Getting into and out of the river is probably the most challenging part. There's a big landslide hill that has to be traversed, and it takes plenty of strategic limb-placement and balance control to get down without causing more landslides.
A few hundred feet up the river, I gave up on any hopes of keeping my feet dry. I was wearing my grippy, cheap Nevados, and it's a good thing I did. Going upstream means keeping the feet aimed up-river and walking sideways to ford the river (to make sure your feet don't get swept out from under you), which can be a few feet deep in some spots. There walls are typical pocked sandstone, but the river is filled with all sorts of rocks. Concretions, agates, lava and a peculiar burnt carboniferous ash fill the area. Fossils, too; mostly spiral snail shells, old clams and flattened oysters, along with cakes of micro-fossils.
This is typical of the hill up and down; it is very treacherous. |
I used this log as my first and last bridge, before giving up on the dryness of my socks. |
The fine gravel was most dangerous in the river; larger gravel was easier to stand on. |
The peculiar turret-shape of the tower on the mid-left grabbed my attention. |
Tiny pebbles are strewn through the water, and the longer you ford, the more tiny stones will appear in your shoes, and then hamper your movement. |
At the mouth of the slot canyon, wildly pocked sandstone walls decorate the vertical views. |
What an odd formation. |
I only made it this far before determining that limited daylight was of concern. |
These sandstone walls in Ashdown Creek almost look like castles. |
This looks rather like the moorings of a bridge. The forces that carved the canyon made a mockery of whatever this was. |
Making it back towards the car. The steep, crumbling slopes were much harder after being exhausted by fording rapids. |
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