indigo day hikes

Jared Nixon has been hiking the Escalante trails since before he can remember. He's been trained as a biologist and his father and sister have created a joint publication called Wildflowers of Escalante. His great grandfather was an early settler in the town, and he lives in the family homestead. I had the opportunity to do several hikes with Jared and enjoyed his steadfast energy and amazing stamina to drive over the rough terrain to get us to difficult-to-reach trailheads. He really knew the ins and outs of the slot canyons and has lots of neat little secret hideaways to show us in the back country. Without his guidance I wouldn't have enjoyed this trip as much as I did. He's really a tireless and terrific guide.

We left with Jared Nixon one sunny day in July not knowing that our day with him would be the best part of what was one of our best vacations ever. We have two kids 13 and 15 and they too rated our day as the best of the vacation. We took off in his resilient truck across dirt roads with a cooler of sandwiches (delicious!) and ice cold water. We saw petroglyphs, slot canyons, arches, amazing rock formations, and dinosaur footprints. It was an amazing day and Jared, a trained botanist who spent summers in the area as a child, kept us constantly entertained with wonderful stories of his experiences in the area. We returned dusty with that famous red dirt, tired and exhilarated with our experience. The slot canyons were reachable on foot and lovely. We were perfectly happy not to repel down lines to see them. If we had more time we would certainly have done another day with him. Overall a great experience!!