Death Hollow Backpacking adventure: Day 2

Death Hollow beautiful landscapes in the middle section of this hike.  The stream, high canyon cliffs and lots of green trees are common in is awesome section.  

This section of Death Hollow is easily the most beautiful.  The hard work we put in the first day and we would put in the last day was worth it because of this middle day in paradise.  After some small storms through the night, the morning was glorious with blue sky and some light clouds.  Our campsite was one of the more open parts of the canyon.  This yielded fabulous views of the cliffs and canyon.  One of my favorite shots of the trip was my wife and her sister drinking their morning hot chocolate with a fabulous view.

Two campers enjoy the morning in Death Hollow.

We began hiking and enjoyed some awesome scenery.  The trail itself was an inconsistent thing.  We'd have a traditional dirt path in some locations.  Then we'd have branches and have to push through large bushes.  Then we'd have tall grasses up to our hips.  The trail changed every 50 feet.  We had to cross the creek numerous times also. 

Morning comes to Death Hollow

Trail through Death Hollow in a clear and scenic section.

Just five minutes earlier we'd been bushwhacking through grass
and branches taller than our heads.

Grass as high as our hips grew in other places.

Another slanted tree makes a good landscape photo subject!

A river crossing in a deep section of the canyon.

Looking up at the pine trees and cliff wall.

A picture of me with my backpack.  It looks extra light because my
wife held the camera and tripod for this moment.

Perhaps my favorite photograph from the whole trip.
This was a glorious section of Death Hollow

After a couple hours of hiking and loving the scenery, we reached a deep swimming hole.  I'd see this before on other blogs.  We stopped for a skinny dip and relaxation.  This place is delightful.  By this time, I'd forgotten all about civilization back home.  That's the great thing about immersing yourself in nature.

THE BEST swimming hole is midway through the hike.  

The jump at Death Hollow's deep pool.

Onward we marched.  Some areas got really quite deep when wading.  Again, it's hard to put into words how pretty this section of Death Hollow is.

Poke it with a stick to see how deep it is.

I loved this deep section of Death Hollow.  The colorful canyon walls is
a different shade of yellow-white.  This is not the same as Zion or
Canyonlands or any other place I've been.  This more like Capitol Reef.

Another pretty section of Death Hollow.

The character of the canyon changed once again as we went from the lush tree-lined shores of the creek to a more narrow slot section.  This was all rock.  Maybe I should rephrase that. This was all slickrock.  I put my camera away after shooting these shots because it was slippery, wet and some pools here were very deep.  I gracefully slipped and fell through this part.

We were again looking up to darkening skies.  Every day about 3 PM it started to rain.  We were in the deepest and most narrow section of the slot canyon on this particular day.  We hurried through and felt some raindrops on our heads.  The water level never rose.  No flash flood.

We reached the most narrow section:  some thing that resembles the Subway in Zion.

Monsoon Skies as seen from a slot canyon.

Death Hollow slot canyon section with fast-flowing water.

Coming out of the slot section to some beautiful green again.

Dead tall tree and Death Hollow creek.

Semi-narrow Death Hollow section downstream from the "subway".

Trail in Death Hollow going over rocks, bushes and through water . . . all of it pretty.

A pretty canyon wall with trees and boulders in Lower Death Hollow.

I hope you can see from the photos how beautiful this place is.  I stopped and photographed fairly often because the scenery changed a lot from one mile to another.  By comparison, Spring Canyon in Capitol Reef, the Narrows in Zion, and Buckskin Gulch do not have such a great variety in one hike.  The Subway in Zion is the only hike I've done comparable in variety and scenery to Death Hollow but it's not nearly as long and does not permit camping.

We found a large and sandy alcove for this night.  The sand was perfectly soft powder and went down to the river for filtering, cooling off, bathing and pondering life.  Here's some pictures of our camp.  We had no chairs or logs for sitting.  I sat in a tree just to find a position different from standing and lying flat.  This night was peaceful with a full moon.

Sitting in a tree for a different position.  Our pants, shoes and socks
were all out to dry in the tree.  

Sandy alcove was perfect for the night.  

Filtering water from the creek.  The water tasted quite good.