Ed Price Photo

Two hours before sunset, we found a campsite and water; slimy green water, so thick that I’d sooner drink my first-night beers and call it good. Salome Creek, and the hope of real water, was another hour away. And so, we marched.

Thirty-six years ago, I first laid eyes on Salome (Suh-lome-eh) Creek with my friend Ken Webb. We were in search of a place called The Jug—a sculpted granite canyon of waterfalls and plunge pools featured in a Jon Krakauer Outside magazine article. To get there, I figured we would hike in from the top and walk downstream.

Three days later, we found it. Beautiful, but the creek was too high to enter the gorge, so we hiked out to the road and began to hitch, that was the plan. Bad plan; we walked 15 miles of dirt road before reaching the Young “Highway” and forcibly flagged down the first truck to pass, at dusk.

I saw my first Gila monster on that trip, and stumbled into a feasting bald eagle. Formative stuff, but what I remember most is what I saw upstream, just before we started down Salome. There, a waterfall streaked out of a mysterious slot like a dragon’s tongue. I had to get back.

Ed Price Photo

It took three and a half decades, but when John Govi and Ed Price signed on this spring, the dragon’s throat would be revealed, if we found water. An hour after leaving the slime pool, upper Salome Creek gurgled beautifully. We slaked it in and called it home.

Of course lots has happened since 1990. The Jug became widely known. Canyoneering became a term. I wrote a guidebook. Other, next-level guidebooks followed. Upper Salome became known as “The Grotto.”

Ed Price Photo

Still, I don’t think the place is much different from last century. It’s a thrash to reach upper Salome. Hiking down the creek is pure bushwhacking. This is not a glory cruise. But there is glory.

Ed Price Photo

Our hike out of Workman Creek—where I’d first seen Salome years ago—was not just an exit route, it was still canyoneering. We were just going in the wrong direction—upstream. Govi free-soloed a climb so Ed and I could have a belay, thank god. We didn’t find the Hells Hole Trail, opting to bash out of the canyon on game trails. Once on top, we wrote off any chance of a “real” trail and began navigating the Sierra Ancha wilderness style. Just then, we bumped into the groomed path, which saved us from a certain be-nighting. Come to think of it, very little has changed in 36 years.