29 May 2021 Little Wild Horse to Bell Canyon Loop

 We heard about Little Wild Horse canyon in a pod cast by our favorite authors Matt and Karen Smith (Dear Bob and Sue Series). We picked up a brochure at the Goblin SP visitor center and it showed they trail was 8.1 miles to do the full loop or 8.1 to just do an out and back through Little Wild Horse Canyon. So we decided we would go through Little Wild Horse Canyon until we felt like turning around. We were surprised to find the road was paved all the way to the parking lot. We arrived in the parking lot around 08:30 and it was not full yet so we were able to get a parking spot in the main lot and did not have to go to overflow down the road. The morning was cool, around 69 degrees when we headed out. The first half mile brings you to the mouth of the junction of Little Wild Horse and Bell Canyons. There are three easy scrambles to get to the junction, but even those intimidated some hikers to turn back. At the junction, we turned right and headed up Little Wild Horse (LWH) canyon. It was a fun hike up through the canyon with multiple squeezes, over a dozen scrambles and beautiful rock formations from the flowing water that carved the canyon. We were in the shade most of the time so it was wonderfully cool. There were a couple of big pour offs that made us back track and find ways around but all in all the scrambles were not hard. We really enjoyed hiking through the canyon. But there were a lot of people so we felt pressured to keep moving. In the squeezes, there were some folks trying to get back down the canyon, but there were so many people going up the canyon they could not get through. Lots of folks had their dogs and there were lots of kids. As we reached the upper stretches of LWH it opened up and we found ourselves back in the sun. Sitting down in some shade to have a snack and water, we decided that since it was supposed to be almost as far to go back through LWH or completing the loop, we decided to go for the loop. We knew the trail between the upper portions of the LWH and Bell canyons would have little shade, but it did not seem too hot and we anticipated shade in Bell Canyon. The hike took us on a steep climb up and over a ridge before a steep decent into Bell Canyon. Once in Bell canyon, we were dismayed to see that with the noontime sun, there was very little shade, but it was too late to turn back. We found a shady spot and took a break to drink lots of water (no use carrying it back to the Behemoth) and grab a snack. Bell canyon was much wider than LWH. It never got tighter than about 4 feet. The decent was not very steep. We were also surprised to find that Bell Canyon had different type of rock from LWH even though they are only a mile apart. We found that Bell canyon had over a dozen scrambles for us to negotiate down. David slipped on one and painfully stubbed fingers on his right hand arresting his slide. It seemed like we were never going to reach the junction! We took our time since we were hot and tired. The winding passages of Bell canyon kept tricking us into thinking the junction was just around the next corner. But we finally made it to the junction and headed the short ½ mile back to the Behemoth. When we reached the Behemoth we were surprised to find that our Alltrail app had logged 10 miles and over 1400 feet of elevation gain! (10 Miles, 1496 ft of elevation gain, 4943 calories burned) A far cry from the park services figures of 8 miles and 787 feet of elevation gain. This is the longest day hike we have done together! But it did not seem like it was that long until the final mile!