Route Editor
Route Scout
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DESTINATION White Box & Hanging Gardens of WCC 55 Photosets 2011-07-12 2011-07-09 2011-07-02 2010-09-12 2010-07-04 2010-07-03 2009-08-08 2009-07-04 2009-07-04 2009-06-27 2009-06-06 2009-05-30 2009-05-30 2005-07-01 2005-06-25
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| HAZ Member Vaporman's 229 Photosets 2010-03-14 2010-03-14 2010-03-13 2010-03-07 2010-03-06 2010-02-21 2010-02-14 2010-02-13 2010-02-07 2010-01-23 2009-12-19 2009-11-15 2009-11-01 2009-09-26 2009-07-11 2009-06-06 2009-02-07 2007-10-14 2007-10-13 2007-06-04
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The next morning we woke up early and walked FR 142 to 142A all the way up to the rim (about 5 miles) where the power lines cross WCC and dropped down that steep loose route to the creek near Tule Canyon. There's a nice flat area there with some camping spots and dropped our overnight gear before covering our bodies in neoprene and putting the bare essentials in our dry kegs for the trek up canyon. The creek upstream from 142A is one of the tougher section of WCC to navigate due to heavy bushwhacking and/or a dozen or so swimmers (a handful are mandatory others can be unpleasantly bushwhacked around though I preferred to swim), not too many dry rocks in the creek to hop along on, the creek bed consisting of loads of slimy & slippery sandstone that has you walking like a drunken sailor, and the creek snakes around a lot. So it took us a good 5 hours of drunken walking, wading, swimming, rock hopping, slipping, and photo snapping to do the 3 miles of WCC to the Calloway TH, though we are a tad out of shape and this was our first water hike of the season. I hadn't done that section before and wanted to tick it off my list and finally experience it, though I've previously dropped in on Calloway and hiked upstream from there. I suppose a good day hike loop would have been to finish by hiking up Calloway and walking down that 142B (the eastern one) back to our truck, but our camping gear was back downstream so we turned around and experienced the beauty and grandeur of this section of WCC one more time with a brief sidetrip up X-Pine Canyon before retiring back at camp. We were both thoroughly whooped and crashed a tad before sunset to our warm sleeping bags. 
This section of the creek was much easier to travel along with loads of dry basalt rocks in the creek to rock hop along most of the way with the swimmers not being too bad to swim across so the bushwhacking & slippery creek bed could be avoided for the most part. The hanging gardens were as beautiful as ever as we ate and played there a bit before making the long journey back up the creek, up the rim, along the roads dragging our tired bodies back to the truck, and then drive back home. 
