A Quick Jaunt through Peekaboo and Spooky Canyons

 Before I left Escalante, I wanted to check out Peekaboo and Spooky Canyons. These are short, family-friendly non-technical slot canyons. I had wanted to visit them with my family in May, but the abundant rain prevented that. Fortunately, my last day in Grand Staircase-Escalante dawned with nary a storm cloud in the sky. I slept in, which is quite a feat as I was sleeping in the bed of the pickup truck. However, I've found if I wear a little eye cover, I get much better sleep as it blocks out the light of the moon and even the light of the sun!

I had a leisurely start as I drove down Hole-in-the-Rock Road to the Dry Fork Trailhead, 26 miles south of Highway 12. The information I had read said it was passable to passenger vehicles, but I found the Hole-in-the-Rock Road to be quite rough, with lots of washboards and some sandy spots. I did see one passenger car, but everything else was SUVs with a few pickups thrown in. The Dry Fork trailhead road was very rough, with a two-track to the trailhead. When I arrived, two other vehicles were there. I got together my gear (not forgetting knee pads this time, even though these were short canyons), and reread my guidebook. It said you could see the entrance to Peekaboo Canyon from the trailhead, behind the sheer cliff wall. Sure enough, I saw a slot. I took off on the well-marked trail, following the rock cairns.

For those who aren't used to hiking on rock and steering by rock cairns, just the hike down to the canyon start will be an adventure.

Before too long I arrived in the Dry Fork Wash and sauntered (it was kind of hot, so I wasn't exactly trotting) up to the start of Peekaboo Canyon. It was about 9:30 am, and no one else was around. I saw that the entrance required a little bit of climbing, although steps carved into the rock made it a little too easy.

Not far up the canyon I saw the promised double arch.

It was indeed gorgeous.

The canyon twisted and turned, sometimes with taller walls and sometimes with shorter walls. There were a couple little climbs that would be difficult for kids (or shall we say they would be good team-building experiences). And then I came out of the narrow section. Here's the view looking back down the canyon:

Peekaboo comes out into a shallow wash with a prominent cairn on the south side. You can apparently make a much longer loop if you bring rope and rappelling gear with you, but I was just into the short trip today. I started following the rock cairns and sandy trails, not really sure what I was aiming for.

In about 15 minutes I came to this huge sandy wash. This had to be Spooky Canyon. It looked like a big watershed, so not the best place to be in a thunderstorm, when lots of water would be funneled down the wash.

The canyon quickly narrowed, and I was hot and thirsty, so I found a very scenic shady spot and sat down for a break. It was so enjoyable just relaxing in the canyon all by myself. I had been expecting lots more people.

Spooky gets kind of narrow. As in you can't wear a pack and have to turn your body sideways narrow.

The walls are gorgeous, undulating sandstone.

After a climbdown through some boulders and more squirming through even tighter passage, I emerged and headed right (north) back into the Dry Fork Wash. The walls were higher, providing some pleasant shade. If I had had more time, I could have gone down canyon 30 minutes to explore Brimstone Canyon, but I felt home calling me, so I headed in the direction of the trailhead.

When I reached the entrance of Peekaboo, I saw people. A German family was trying to haul their tripod up the Peekaboo entrance with a rope, a couple was approaching, and another couple was heading down Dry Fork, probably trying to avoid the traffic jam.

Very close to Peekaboo I saw a canyon entrance and spent a few minutes enjoying the wider passageway. This is part of Dry Fork Wash, a very scenic part.

I hiked back up to the trailhead, making my journey in about 2 1/4 hours. The usual time recommended is 2.5-4.5, which seems accurate if you're with others and spending more time to enjoy the sights (or waiting for others to squeeze through the narrows and do the climbs). With the kids, I would say 4 hours would be about right. For a few more details about this hike, check out this website.

Peekaboo and Spooky are a really great intro to canyoneering, but getting there is a little more difficult than I expected. Nevertheless, for those who have never done canyoneering, this will be a hike to remember!

Neon Canyon

 On our Escalante canyoneering trip, we originally were going to do Neon Canyon as part of a backpacking trip, but due to the bad roads we had to switch our plans and do Neon Canyon as a day trip (Excursions of Escalante offers this as a four-day trip and Zion Adventure Company offers a three-day trip).

We had to hike three miles cross-country to the Escalante River, cross the river, then hike up above the canyon, drop into the canyon and navigate it, then hike the three miles back to the trailhead. The hike looked daunting as we saw our landmark butte out in the distance.

Far distance.

It looked really far away.

Yikes, it was far!

Normally three miles doesn't sound far, but when you can see the whole three miles laid out right in front of you, it looks far. (Can you spot the person in the bottom third of the photo? He's already tiny and not so far away.)

Nevertheless, we started hiking. Hiking on the rock wasn't so tough, but there were a lot of sandy sections. We tried to stay off the cryptobiotic soil, the soil that is held together by lichens (which themselves are a combination of fungi and algae). The cryptobiotic soil keeps the soil in place and can be hundreds or even thousands of years old.

We started hiking in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and crossed an unmarked boundary into Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Eventually we got to where we could see the green swath of the Escalante River. What a welcoming sight! As we got close to our butte, we could see the canyon below it, meeting up with the Escalante.

The Escalante River wasn't quite what I expected. The entire streambed is really wide, and we first crossed a dry section of it. We could hear water, so we knew the stream was close, and after bushwhacking through willows reached it. The water was running fast and brown from the recent rains, and was over knee high crossing it. Small branches floated down, and I felt the river trying to push me over as I crossed. But that wasn't enough to prevent a few of us taking a small trail upstream and jumping in and floating to the canyon entrance. It felt great to cool off!

We ate an early lunch and then started up the canyon, quickly hiking out of the canyon bottom. The view up canyon was spectacular. We followed a well-marked trail past the first possible drop-in place. At the second (the "more fun entrance"), we decided it was time to go into the canyon. It's possible to go much farther up canyon before dropping in, but the most spectacular part is the bottom part and we were doing a daytrip, so we decided this was a good place for us. Plus it was hot, and we were eager to get into the shade of the canyon.

After a quick rappel into a side canyon we entered the main canyon, which was only a few feet wide. A swimmer hole soon followed, and about half the group put on wetsuits. The rest of us were so hot from hiking we decided to give the pools a try in just our shorts and t-shirts.

We had a lot of swimming to do! Or at least backfloating--a backpack with drybags inside makes a nice buoyant container for keeping one high in the water.

After many twists and turns we came out to a section with trees and took a snack break. This is where "the normal" entrance comes in. There are supposed to be moqui steps (steps made by Native Americans in the rock), but I missed them.

We weren't thrilled to see the big, puffy dark clouds overhead, but fortunately we didn't hear any thunder. Nevertheless, we were all aware that the canyon could flash at any time. A storm in the upper reaches, miles from us, could send water swooshing down the narrow canyons. We frequently saw flood debris over our heads.

The next section we would enter was renowned for a couple keeper potholes. These are potholes that have the downstream side higher than you can usually reach, so you have to do shoulder stands or pack tosses or even use a grappling hook to get out. We all put on wetsuits now, anticipating we might be in the water awhile as we did some problem solving.

But the water was so high, that we swam right over the potholes. Our exits were generally easy, like stepping onto a sandy beach.

We went right over what is usually another keeper pothole and then got ready for the final rappel--into the magical Golden Cathedral. Thanks to Bryan for catching this photo of me.

The light was gorgeous, and we felt very lucky to be there. We were fortunate that the weather cooperated. Here's a video of a flash flood in the Golden Cathedral.

Wet and happy!

Many thanks to Bryan for organizing this trip.

I really didn't want to get out of the water, so I floated back over and took a photo of the drop looking up. It looked a little like a face. 

And here's a photo of Pauli coming down.

Once we had stripped off our wetsuits and had another snack, it was time to start the long hike back. It went smoothly, though, and we were back at the vehicle faster than we expected. All in all, a fantastic day! I could understand why Neon and the Golden Cathedral get a lot of hype, they are definitely gorgeous.

Escalante Country

I was invited recently to go on a canyoneering trip. I jumped at the chance, as I'm trying to improve my canyoneering skills, plus it's just a lot of fun. We had originally planned to go to California, but due to the wildfires switched our plans to canyons near Escalante. I had really enjoyed the area in May (despite the rain), so was looking forward to heading back. But as I approached, I saw lots of storm clouds, an ominous sign when you want to spend time in the area's drainages.

I guess one bright side of rain clouds are rainbows.

I arrived outside Escalante at sunset, which was spectacular.

I met up with some of the others in our group and we learned that the road we wanted to go on was likely in bad shape. We decided to take a look and found out it was washed out, and a sheriff's deputy said it was even worse further on. So we parked on the side of the road, made camp, and said hi to the rest of the group when they arrived.

The morning looked good, especially with warm hashbrowns for breakfast. But the road was still washed out.

So we headed into town to Excursions of the Escalante. One of our group members had taken a canyoneering class from the owner, Rick, and was friends with him. Rick graciously pointed out another option for the day that didn't involve waiting for the road crew to fix the road. He asked that we not blog about the name or location of the canyon he sent us to, so I'll respect that. Suffice it to say, there are lots of canyons out there!

And this one involved some tight passageways, tall walls, and beautiful rock.

I only knew one other person on the trip, and it was fun meeting new folks.

We had lots of laughs as we did the canyon--like how many canyoneers does it take to pull a rope?

We also challenged ourselves to try and stay dry in places. The recent rains meant more water in the canyons. I didn't mind walking in some of it, it was a good way to cool off!

We reached a spot where everyone had to get wet.

And then we were back to another tight spot, where you could take the high route or the low route.

It turned out to be a good idea to learn how to take the high route, because in a little while we reached a spot where we could hear a little rattle. A rattlesnake blocked the way, upset at us intruding its home. Its home was the floor of a canyon about three feet wide. We clearly couldn't walk around it. There was no place to move the snake, as it was a slot canyon on either side. So we stemmed up and went over the snake. No one was injured, and we all went on our merry way.

Well, as merry as can be in super tight canyons. I sure wished I hadn't forgotten my knee and elbow pads!

We spent a great day out in canyon country, then went back into town for dinner. Afterwards we decided to drive to the trailhead for the next day's canyons. The road crew had fixed the road, but the side road we took got to a place where it was impassable for all but one of the vehicles, so we stopped there to camp. Sarah found a tarantula--nice find!

The next morning was gorgeous, and I wandered around taking some photos.

Can you see the little bit of a rainbow? Uh oh, we didn't really want moisture in the air!

A canyon I'll have to return to on another trip.

And then it was time to get ready for that day's adventures...to be continued...