Johnson Canyon Camping Trip
October 7-10, 2021
Adam, Sadie, Gentry and I. Calli stayed to go to Zion with Levi for a photoshoot for the trailers.
We drove up late Thursday night. Got there in the dark and quickly set up and got dinner going. We played games with the Cains until midnight and went to bed.
Friday it rained all morning and into the afternoon. Adam dug canals to steer the water away from the trailers. We ate breakfast and played more games until the rained stopped.
Then headed out on a wet, muddy ride.
Sadie got a beauty mark from the mud splashing up at her.
Gentry got more than that. Haha!
First stop we drove out the Montezuma's Cave.
This was awesome. No treasure to be found but we found lot's of other "treasures" to explore.
Hiking up to the caves. There were several.
Entrance to the smaller cave.
Looking down at the machines from the caves.
Inside the caves.
Looking down a hole so deep, we couldn't see the bottom.
There was a makeshift ladder in another hold.
Looking up at the ceiling
Climbing out to see the top of the smaller cave.
Sadie climbing back in with help from dad.
Made our way to the bigger cave.
Heading in!
It was dark and there were actually a few bats hanging from the ceilings. Eek!
Some of the tunnels were small enough that we had to crawl through.
Another "Goonies Booby Trap" A board that we crossed over another deep hole.
Heading back outside the caves.
Mountain wall on our way back down. It was incredible to think about the history that took place here and the treasures that could have been buried there. Pretty cool stuff.
Pics of us in the cave and hiking back down.
Ryan got high centered trying to get a bigger running start up a big sandy hill.
It started to rain on us.
Gentry got splashed with a big slug sized wad of mud right in the face. We laughed so hard,
The fall colors were beginning to change. So pretty!
We were so muddy...
and so was the machine.
But that didn't stop us. We drove to a lookout. Even with the cloud cover it was still pretty.
A break in the clouds.
Adam got drenched in mud, driving though a huge puddle. His favorite thing is to speed up through the puddles and watch the girls try to dodge the mud coming straight at them.
All showered, warm and in cozies for the night, waiting for the chili to get done to warm their insides. We ate dinner, played games and watched a movie.
Saturday, We had full sunshine so we headed out in the morning in search of some Indian Ruins.
Sadie makes riding look cool.
So happy not to be in the rain and mud.
A door in the side of the rock.
And a sign advertising a store.
Sadie and Gentry got a little queasy on this ride and needed some fresh air. They weren't thrilled that we were going to go hiking looking for the Indian ruins but they did it and pretty soon felt much better and enjoyed the hike.
The hike was gorgeous.
We hiked in about a mile before turning around realizing we were not in the correct spot.
Sadie and Gentry took a rest while Adam ventured on a little further just to make sure.
Hiking back.
We found rocks that looked the Thunder Mountain Railroad and...
Brother Bear. Haha!
Cool Tree.
We made it back to the machines and sat and rested and ate snacks while we looked at the map to see where we took the wrong turn. The girls and Cains kids were not thrilled that we had just hiked two hours on the wrong trail and that we wanted to go find the right one. We told them that if we could actually find them, it would be worth it...we were right.
We found the right trail and set off again in search of the Indian Ruins.
We found them.
Amazing!!!
We spent quite a bit of time here exploring.
Luckily all the kids thought it was WAY worth the trek and had a blast checking it all out. After a few hours WE were telling the kids it was time to go instead of the other way around. Haha!
Incredible petroglyphs
Sadie and Bo down below.
We let the kids climb up for a picture but made sure they were so careful as to not touch the walls.
Watching the drone fly over.
Adam tried to help them down this way but...
Sadie was not having it. Haha!
The drone got some awesome footage.
Amazing Drone Pics
Gentry took pictures of the three rooms while up there.
It's so cool to see the construction.
Front Door
After exploring their home we started to look for pottery. There was a lot to be found once you started looking. Sadie found this piece with an actual pattern.
There were signs to please not take the pottery so we added our to the piles that were already there.
Pottery piles
And started a pile of our own. This was all the pottery we found. We found some pretty cool pieces.
I decided to climb up when the kids came down and took a few more pictures. It really was so interesting.
They had an amazing view. This is from their front door.
Pottery Hunting...We couldn't stop. We'd say okay we better be heading and then someone would find another cool one and we'd all start looking again.
We finally headed out and as we were walking on the same trail as the one we walked in on we found piles and piles of pottery. We hadn't even noticed it on the way in but now that we knew what we were looking for it was more present. This caused us to start hunting for pottery again and to speculate and guess why there was so much of it away from their shelter, maybe it was a dump or maybe it was a village. We started looking around and found two other ruins that were just piles of rocks, they didn't last like the other one did but we figured it must have been a village. So cool and so much pottery. We hunted again for another hour. But the sun was starting to set and we still had an hour ride ahead of us so pulled ourselves away. :)
Heading out.
We got back to the trailer, took showers and started on dinner. We were making Tin Foil dinners which take a while to cook and we were sooo hungry from our adventures that day so we threw a pizza in the oven as well for appetizers. Haha!
That night we sat around the fire, made smores, chatted and star gazed.
It was the perfect ending to a perfect trip.
Packing our very dirty razor in the trailer. We sure love our adventures in the trailer and razor.
