Big Steve, Rod, Cassie and newcommer Sandy joined me on this hike. We started out at around 8:20 at the Visitor's Center, where the Rhyolite trail begins. The first mile is a rather level trail through tall oaks, sycamores and pines, providing for refreshing shade. But then it soon gains a grade that seems to get steeper and steeper until it hits the first intersection with another trail, the Heart-0-Rocks trail.
I had last done this trail from this starting point back in late 2003. The one thing I remembered from this hike was the unique rock formations further up the trail. I had done that hike as a 12-mile perimeter hike that took me six hours. I had hiked a similiar trail last year with the club from the higher elevation point.
Sandy and I stayed together for most of this trail, chatting away. She recently moved down here from Wisconsin. An avid hiker, her only problem was getting used to higher-elevation hikes. I would classify this hike as a mid-range elevation hike. We stopped many times so that Cassie and Sandy could get their breathing down to normal, but even I found it a bit challenging to hike and talk at the same time.
The trails in the Monument are well-maintained and wide, and the higher up one goes, the prettier the views get. I've been here a few times and always enjoy the reddish crags. This is a hike worth doing.
The higher we got, though, the slower Sandy became. Not wanting to make it any worse for her, I shortened the hike by instead of a loop down the Ed Riggs trail from the Echo Canyon parking lot, I simply made this an out-and-back hike. An eight-mile hike instead became a hike at just under seven miles. I didn't mind as the hoodoos and boulders along the way truly are amazing to walk over, around and through. Several of the hoodoos look like stone people, and two rocks are what I called "Whispering Rocks."
We didn't stop for lunch until we got into a shadier area. Cassie was tired. I would have preferred resting near a small slot in the rock, but instead she insisted on resting right off the trail in an area that didn't provide much comfort. But the views were fine and I was ready for a break.
Sandy's feet by now were hurting her, and I could tell that she took all that she had to keep on going. She made it to the car with the rest of us.
This was a beautiful hike. Today's pace was much slower than we normally would have gone, yet I enjoyed the change in order to talk with Sandy and to take photographs. A five-hour estimated hike took us over eight hours. No records were broken on this hike, but the company was nice and this is an area that is worth slowing down to better absorb the scenery.
My one complaint was that the creek in the canyon was dry. Since I seem to hike this park only in the fall, I never see the creek in all its splendor
When I got home in the evening I made sure the photos were downloaded and a copy of the photos I had taken of Sandy were emailed to her. It's been a week and I haven't heard from her yet, so perhaps the hike kicked her butt and she's decided to hike in easier canyons for a while.
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