Chapter 3: Escalante/Willow

I was essentially speechless at the beauty of the Escalante Canyon. I found our 5 miles per hour speed too fast to really absorb and memorize everything I wanted. I could have spent not only days but weeks and months living in the canyon. We eventually got to Willow Gulch, and the scenery only got better. The family famous Willow Gulch that I’d only heard about, never seen with my own eyes…it was everything I’d hoped and more. I am still homesick for the place. Uncle Kevin has a knack for finding the BEST campsites. After exploring ahead with DesertBound and Sayyadina, he led us (the houseboat) to a dreamsite. A huge alcove nestled in a bend of the river, with enough slickrock beach to keep everyone happy, and enough deep, bottomless emerald waters to jump and dive and bathe in. “Is this Heaven?” I repeatedly wondered to myself. I hauled our two-man (“me-and-two-kids”) tent up to a rocky knoll and pitched our home.

Requirements for a dreamsite:
1. No bugs/mosquitoes 2. Red cliffs. 3. Water feature. 4. Good company. 5. Starry, starry night. 6. Isolated, and mostly private. 7. Warm enough to flit around in a bathing suit even after sunset…yet cool enough to comfortably snuggle in a sleeping bag at night.

Below are some pictures of our dreamsite in Willow Gulch:

Aerial View: Zoom in, and you can see the pink dot for where our houseboat was, and the turquoise dot where my tent was. (The water level was actually about 20-or-so feet higher than in this pic taken in 2005)

Looking west-ish from my tent, in the morning...

From the houseboat, a view of my tent-site (and Mayflower), photo by DesertBound.

Looking west-ish in the evening. Photo by DesertBound.