A bald eagle near Huntington
I got to the trailhead around 1:00 p.m. and followed a faint ATV trail for a few hundred yards until it crossed the wash coming out of Grotto Canyon. From there, it was a relatively boring walk along a rocky wash bottom.
The trailhead
Faint ATV trail
Rocky wash bottom
A fun, shallow, narrow section
A purplish-brown slab of Carmel Formation rock
After about a third of a mile, the Carmel Formation gives way to Navajo Sandstone, and this is where the hike got more interesting. It narrowed up a bit in places, but never got very deep in the narrows. At one point there was a pothole that has to be bypassed by climbing out of the canyon, though I erred and climbed out on the north side, which wasn't too difficult, but getting back into the canyon above the pothole was tough.
The start of the Navajo Sandstone
Narrow, but shallow
Torrey above the pothole
Panorama of the pothole
Pothole bypass (north side)
Pothole bypass (south side) (preferred route)
The pothole viewed from above
After dropping back down into the canyon, I just followed the bottom up toward the Grotto. There was some light bushwhacking, and the canyon just got more and more narrow until I hit the slot section full of water.
Light bushwhacking
Getting narrower
The water-filled narrows
I was hoping that the water would be frozen solid enough for me to walk over, but no such luck. The surface was frozen, but the ice was only about 1/4-inch thick. I attempted to stem over it, which turned out to be easy at first. Toward the end of the water-filled section, but walls became purely vertical and stemming required much more strength and skill, and I just didn't feel comfortable going all the way. I don't think a fall would have hurt me, but I didn't want to suffer the discomfort of hiking back in freezing weather and wet clothes.
Looking down into the water
Torrey waiting as I stemmed over the water
After admitting defeat, I managed to turn around while stemming, and made it back to the start of the water without too much trouble. I hiked down-canyon about two-tenths of a mile and climbed out on the south side, then followed the rim of the canyon until I could see down into the Grotto.
The Grotto seen from above
Zoom of the Grotto from above
View down-canyon from the rim
Another view down-canyon
The hike back to the truck was uneventful. This time I bypassed the pothole on the south side, which was much easier than the north. On my way home, I stopped to take a few more photos.
Curtis Point
Buckhorn Flat
More photos here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Dennis.Udin ... ttoAlmost#
Tracklog and waypoints (Google Earth .KML format)
http://castlecountry.org/geo/TheGrotto(Almost).kml
(sorry, you'll have to copy and paste the URL, looks like phpBB doesn't like parentheses in URLs)
.