Travelogue

Defiance House kivaAfter a morning hike up to the ridge overlooking the Waterpocket Fold, we pulled up anchor and headed out of Halls Creek Bay and then north on the main channel to Forgotten Canyon (Buoy 106), at the end of which was a hike to the Defiance House Ruin, an Anasazi dwelling more than 700 years old.

We continued up Forgotten Canyon until the water ran out. There were already four boats parked there, with anchors buried in the sand. One boat had an interesting anchor set up. He used a ski rope with a stick put through the handle into the sand. As expected, the stick had tipped over, basically meaning that this boat was not secured at all, but it was boxed in by other boats and probably wouldn’t go anywhere. Just in case, Herb put the stick back in.

Lolo sitting beneath an anatomically correct pictographFrom there we trudged through some muck before getting to the main trail, eventually coming to a series of switchbacks that led up to the ruins on a shelf on the canyon wall. The site consisted of two dwellings, a ceremonial kiva, and several kitchen pits, which have been restored by the National Park Service. However, by far my favorite was the large pictograph of three warriors “defiantly” (hence the name) waving their clubs and shields in an apparent duel. They were even anatomically correct.

That was as far north as we planned to go, so after leaving Forgotten Canyon, we headed back south passing right by Halls Creek Bay, and started looking for good anchorages for the night. We came upon one promising one, right across from Annie’s Canyon, but were concerned that there might be too much wake, being that it was along the main channel - although it did have a bit of a place to tuck in behind a rocky outcrop.

Cocktail hour at our campsite across from Annie's CreekWe continued on for about another mile, and after finding nothing more appealing, we turned back and Herb did his anchor management magic, making us feel that we were secure. Surprisingly, there was very little boat traffic the rest of the day.

The views were great, as always, so we set our camping chairs up on a rock overlooking the main channel and sipped wine and watched the sunset.