NORTHERN ARIZONA
White Pocket is a group of swirling, multicolored sandstone formations - literally a bunch of petrified sand dunes. It's like nothing I've ever seen.
The White Pocket series of domes and ridges covers one-square mile in the middle of a desert, literally a pocket of unique formations in an otherwise sandy, brushy landscape. It is located in northern-central Arizona, just south of the Utah border.
Once you arrive, you are surrounded by flat desert, spotted with brush. You start walking and all of a sudden, you see it - this other world emerging from the sand dunes. And it literally stops you in your tracks ... to take this picture. :)
See what I mean about the sand and the desert flora? And behind it you can just make out the rock formations, peeking out of the sand. This is nothing - check out the pics below when you are actually IN the pocket.
The Brain Rocks
I am 100% sure this is NOT what they are called, but this is what my little group called them. :) Look at this picture and tell me it doesn't look like brain matter?
The Yogurt Swirls
From brain matter to ... YOGURT SWIRLS!! Looking at this scenery, all I could think about was caramel / vanilla / strawberry. This pic even has whipped cream on top! Apparently I was hot and hungry on this hike ...
See the guy standing up there in the picture below? Helps provide perspective on how big this place is.
How to Get to White Pocket
I had never heard of White Pocket, but Deb (who has been everywhere, all over the world) suggested I check it out and warned me that I need to hire a guide because the roads are difficult to manage and you need a 4x4 vehicle with high clearance. I thought, "how bad can it be?" Spoiler alert: bad enough to need a 4x4 vehicle with high clearance.
I went with Dreamland Safari Tours, based in Kanab, UT, and they picked me up in a 4x4 Suburban at House Rock Valley Junction. I mention this because it is 34.6 miles from this pick-up point to White Pocket ... and it took TWO HOURS to get there!
The first part of the drive was easy - gravel road, littered with washboards and a few ruts, but nothing the ol' Highlander couldn't handle.
The second part was tricky. Less gravel, more packed sand. Deep ruts. Cattle guards with the roads washed out around them, leaving deep drop-offs on either side that would very likely leave the ol' Highlander hung up. (This is why you need a high-clearance vehicle.) This part was slow-going to maneuver around deep ruts and to save our heads from banging into the ceiling of the car.
And the final part of the trip. Wow! The roads were simply tracks through pure, fine, deep sand. Our driver had to deflate the tires to provide more surface area and traction. There were times, even as a passenger, you could feel the Suburban's tires spinning and the engine revving up to get through the sand.
The nerve-wracking part was trying to pass an oncoming car. The other vehicle drove up out of the tracks, onto the "shoulder" of the tracks and stopped. We drove up on the opposite shoulder to pass them. The challenge is that, because each vehicle is angled up onto the shoulder, it can actually slide toward the middle of the road. This happened to BOTH vehicles, to the point that we were no more than a foot apart, spinning wheels through sand to get around each other. We all held our breath as our driver, Maddi, handled it brilliantly!
Regret of the day: not getting pics of the roads or videos of us passing oncoming vehicles.
My Tour Group
I'm generally not a fan of tours because I like to move at my own pace and do my own thing. But this little group was awesome! Our driver, Maddi, was informative, somehow got us there and back safely on those crazy roads, and even brought us a lunch. :) And the other people on the tour were so much fun! Yogesh and Daksha who took all the pictures (and who won the lottery for The Wave a couple days later on their first try - woot!), Sergio who climbed every summit, and Andrea who never took a picture ... we had a lot of fun together!
Daksha isn't in these pics because she was our resident photographer, but at least we got Maddi in them:
Four of us, all looking at different things ... and Sergio, the daredevil, on a summit.
Finally, one with Daksha!
I couldn't resist ...
You're still wild and crazy! Good!