The background for this post starts years ago when Dad and I went out to Tuckup Canyon. His uncles and cousins ran cows our there years ago and he wanted to hike down and check the place out. To make a long story short, we made it to Cottonwood Spring and made it back to the truck about 6 pm whereupon we discovered we had left the lights of the truck on and the battery was drained. I hiked out to the June Tank junction with the Tuweep Road where Mom and my father-in-law Tom found me about 1 am! By the time we picked Dad up and got back home it was about 5 am and I figured out I had walked 26 miles in all that day. It was only later we found out we had missed the real attraction in Tuckup: A large panel of ancient artwork known as Shaman's Gallery.
A trip out on the Arizona Strip is not without unexpected* adventures and this one was no exception. After a missed turnoff at June Tank and a subsequent detour toward S.O.B. Point we turned around, backtracked, got on the right road and then nearly got stuck going through a bad stretch of muddy road.
*I've had flat tires, failed brakes, a broken back window, a broken clutch, etc. on the Strip. Sometimes I wonder...
Finally getting into the canyon. The arrow above points to the location of Schmutz Spring, which actually doesn't seem like much of a spring. It's been so dry lately it's apparently pretty much dried out. Maybe it's wetter in the spring.
Coming into view here is the "Plain of Death", the almost 2 mile wide shelf between the bottom of this slope and Shaman's Gallery. Due to a lack of understanding of where the trail went we ended up crossing this shadeless feature going and coming from the panel.
The large boulder in the middle of the picture is a prominent landmark and also a good place to stash water for the return trip. We tried to enter the wash just to the left, but soon got walled up and so climbed out to the south and crossed the Plain of Death. Andy told me we should've crossed the wash and there is a trail on the north side that is much better and descends into Tuckup more gradually than the route we took (more on that later).
At the cowboy camp by the big rock there is a large drum perfect for stashing water. There were several half-empty bottles inside.
The red trail is what we should've followed all the way to the gallery. The green line shows our route.
After crossing the big flat we came to a steep cliff. After some searching up and down canyon we found what we thought was the overhang (in the middle of the picture above) and scrambled down the cliff to the sandy wash below.
Looking back up the Cliff of Doom.
Made it!
That's enough for today. There will be a couple of follow-up posts with more pictures of the panel and the trip out.
2 comments:
I do kind of wonder why you didn't follow the trail on the map. They say dehydration skews your judgement.
Don't tell your fellow scouters!
Well, I had a choice of two maps I found on the internet. I chose the wrong one. It even had the panel placed further south than it really is. The one I put on the blog is the more accurate one.
Post a Comment