DECEMBER 2011
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| THE WAVE |
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| THE WAVE |
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| THE WAVE |
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| THE WAVE |
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| FORMATIONS BETWEEN THE WAVE & WIRE PASS |
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| LANDSCAPE NEAR THE WAVE |
The Wave is an over-hyped rock formation on the Utah-Arizona border accessed via a 5 mile round-trip hike from the Wire Pass Trailhead. In my opinion, the BLM thinks its more special than it really is, so they only allow 20 people per day to visit it through a complicated lottery system. I've read that the success rate for the lottery is only around 14%, meaning most people aren't allowed to hike here.
While generally supportive of the BLM, I don't like it when they start blocking hikers from public lands. In my opinion, there are plenty of cool trails to go around in the southwest, so just let people hike them whenever they want, and they will naturally disperse when one spot gets too crowded. People who don't mind crowds can visit on popular weekends during the spring, while those who prefer solitude can hike the popular trails on weekday mornings in the winter.
Anyway, I decided to add The Wave to my hike into Buckskin Gulch over New Years weekend in 2011, and while it was nice, I couldn't understand what all the hype was about. I guess it just didn't touch me the way it touches other people. It feels like something that should be a side-trip along a trail to something cooler, and not a destination of its own.
