Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah
Utah - Peek-a-Boo and Spooky Slot Canyons, Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument. Explore: Two enchanting slot canyons, one Utah day-hike of a lifetime; Peek-A-Boo to Spooky Gulch. Although these specific slot canyons do not require technical rope skills, it is recommended. 8 Amazing Slot Canyons to Explore 1. Antelope Canyon. Arguably the most beautiful slot canyon on this list, this is also the most popular. Located on Navajo lands, this slot canyon can only be visited on a tour. Two different slot canyons make up Antelope Canyon and both offer very different experiences. Feb 15, 2020 The Subway at Zion National Park in Utah is one of the most visited slot canyons in the world by backpackers and canyoneers alike. The Subway is not for the faint at heart- it takes some work to get there. There are two ways to explore The Subway.
You may love hiking, but you’ve never fully experienced adventure hiking until you’ve explored some slot canyons. Slot canyon hiking is a mellower cousin of technical canyoneering, but it’s far more involved and exciting than your standard saunter through the desert.
Indeed, slot canyoning is an exercise in human Slinky-ness: You shimmy, scramble, wade, scoot, slog, crawl, and problem-solve. You’re generally shaded from the blistering desert sun, and as most slots have water puddles (if not outright streams and pools), you can cool off along the way. This makes them an option even during primetime summer in Utah.
While hikes through slot canyons are beautiful, they can’t compare to rappelling down one or having your partner help you climb over a stuck rock. A technical canyon is the best version of an adult obstacle course nature has to offer us, and one of the most adventures fun found anywhere.
Of course, slot canyons come with their own set of dangers, so it’s best to be prepared ahead of time and stay on your toes in the moment. Navigation isn’t always straightforward, so excellent route-finding skills and a topo map are a must. Also, keep in mind that slot canyons aren't usually dog-friendly if they involve very tight spaces and scrambling.
You’ll also need to keep a sharp eye on the weather report: If there’s been any rain locally or uphill of the area, or if there’s any rain in the near forecast, be extremely careful of flash floods. They come with little warning, and if you’re miles into a slot with no escape, it can spell serious trouble. But if there’s no rain in sight and none on the way, you’re good to go. Consult with a local ranger if you want an authoritative opinion.
Many slots also require a cross-country schlep to get back to your starting point, and these walks are usually in full sun, with diminutive cairns that blend into the landscape. So you’ll want to be on full alert to stay on the right path, and keep plenty of water in your supply for this section of the journey. In addition, you'll need a handy map, good route-finding skills, a good attitude about scrambling and scootching, and a cooler full of beer back at the car. You will have earned it by the end of your excursion.
Here, a primer on exploring southern Utah's best slot canyons—hikes you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
1. Best Add-On to a Goblin Valley Trip: Little Wild Horse
You’ll want to budget the better part of a day to explore Little Wild Horse canyon’s eight miles of winding redrock slots and stunning open spaces. The trailhead is found in the Goblin Valley area, which has a lot to explore and ample camp spots. But Little Wild Horse is a treasure within an extraordinary landscape.
The hike makes a loop that brings you back to the trailhead lot—and along the way you’ll wind, scramble, and shimmy through narrow rock slots, then open up in a flat riverbed, amble along a dirt path, and finally land back in rocky narrows as you complete the loop back to your car.
2. Best Long-Haul Hike: Buckskin Gulch
Buckskin Gulch is one of the longest and deepest slot canyons on the planet—and it’s found just a ways outside Kanab, Utah. Over the course of 13 miles, it rarely gets wider than 20 feet, and in many sections it’s just wide enough to walk through with your pack.
The hike is long enough that many people make an overnight backpacking trip out of it, leaving a shuttle car at one end. If you’re coming in with overnight gear, you may want to put key items like your sleeping bag and change of clothing in a dry bag.
Another option: Go as far as you can for the day, then turn back to where you started. One high-stakes factor is that because the canyon is so long, it takes a while to get out of if a rainstorm comes through, which means you’re exposed to serious flash-flood danger in a contained area. Be smart about only hiking it when there are no storms in sight—and no storms upstream, either.
You need to snag a permit for this hike, and remember to wear water-friendly shoes in case you end up slogging a bit deep in the canyon. A detailed guidebook and topographical map are recommended as well.
3. Best for Epic Wading: Zion Narrows
Hiking the Narrows takes some logistics and thoughtful packing, to be sure, but it’s beyond worthwhile. You’ll travel 16 miles through one of the most glorious gorges in the world, your feet kept cool in the Virgin River, as you gaze upward at the 2,000 feet of soaring redrock cliffs on either side of you.
Zion National Park bustles in the summer, brimming with tourists (so many, in fact, that the park recently closed the main road to private vehicles and requires visitors to take shuttle buses instead). So it makes sense that the most accessible part of the Narrows, the bottom, is heavily tracked. But hiking the narrows from the top, 16 miles upstream, removes you from the masses and lets you take in the canyon’s full splendor in peace.
Slot Canyons Moab
You’ll need to plan for a permit, pack light, wear water-friendly shoes, bring a water purifier, and keep your group size reasonable (12 people or less, but honestly a much smaller group is more enjoyable). You’ll also need to arrange a car shuttle to get back to your starting point at Chamberlain’s Ranch, a 1.5-hour drive away. Each day you’ll have to hike the full day, usually wading through water, which feels delightfully refreshing when you’re backpacking in the desert. At your mid-way point you can find an established camp site (there are several to choose from) and settle in for a night under the starry sky.
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4. Best for Acrobatic Contortions: Peek-a-Boo and Spooky Canyons
Technically, Peek-a-Boo and Spooky are two different canyons, but they’re often paired together in one loop hike since they run alongside one another. Everything about these canyons is an adventure, starting with their location in the Escalante area, a surreal landscape of twisting slots and crannies carved into the ancient desert. And the drive to the trailhead takes you 26 miles down the Hole-In-The-Rock dirt road, a historic wagon trail. You’ll then meander down the rugged Dry Fork road to an overlook parking lot. And then the hike begins.
From the belly of Dry Fork Canyon, you’ll access Peek-a-Boo gulch by scrambling up a set of stair steps carved into the rock. You’ll ascend up this slot canyon till you top out on the plateau above, then walk a short distance southward till you get to the next sandy wash that drops into Spooky Canyon. You can descend through Spooky to get back to Dry Fork Canyon where you started.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is home to thousands of canyons, large, small, spectacular, remote, popular, and fascinating all at the same time. It holds some of the world’s most exhilarating technical slot canyons that require keen rope skills, teamwork, and yes, cojones. The Grand Staircase is also home to some of the most spectacular and surprisingly doable non-technical hiking and backpacking canyons, some slot, some not. An adventure here will bring you wonder, amazement, and memories to last several lifetimes. The Goat has compiled his favorite canyons of the Escalante, and is here to share with you his Top 5 Best Backpacking Canyons in the Grand Staircase-Escalante. Enjoy!
5. Hackberry Canyon Complex
Set in the far southern portion of the Grand Staircase lies the Hackberry Canyon Complex. Several of the geological features that make the Grand Staircase famous are here, including Grosvenor Arch in the north, The Cockscomb, and Yellow Rock in the south. There are multiple excellent campsite, several side canyons with intimate narrows, adventurous rock scrambles, and some of the best photos to be had in the Grand Staircase near Yellow Rock, dome of Navajo Sandstone swirled with reds, purples, pinks, and blues set within the sulfur-stained sandstone.
The area is particularly excellent for “freestyle” hiking, as adventure can be had for anyone, anytime, with any skill level. Want to crawl through tight narrows? Want to take professional-looking photos? Want to observe important and fascinating geologic features? Want to chill out in a remote wonderland? You can do it all here in the Hackberry.
4. Harris Wash and Canyons Complex
The Golden Cathedral of Neon Canyon is perhaps the most humbling, awe-inspiring, and enormous feature in southern Utah. The name says it all; standing in this monstrous alcove is an experience akin to standing in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The roof of the alcove, a geologic term for an eroded, domed-out feature typically along a river bed, towers over 150ft. above your head and glows a literal Neon Golden.
Aside from the Golden Cathedral, there are several other fabulous canyons to be explored along Harris Wash including Choprock, Silver Falls, Ringtail, Twentyfive Mile, and Fence Canyons branch out from along this spectacular and deeply-cut wash. Excellent narrows, petroglyphs, natural springs, and quintessential Utah canyon wilderness await you here. One could spend days exploring all that Harris Wash has to offer, and the best part is, all you need is your pack, your legs, and a longing for a true wilderness experience.
Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah State
3. Dry Fork Coyote Gulch
Many have heard of the famous Coyote Gulch that forks down to the Escalante River itself, and chances are you have heard of its Dry Fork as well, you just don’t know it yet. Perhaps some of the best canyons in Utah are here in the Dry Fork of Coyote Gulch; Peek-a-Boo, Spooky, and Brimstone Canyons are some of the most popular, spectacular, most narrow, and most exciting canyons in the American Southwest. Although quite popular by Grand Staircase standards, exploring these canyons is a must for anyone looking for a true Utah Canyon Country experience.
In addition to Peek-a-Boo and Spooky, just over the ridge one can access the Egypt Slot Complex, where Egypt 1-10 awaits holding more of the spectacular slots that make the Grand Staircase one of the best places in the world for outdoor adventure.
2. The Upper Escalante Complex
Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah City
The Escalante River, the driving force behind the canyons that have been cut into southern Utah and the Grand Staircase’s miles of sandstone slickrock, is also known worldwide as having some of the best canyoning adventures in the American Southwest. Hiking and backpacking in and around the upper Escalante drainage provides some of the most spectacular, outrageous, fantastic, and remote canyons in Utah, and some of the best opportunities to experience what makes the Grand Staircase such a wonderful place.
Death Hollow and the Boulder Mail Trail, Little Death Hollow, Spencer Canyon and the famed “Volcano”, Calf Creek Falls, and The Gulch are all located here, each providing their own limitless opportunities for backcountry hiking, backpacking, canyoneering, and solitude. Cultural and geologic history abound here, as the upper Escalante weaves a story rich in pioneering history that holds some of the most interesting and legendary stories of the Old West.
1. Main Fork Red Breaks Canyon
In all likelihood, there is a picture of this place on your computer’s screen right this moment. If not, just wait for it to go to its screensaver and you will see what we’re talking about. Within the Red Breaks Canyon Complex lies perhaps the most photogenic and fantastic slot canyon in all of Utah; Zebra and the Tunnel.
If ever there was a canyon wall that resembled an animal, this is sure it. Almost-painted with creamy red and white streaks mimicking the cross-bedded sandstone, Zebra Canyon truly owns the markings of its namesake animal that graces the African Savannah. The Tunnel is aptly named as well, as hikers pass through a narrow slot that resembles, what else, a tunnel. Both of these slots canyons can be done in conjunction with one another, and add up to one of the greatest adventures in Utah
As always, the best way to see these canyons and hikes are with our geologist/guides. They are Wilderness First Responder trained, expert in the terrain of the Grand Staircase, and well-versed in everything you need to know about the flora, fauna, history, and the rocks that set the stage for them all. Call us for more information about our many offerings in the Grand Staircase and Utah Canyon Country.
Going Guided
Hiking and exploring Grand Canyon, or any of the National Parks, is a special experience. Although it is possible to see these places yourself, hiring a guide is a great idea. For instance, guiding services provide logistical support, and plan everything for your best possible trip. They provide a great safety net on the trail, and are trained in backcountry medicine. Above all, they provide a depth of knowledge of the region that turns a walk into a true adventure.
Blue Marble Adventure GeoTourism provides all of the support you need, and pairs that with expert geologist/guides. Our backcountry meals use fresh ingredients, and are planned by a professional chef. Furthermore, we provide top-of-the-line gear and passion for the places we explore. In conclusion, you can visit National Parks, but going with a guide can create and even more memorable experience. Don’t be shy, and call us!
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