For my mom’s birthday a few years back, she wanted to go canyoneering near Escalante in Utah. Escalante is a popular adventuring location for off roading, canyoneering, hiking, and camping, and well known for it’s slot canyons. https://utah.com/escalante-canyon Recently though, this area came under threat from the Trump administration, who sought to open up this remarkable wilderness to the oil and gas industry. Read more here
We booked through a business called “Excursions of Escalante” which I highly recommend. Rick was super knowledgeable, funny, and safe. We started early in the morning so that we could drive out and hike into the slot canyons before the sun and heat of the day got too intense.
To prepare for your excursion, there’s a couple things you should know. Rick and his team made sure that everyone had adequate supplies before hand, but things like shoes, or clothes, you need to have ahead of time. First of all, be sure to bring a pair of sturdy hiking boots with good grip. The slot canyons get very wet, sandy, and muddy. The limestone rocks are very slick, and the crevices can get very tight. I’ve had my Merrell hiking boots for over five years now, and I would highly recommend them. They’re durable, good quality, and the ankle support is super beneficial for hiking the slot canyons. I won’t, however, recommend those rose colored pants I was wearing. After sliding around in the slot canyons for an hour or two, the seam on my backside got caught and tore, which made things a bit awkward for the next several hours. I also recommend wearing layers, as in the early morning the shade of the canyon was fairly chilly, but by the middle of the day we got hot pretty quickly. The team also recommended me changing out of my tank top into a T-shirt, to protect my shoulders while sliding around in the canyon.
We drove several miles out into the wilderness, following Rick. Our decent into the first slot canyon required a bit of rappelling. Rick and his assistant did well to help all of us down, with our varying levels of experience. While Phillip and I had recent rock climbing experience, my dad hadn’t rappelled in several decades, and my mom had never done anything like it before.
Once in the canyon, we spent several hours squeezing through the rocks, wading through water, sloshing through mud, and sliding on the rocks. One tip that Rick recommended and did for us was to freeze our water bottles, so that our water stayed cold throughout the day. Highly recommend doing that if you have the ability next time you’re hiking in the heat.
We took a break for lunch to eat our sandwiches in the sand, then it was back through the muck:
Throughout the day we worked as a team, pulling each other up other rocks, passing our packs from one person to another, helping each other out of mud. The packs that carried our personal items, lunch, ropes, and extra water were super handy and waterproof, but durable too, to stand up to the sliding against the canyon walls. Coming out of the canyon, we had to hike up some of the slick rock. At first it looks easy, but then you realize that the slope is very steep, and the sand on the rocks make it hard to grip; one slip could mean a dangerous and long tumble. We ended up rappelling/using ropes a bit just to make sure everyone felt and stayed safe.
We headed back to home base at the end, where we were served cold ice cream and had out boots hosed down to get rid of all the mud. Even though we didn’t think we hiked more than a couple miles total, the effort of hiking through mud, or stepping through the tight cracks wore us all out, and we were ready to hang out and relax next to the campfire that night.
