of sand around them which makes sandstone really slippery. The plan was for me to go first and Jerry would go right behind me to catch me if I started slipping (great plan haha). So I started up and I just went for it. I tried to look up and find the next section to go to and then just head for it. But every time I looked up I would get dizzy so then I'd panic so then I'd make myself go more so I wouldn't freeze but I didn't really know where to go because I couldn't look up for long so I was just making stuff up. I got way ahead of Jerry and then I was freaking out because he wasn't right behind me and he's like "Wait for me I'm trying to figure which way to go" and I was like "I can't stop here because there are no holds and I'll start slipping" and then I was totally freaking out. I had gone to the right because I could footprints in the sand spots so I knew others had gone that way but I got to a section where I was like an inch short of being able to reach up to a hold but I was afraid if I put more pressure on my foot I would slip because it was sandy and this was the steepest/smoothest section. So Jerry told me to just sit and wait and I was like "I literally can't move up or down" So he told me to come back to him and go left so I had to somehow switch my feet with no handholds so I could go back to him. Luckily, I have awesome shoes with really grippy soles so I didn't slip and probably actually wouldn't have but you know there's that whole heights thing and the fact that I can't look up or down without getting dizzy. 😂😂. It was a little bit of a mess. But I made it back to Jerry and pretty much just pushed me up to a hand hold and told me to get the next little ledge and just sit down. I made it and then after that it was still sketchy but there was more variation in the rock so there were more hand and foot holds. So after that he'd point out the way to go to get to a next stopping point and I'd scramble up as fast as I could and sit and wait for him and then he'd tell me where to go next. HaHa. We made it up though and it wasn't my biggest freak out ever! We have a good friend and he has done this with his kids and he kept telling me I'd be fine and I was like "I'm 100% sure I'll be cursing your name at some point." He just laughed and I totally was so mad at him! His daughter hates heights too and she told me she was terrified but she did it so I thought of her and now we need to get together and plan things with no heights!
It was a sketchy climb out but it was so fun and I would do it all again in a heartbeat!
Jerry and I had such a fun 36 hours. We packed in so much and it was so easy to just worry about the 2 of us. We loved it and are already planning our next trip for when the snow is bad. I wouldn't necessarily choose to do hikes like this in November but it's when it worked for us and if you're prepared for cold and water then it's totally doable!
