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Escalante Slot Canyons

There are a lot of cool slot canyons in Utah. I've explored several in the San Rafael Swell, between Green River and Hanksville. In fact, I've done most of the non-technical canyons in that area: Little Wildhorse Canyon, Bell Canyon, Chute Canyon and Crack Canyon. They were all excellent hikes. But two famous slot canyons that were still on my "to do" list were Peekaboo Canyon and Spooky Canyon. They are notorious for being very narrow slot canyons, so narrow that only one person can go though at a time. In places, you have to turn sideways to squeeze through. They don't require technical canyoneering but are still known for being quite an adventure. The two canyons are close to each other and are usually done together as a loop, going up Peekaboo Canyon and coming down Spooky Canyon. They are located in Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument, near the town of Escalante.

With good weather in the forecast for a few days I decided it was time for me to give them a try. I got Sandy's ok and took off early one morning for the drive to Escalante. The last two hours of the drive is very scenic. Between Torrey and Boulder, Utah Highway 12 goes over a high pass with views over much of Capitol Reef National Park. From Boulder to Escalante, the road travels through Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument. This section passes through one of the most unique landscapes in the country. The route follows a narrow, rocky spine with slickrock going off in all directions as far as the eye can see. It was a beautiful day and I wasn't in a hurry. I took my time, enjoying the scenery as I drove and stopping at several viewpoints to take pictures. When I got to Escalante, I got a room at the Prospector Inn. It's my standard spot to stay when I am there on my own. It's nothing fancy, but it's clean and it's inexpensive.

Next morning I left before the sun was even up, when it was just beginning to get light in the east. I had a long way to go to reach the trailhead. It's thirty miles from town, most of it along the Hole-in-the-Rock road, a primitive road that starts at Highway 12 and ends at Lake Powell. It's a very remote area and the road is dirt all the way. It's no problem for an ordinary car, at least as far as I was going, but I've read that it gets awfully rough near the end. There are sections that are badly washboarded, which required driving slowly. It took me about an hour to reach the trailhead.

I had two choices for starting points. The shortest approach starts at the Lower Dry Fork Trailhead. From there, the round trip is 4.8 miles with 442 feet of elevation gain. The other approach is from the Upper Dry Fork Trailhead and is a little longer, 6.5 miles and 669 feet of elevation gain. Unfortunately AllTrails.com was wrong and had the names of the trailheads reversed. This had me confused for a while since I use their website to plan my hikes. I also use their mobile app with my GPS to navigate and track my progress while I am on the trail. Eventually I was able to sort it out so I knew which trailhead was the start of which route. Both distances seemed pretty reasonable and the elevation gain wouldn't be a factor. Hiking on slickrock and through a slot canyon can add some scrambling, which increases the amount of effort required, but I still felt that I could easily do either route since I had the whole day. I finally settled on the longer route from the upper trailhead. It approaches Peekaboo and Spooky through Dry Fork Canyon, which I read is an interesting canyon in its own right. Three canyons for the price of one hike sounded like a good deal.

There was a sign at the trailhead warning that Spooky Canyon was very narrow. The sign itself was about six feet off the ground, with two heavy metal supports about a foot apart. The sign warned that if you couldn't fit between the two supports, you shouldn't try to go through Spooky Canyon. The sign was placed by the BLM because people have gotten stuck and required rescue. Fortunately I had been working hard to lose weight in preparation for the dive trips that I took over the past winter, so I was able to make it through without any trouble.

The trail started out by crossing the road and heading into open desert, weaving in and out through the sagebrush. The landscape didn't look very exciting, but I knew from previous Utah hikes that spectacular canyons can sometimes appear suddenly out of nowhere. Soon I reached the upper portion of Dry Fork. Here the route crossed slickrock, marked by cairns, as it dropped down into the sandy wash. Once at the bottom, there really wasn't a trail. I just followed lots of footprints that were in the sand that filled the bottom of the wash.

As I continued, the sides of the wash became rockier and started to close in. After climbing down a small rock step, I was in the beginning of a canyon. The further I went, the higher the walls rose, and eventually I was in a real slot canyon. The walls were twenty to fifty feet high and were usually about six feet apart, sometimes narrowing down to about three feet. Very impressive. The narrows were about half a mile long before the canyon opened up again. If this was just the warm up act, I figured that this was going to be a great hike.

Immediatly after the Dry Fork narrows was a signed junction with the trail that climbed up to the other trailhead. That would be the way I would hike back to my car to complete the loop. The other direction was for Peekaboo and Spooky. All right! I was ready for the main event. (Oops. If I want to avoid a mixed metaphor, I should probably say "I was ready for the headliners".)

It was only about another hundred yards and I was at the entrance to Peekaboo Canyon. Most accounts of the hike that I had read agreed that getting into the canyon is the toughest part of the entire route. It requires climbing a steep rock step. Some accounts said it's twelve feet high, some said it's fifteen feet. I consider myself a mountaineer though. I've done lots of scramble routes to reach the summits of mountain peaks, so one short rock step should be no problem, right? Well, when I saw it, I wasn't sure how high it was, but it definitely didn't look easy. There was a group of hikers in the process of going up, and they were taking quite some time to do it. They weren't just zooming up. Several other people were nearby waiting for their turn to try. I hadn't seen anyone else up to this point so most of these people had probably started at the other trailhead. Still, the fact that there was more than one group queued up indicated that people were having trouble and needed quite a bit of time to overcome the obstacle to enter the canyon.

Since there were several groups ahead of me, I found a comfortable spot and settled down where I could get some beta, watching how other people managed to climb up to the start of Peekaboo Canyon. There were actually two distinct, steep steps. The first was about five or six feet high and led to a small alcove, where most people could stand and rest comfortably. There were a couple of rounded indentations in the rock leading up to that ledge, but they didn't look like very good holds. From the alcove, another steep step on the right led to the opening into the canyon. I saw people use various techniques to climb the second step. Some climbed straight up on mostly friction holds. Some went up backwards, putting their feet against a flake that protruded from the side to chimney up. Some people weren't proud and just got a boost from someone below them. Others grabbed a hand lowered from above by someone who had already made it up. Most people were in groups of two to four. Only about half of them climbed up unassisted. The other half got help from their hiking partners. Nope. It definitely didn't look easy.

Unfortunately I was a solo hiker, the only one there. I didn't have anyone to lend me a hand. I would have to surmount the obstacle on my own. I knew I would need time to figure out how to get up the rock step. I have to admit that I was overly self conscious and didn't want to try (and possibly fail) in front of an audience. The problem was that most groups took about five minutes to get up. In that time, usually one or two more groups showed up. There was never a gap where no one else was there. It is a popular hike and it was a beautiful spring day. I just kept letting people who arrived after I did go ahead while I waited.

I was a little nervous, especially because of my knee replacement. It has been just over a year since it was done, and just the start of my second hiking season. While hiking has been fine, I wasn't sure about rock climbing. My new knew doesn't bend nearly as far as the old one did. That's a problem when trying to use widely spaced holds on rock. I also didn't quite trust it to support my weight when I was in an unusual position. I just hadn't tested it like that yet. So whenever my turn came, I deferred and let others go ahead. Finally after about half an hour there was a break when no one was there. I started to climb but ran into the problem I had anticipated. I needed to take a big step up using my left leg at a weird angle. I didn't trust it. As I was looking around for a different option, another group came around the corner. I stepped off and let them go ahead. They were polite and offered to give me a boost, but I declined. I waited a bit longer but more and more people were showing up. I accepted that I wasn't going to get a chance to have time to work it out on my own and decided to head back.

Back at the junction, I turned onto the other trail to complete the loop. It climbed out of Dry Fork on several broad slickrock ledges. It was fun hiking, even if not quite as good as the narrows on the way in. It was definitely a good variation for the return. That only lasted until I got up onto the rim and into the desert. After that, the rest of the hike was fairly boring. It was just a sandy trail, winding in and out of the sagebrush.

As I went farther the trail deteriorated. The worn path seemed to fork repeatedly, each time getting fainter as different people went different ways. Eventually there wasn't any real trail to speak of. I wasn't worried as I could see the restroom at the trailhead off in the distance. I knew I was going in the right direction. The vegetation wasn't very heavy so it was easy going, even without a real trail. Finally I reached the road and just followed that back to the car. I was disappointed that I hadn't done Peekaboo and Spooky Canyons but I was determined that I would come back and try again. Besides, it had been a beautiful day and just the hike through Dry Fork Canyon had been excellent.

On the way back I stopped at Devil's Garden Outstanding Natural Area Quite a mouthful. It was about a quarter mile off the main road. There are a number of hoodoos, arches and other interesting sandstone formations concentrated in a small area. I spent about half an hour wandering through the rocks. It wasn't really far enough to call it hiking, but it was still impressive to see.

Back in town, I had dinner at Escalante Outfitters. They make good pizza. I also bought a tshirt there to help improve my mood before calling it a night.

I had planned to do another hike the next day. Now I wasn't sure what to do. I thought that I could get up extra early and go back and try Peekaboo and Spooky before anyone else got there. Nah. I wasn't sure how early I had to go to beat other hikers. I didn't really feel like getting up super early. And I was thinking that I really should get some more experience with my new knee before I tried again.

I thought about doing a different hike. I have always wanted to do the Boulder Mail Trail, which is nearby. But no, after the disappointment today I wasn't really gung ho to do a different hike the next day. I decided to just head back. Next morning I slept in and then took my time driving back to Boise. But I was resolved that I would come back and try again. I'm not sure when, but I am going to try again.