We woke up leisurely to “enjoy” the Springhill Suites limited breakfast offerings. Our goal was to reach the wave around midday to maximize the sun penetrating into the rock formations and eliminate some pesky shadows. That was our logic anyway. We suspected others departed earlier, but we wanted some much-needed sleep. It took us about an hour just to reach the trailhead — half of it on an unpaved road, which justified my rental of the higher-clearance Ford Escape. With that being said, I’m pretty sure when I joined my parents on this same adventure some twenty years earlier, we had something like a Nissan Sentra.
We put a special tag on our dashboard and clipped another one to my backpack to identify us as legit. With such a selective lottery, countless others are no doubt trying to hike it without getting a permit. The hike itself is about 7-7.5 miles round trip depending on which “path” one takes. As you can see from the picture above, a clearly defined route is not to be found. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has put up a grand total of maybe four signposts to assist, but they almost need to be placed in areas where people would get lost and say something like, “Nope. You wrong!” I had downloaded some offline maps and used an app called AllTrails, which didn’t really help. We just used BLM’s picture-based guide. It was somewhat confusing, and there was some debate as to which butte they were referring to in many cases, but Nicole managed to get us there and back without ever getting lost.
About a mile or so before reaching the wave, a guy working for BLM checked up on us to see how we were doing and if we had enough water etc. We were honestly surprised that they sent someone out on the trail. While they could be there to issue fines to those hiking without permits, the wave does have a history of people getting very lost and even dying in some cases. It was nice to at least have someone confirm that we were headed in the correct direction. After scaling a very sandy ridge, we had arrived.
We had overtaken a German couple enroute (the only people we had seen either coming or going during our entire hike), so we initially had it all to ourselves. That would last for the next five minutes or so. Even after the Germans caught back up to us, we were able to work around each other respectfully so that we could all enjoy this unique place.
We then scaled some of the walls to get different vantage points, eventually settling into a slope out of the way to take a short break and drink some water and eat Kind bars that almost broke our teeth. As we were finishing up our snack, about six Indonesians appeared and sat down right in the middle of the wave. This was not ideal for picture taking. They did selfies, they did influencer-style videos of themselves “discovering” the wave one-by-one until finally after maybe twenty minutes, they dispersed.
With the place to ourselves again, we took many photos before eventually deciding to make our way back to the parking lot. The weather was sunny enough to make us sweat during the hike while simultaneously feeling chilled by a cool wind. It was somewhat difficult to dress for, but I had packed a backpack full of all kinds of layers which we could peel off and put on as we went. An hour later, we were back in Kanab, where we drove around the streets for a bit trying to weigh our options for dinner. This is actually a very difficult thing to do in this town. There are very few options. The town only has three stoplights and even fewer decent options for food. Escobar’s, where we ate last night is closed on Saturdays, so that option is out.
We ended up at a bbq place called Giff’s that was inside a gift shop, or as we were greeted upon entering, “Welcome to our gift shop, museum, and bbq!“ Despite its unassuming appearance, we had a solid meal of beef brisket. I would say it’s the best meal we’ve had so far on this trip, which really isn’t saying much. The dining scene in Kanab is a bit lacking if you can imagine, but Giff’s was alright.
Having conquered the wave, we aren’t sure what we’ll do tomorrow. We are debating hiking into a slot canyon, but will eventually have to head back in the direction of St. George if we end up flying back the day after tomorrow. Stay tuned.
passports & pepto bismol 