This is a freelance hike with no goal other than to experience slickrock walking. The description gets the hiker to Cottonwood Tanks where the Navajo Sandstone slope of the Waterpocket Fold beckons to be explored.
The tanks were historically important as a water source for cattle. For many years up to 1988 the area was winter range and during the coldest weather the rancher would often have to ride to the tanks and break the ice so cows could drink.
Legal grazing ended is this area in 1988 and though some grazing continued until 1999, the tanks have had a number of years to flush out the cow pies and the vegetation has started its return to a natural state.
| TIME: | 40 minutes to the Tanks |
| ELEVATION GAIN: | 1200 feet to the Muley Twist rim. |
| DIFFICULTY: | Easy to the tanks, then easy or not as you choose. |
| MAPS: | The Post |
| GEOLOGY: | A rock walk on the slope of the Waterpocket Fold with a great lesson on drainage patterns. |
| PLANTS: | Enjoyable vegetated pockets in the slickrock. |
| CIRCLE TRIP: | No. |
| ACCESS: | From the Visitor Center drive 9.2 miles east on Utah Highway 24 to the signed Notom Road. Turn right (south and drive 13.6 miles to the Sandy Ranch Junction. Bear right (south) and drive 19 miles to the signed Burr Trail junction. Go straight and drive 2.3 miles south to a junction where there is a trail sign to Headquarters Canyon. Turn right (southwest) and drive one mile to the parking area at the end of the road (S). |
From the parking area walk south through the fence and follow the trail south. From the late 1800s until the end of WW II there was a ranch about twenty-five miles south in this same valley so a trail, wagon road or jeep trail has traversed this valley for over one hundred years.
As you walk, the prominent rock on the right is the tan Navajo Sandstone that goes to the skyline. The colorful red rock that zig-zags up and down the slope often forming chevrons is a layer of the Carmel Formation. On the left side of the valley most of the slope from the top down is composed of the Morrison Formation with some gray brown Summerville Formation at the bottom of the slope. Five minutes or more down the trail a red brown rock mound will be close on the left (east). It is part of the Entrada Sandstone.
Thirty minutes down the trail there is a sign to Cottonwood Tanks. To follow the trail make a hard right (west) turn. To the left of the sign and spread out behind it, there are, some holly leaved Fremont Barberry shrubs.
The trail quickly drops into a wash (B) and the ten foot high shrub on the left at the edge of the wash is Tamarisk. Go straight across the wash and up the trail on the other side. Just above the wash on the left there is another Barberry bush and the next large plant is Rabbitbrush. After a couple hundred feet there is a small wash and just beyond that on the right, behind more Barberry, is an Oak tree. Next, on the right, there is a large Sand Sage bush.
The trail ends in a wash, so go up the wash and in a couple hundred yards Cottonwood Tanks (T) are between low Navajo cliffs at the base of the slickrock slope.
Walk past the two low main tanks and up the slickrock a short distance. From there, do as you like. There are three immediate options that can be checked out. Follow the main drainage up to the left (south) and find many more tanks; follow the drainage up to the right (north) where there are also more tanks and more slickrock walking (Least complicated way to the Muley Twist rim); or walk west up the slope. One possible goal would be the rim to the west that looks down into Muley Twist Canyon. Where ever you go, look back now and then so you can find the way back, and plan to let the rock direct your trip because it most certainly will. Enjoy an hour or a day on the rock.
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23June2017
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