The Wave

A few months back I got a call from my friend Kristin. She said that she had a life-changing opportunity for me. The last time she called with a life-changing opportunity it led to a new job so I decided I should pay attention.

Her husband, Steve, had applied to permits to hike to the Wave, a rock formation just over the Utah border into Arizona. They do a lottery 4 months in advance for 10 permits, and another lottery the day before for an additional 10 permits. That means that only 20 people are permitted to hike to the wave every day.

Originally they had wanted to take their 2 daughters so they got the permit for 4 people, but as the reports of deaths at the Wave continued to come in all summer they started to rethink their plans. Instead of taking their daughters they decided to take a doctor and a knowledgeable outdoorsman. I guess I was supposed to be the knowledgeable outdoorsman.

Our permit was for October 16th. You may remember some of the drama surrounding the government shutdown during October, specifically the closure of National Parks and other public lands. We'd heard that anyone that had already been issued a permit was still able to go, but that they weren't issuing the day-before permits. We also heard that the rangers were still patrolling as much as usual and weren't holding back on $1200 fines for trail poachers.

We left the Salt Lake Valley around 4:30pm and drove non-stop to Fillmore where we ate dinner at Costa Vida. It tasted pretty good. We were livin' the Vida Costa. After dinner we continued down I-15 to  Highway 20 and popped over to Highway 89. By the time we got to Panguitch it was dark and we missed the scenery of the scenic byway, but we made good time to our hotel in Kanab.

The next morning we left by 8 or so (I really can't remember when) and drove about an hour to the turn off to the trailhead. They say that the road is impassable when it's wet; we were thankful it was dry. We drove about 8 miles down the dusty dirt road to the enormous parking lot. We each visited the pit ATM and crossed the road to head down the trail.

For the first mile or so there was actually a trail and it was nearly impossible to get lost. At a certain point, though, we came upon a 50' wide wash and completely lost the trail on the other side of it. I don't think we lost the trail really. It's more like the trail just wasn't there any more.

We walked on the formation above for quite awhile. It was almost like having a sidewalk etched right into the side of the hill. About a mile and a half in we were able to see the landmark that we needed to aim for to get to the wave. The directions that were provided with our permit were very similar to the directions the 3 Amigos received to find El Guapo. I felt silly not bringing my pistola so we could summon the invisible swordsman. If you look in the picture below there's a black crevice in the white rock in the distance, right in the center of the picture. Our directions were to head directly for that.

The directions also said to go to the right of the formation below. This ended up being a good landmark to help us find our way back.

After another mile of hiking we came to the "Steep Sandy Hill", according to the directions. It certainly lived up to its name. I'm not sure we gained more than a couple inches of elevation for every step we took. It was a workout.

At the top of the steep sandy hill, though, we came to the entrance of the Wave.

I think we stayed at the entrance to the wave for at least 30 minutes just taking pictures and admiring the rock. Just that one small part was amazing.

There are a lot of similar sandstone formations that are made from many years of water eroding the rock. The wave is very different; it was formed by wind. Having been formed by wind gave it a much different feeling than similar formations I've seen that were formed by water. It's hard to even describe how it feels to be there.

After our 30 minutes at the entrance, we ventured down a corridor to the right. There were so many colors in the rock. There were bright yellows, oranges, reds, purples, and everything in between. The light was shining just perfectly to illuminate everything and bring out the vibrant colors.

We finally made it out to the famous view of the Wave; the one in all the pictures and that's used as a default Windows wallpaper. We spend another hour or so taking pictures there and climbing all over the rocks to get different views.

Later, on our way back, we regretted not taking a picture of all of us doing the wave. You know, like in a stadium. We didn't even take pictures of ourselves waving hello. We were seriously under-prepared in the funny photo department.

We ventured on past the Wave to some other formations. Our information was a little less detailed for the other formations, but we had a rough GPS track to help guide us. I figured we could explore all we wanted and still find our way back.

I believe the picture above shows the Second Wave, but we didn't recognize it as such when we were there. It was beautiful, but it didn't seem any more impressive than anything else out there. I had a theory that it was impossible to take a bad picture out there, and after looking at more than 230 pictures I think that theory is now confirmed.

After we'd stopped to eat some lunch we made our way back to the car. We ended up hiking about 8 miles overall, and made it back home by 9:30pm. The whole trip was less than 30 hours and was indeed one of the best experiences of my life. Thanks again to Kristin and Steve for inviting me along. They say hiking to the Wave is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Let's hope that's not true in my case.