A little more thought on a Needles trip

Let's see more specifically how I could pull this off, and specifically how to pull it off in a week, since I don't want to take more than 5 days of vacation.  Most likely, I'd try to take this trip in March, in which I can't tack on any holiday days, but if I somehow decided that going in later April and adding the Easter holiday to the routine, I could make it easier, including keeping the trip down to four days of vacation time and having more cushion to do it in as well.  But let's go for the harder itinerary first.

Day 1 (Saturday): Drive from home to my normal mid-Nebraska midpoint.
Day 2 (Sunday): Drive from mid-Nebraska to Moab.
Day 3 (Monday): First day of Chesler Park hike
Day 4 (Tuesday): Second day; stay back at Squaw Canyon campground
Day 5 (Wednesday): First day of Salt Canyon exploration
Day 6 (Thursday): Second day of Salt Canyon and Horse Canyon exploration; back at Sqauw Canyon
Day 7 (Friday): Explore some other Moab sites reachable by car, particularly Fisher Towers.
Day 8 (Saturday): Drive back to Omaha
Day 9 (Sunday): Drive the rest of the way home.

If I do it in April, I can leave on Friday, take fewer vacation days, and get an extra day of hiking, which means I can actually do Horse Canyon and Salt Creek canyon as to discrete trips with a stop back at the water and established campground at Squaw Canyon.  I have to come almost all the way back to Squaw Canyon campground from exploring one to take the other fork to the other anyway, and that keeps me from needing to carry more than two days worth of water.

Of course, I may decide that I don't even want that much backcountry time anyway, and that I've already bit off as much as I want to chew.

I also don't really like using Sundays as driving days, but realistically, with a normal work schedule and a 2-day drive on either end of the trip, I don't have a lot of choices that don't make significant sacrifices to my ability to actually do the purpose of the trip.  I suppose if it's really that bad, I could stop for Church somewhere in whatever town I'm passing through at 9 AM and get at least sacrament meeting, but most likely I'll consider that and not do it, which is what normally happens.  It's just too difficult to pull off, and makes my arrival schedule too late that day too.

I may be overthinking the water management problem, though.  From what I've seen of trip reports in the area, it's not necessarily that dry during the spring.  And this was actually quite a bit later in the spring than I was talking about.  In fact, it's late enough that if this worked out, it does kind of make me think that maybe April or even early May might not be a bad time to go.

https://backcountrypost.com/threads/salt-creek-canyonlands.3945/

https://www.visitutah.com/things-to-do/backpacking/canyon-country-southern-utah/big-needles-loop-canyonlands/

https://www.backpacker.com/trips/canyonlands-national-park-salt-creek-lavender-canyon-loop

UPDATE: I suspect that, as normal, I'm being too ambitious.  I see from various online trip reports that people do the Salt Creek as a point to point and still take 4-5 days to do it.  Here, I'm thinking that I'd jaunt most of the way down it and turn around all in two days!  Granted, some of those people had rather leisurely approaches, but then again; wouldn't I rather do that myself?  One group got caught in a pretty serious storm that lasted most of an afternoon, and then had to contend with flooded, swampy conditions the next day, both of which slowed them up considerably too.  But, it looks like unless you're doing a late season approach, there should be plenty of water in the Salt Creek canyon to make carrying gallons and gallons unnecessary.  In any case, I've seen other trip reports that call it a day hike, albeit a long one.  I'm unsure on how to proceed.

Although it's not cheap, I like the idea of having a shuttle. (It gets cheaper (per person, anyway) the more you have in your party.)  Hiking from Cathedral Butte to Chesler Park sounds doable and great, before finishing the Chesler Park loop and returning to Squaw Canyon campground and the car.

Needles district potential itinerary?

I'll add a Caltopo of this later.  How about starting at Elephant Hill (or Squaw Flat if the road to Elephant Hill looks bad) and doing two separate jaunts.  One of them does a loop into Chesler Park, spends the night there, sees Druid Arch, comes back around through Joint Trail, and gets back after less than 48 hours.  There are five campsites in Chesler, and any of them will do, although CP1 is further away from the other four, which are relatively close.  The two EC campsites are another nearby option.

At Squaw Flat, by the way, there's drinking water and a campground, so after doing this, we just dump out there and spend the night.  Early the next morning, we tank up our water containers (including our stomachs!) and hit the trail again, this time heading more directly south and exploring the Big Spring and Squaw Canyon areas before taking the Salt Creek Canyon and spending another night at SC4.  This is a relatively long day of hiking (about 15 miles or so) but you could cut it back to nearly 10 by just heading more directly to Salt Creek Canyon.  You'll probably want to come back that way anyway.  Get SC4 for two nights and explore the Salt Creek Canyon area the second day without your packs, specifically seeing Angel Arch.  If going all the way to Kirk's Cabin isn't your thing, you can instead take the unimproved road to Paul Bunyan's Potty, Tower Ruin, Fortress Arch and Castle Arch, and get back to SC4.  After spending two nights at SC4, head back to your car and into Moab for a shower, a restaurant and recuperation before driving back home.


Fairly quick and easy, without over-extending too much (although if I really hiked all the way to Cathedral Butte and back, that second leg would be more than 50 miles, without even talking about the side exploration, so that's probably not happening.

It would be easier if I had a good 4-wheel drive, of course, because I'm walking on some umimproved jeep trails for part of the way that I could drive on with the right vehicle.  But still; I prefer my feet anyway. I just won't be able to do all of this, because the second loop is potentially too ambitious.  I marked more than I'd ever be willing to do.  Plus, with water being an issue, even in March or early April, I don't want want to spend more than two nights and three days out.  Maybe not even that long if it's really dry and relatively hot.