Toadie and Bullet Canyons both drain into Grand Gulch. The Toadie Canyon Trailhead is accessed via road 236A on the Trails Illustrated Grand Gulch Plateau mapsheet. You will see signs for Toadie Canyon marking the road off highway 261. The trailhead is about 2 kilometers down the road.

From the trailhead, the entrance into Toadie canyon takes you across the mesatop for about 1 kilometer; look for cairns and a footpath. The climb down into Toadie is steep and rough and you may need to take your pack off for some of the climbing. After the entrance the hiking is relatively easy, except for a stretch just above Jailhouse Ruin, where it gets a bit rough. Stay low and to the right of the canyon at this point.

Robert and I did this hike in May of 2005. We took three days, camping below Rope Ruin and then near Jailhouse Ruin. This walk is filled with lots of great ruins and amazing rock art. You may want to take longer than we did and do more exploring. Be sure to take a look up Sheiks Canyon as you pass by.

Our camp at Rope Ruin became known as "Bear Camp", as we had a small bear, probably a two year old as he was alone, come walking into our camp, right up on us at 0400 in the morning. We had seen some old scats earlier as we walked down Grand Gulch, but did not expect a visit from him. He was very upset and obviously frightened. He was coming from up-canyon and the cool night air was moving down-canyon. When he finally smelled us he began screaming about as loud as he could, not 100 meters from us. We never really decided who was more startled- the bear or us. He screamed for about the next 25 minutes as he made his way up a side drainage and over a saddle that led into Sheiks Canyon.

Water was scarce in Grand Gulch; we found a few brown, scummy potholes. We were using a Katadyn filter so it was fine to drink after lots of pumping. Once up Bullet Canyon, near Jailhouse Ruin, there was clean, clear, running water.

The 1:24,000 mapsheets for this hike are Cedar Mesa North and Polly's Pasture.



























Split Level Ruin, Grand Gulch.






















The "jailhouse window" at Jailhouse Ruin, Bullet Canyon.






















Moon mask, or shield, at Jailhouse Ruin, Bullet Canyon.