Canyon Slots Utah

• Slot Canyon Utah Zion
• Slot Canyon Utah Escalante

Check out Utah's slot canyons at Canyon Craze. This is a collection of wanderings in the southern Utah's incredible canyons and other fun stuff.

Snow Canyon State Park is Utah's best kept secret, and Jenny's Canyon a definite highlight. Utah's most accessible slot Canyon, the trail is a short and easy hike; a half mile round trip (15 minutes) with small slopes and steps, offering spectacular views over stunning red sand dunes and soaring sandstone cliffs. Zion National Park boasts perhaps the most famous of the slot canyons in Utah – the Zion Narrows. Though this slot canyon ranks as the easiest to traverse within Zion National Park, it is 16 miles long and requires 13 hours to traverse. It includes slippery rocks, river hiking, and some swimming.

Exploring Slot Canyons - Exploring Slot Canyons - Utah has the densest population of slot canyons in the world due to the eroding soft sandstone and arid conditions found in the state. Although most people have heard of two or three slot canyons, there are actually over one-thousand slot canyons south of I-70. Red Hollow Slot Canyon, Orderville: Address, Red Hollow Slot Canyon Reviews: 4.5/5. Exploring the Slot-Canyons of Southern Utah is a unique experience, but only.

×Like the similarly named Red Cave and Red Hollow, Red Canyon forms a colorful series of narrows through the deep red sandstone rock of the Glendale Bench, a few miles east of Zion National Park, although the drainage is a tributary of Kanab Creek rather than the Virgin River.
The canyon has about half a mile of enclosed, curving passages up to 100 feet deep, mostly without any obstructions, and quite easily reached from a main road (US 89); the canyon runs parallel to the highway about 2 miles from it, and may be accessed either by driving along a very sandy 4WD track or walking cross-country, hiking over a rolling, open landscape of dunes and occasional trees (the Sand Hills). Adventure tour companies from Kanab sometimes take visitors to the slot, which is known locally as Peek-a-Boo Canyon, though the place is in general little visited compared to the more famous narrows within the nearby national park.

Topographic Map of Red Canyon

Photographs

9 views of Red Canyon.

Location

A secondary road leaves US 89 a mile east of the turn-off for Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park and runs eastwards alongside (to the north) for 4 miles, rejoining the highway shortly before it begins the descent into Three Lakes Canyon towards Kanab. The secondary road is partly paved, and it provides many good places to camp, close to the main road though mostly out of sight. The track to the canyon starts at the east end of this old road, by the junction with US 89, and is very sandy from the start, as it skirts around a large area of dunes, rises slightly to cross a low ridge then descends towards a dry wash (a tributary of Kanab Creek) where the surface becomes even softer. The remaining stretch is more level though still across deep sand, as the road curves east then back west just before the streamway, meeting it one mile downstream of the end of the slot. ATVs can drive along the streambed right up to the start of the narrows.

Route Description

The wash is enclosed by low cliffs for a short distance below the slot, offering plenty of entry/exit routes before the walls become vertical and form the first section of narrows. The Navajo sandstone here is dark red in appearance, typical of this region, and is eroded into delicate curves bearing graceful surface patterns, from thin horizontal bands of lighter rock crossed by vertical strips of desert varnish. The first narrows are quite short, opening out to a sunlit section, but this doesn't last long as the drainage constricts again to a longer, deeper slot. Some parts are quite dark because of overhanging rocks above, and the smooth curving walls allow for pretty reflections and light effects, quite similar to canyons around Page in Arizona, such as Antelope. The floor is sandy and has no potholes to hold any water so the passages are largely unobstructed, until a 20 foot pour-off topped by protruding chokestones, a blockage not easily climbable. The nearest exit route to bypass this drop is quite far back. Above the dryfall, the canyon is not narrow for much further, soon becoming wider and less sheer-sided.

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Spooky Gulch is a short slot canyon hike in the Grand Staircase-Escalante area, located on the Hole-in-the-Rock Road, 26 miles south of the town of Escalante. Spooky is well-named and pretty famous for how dark it gets when deep in a slot, and for the panic-inspiring quality of its extremely narrow walls.

In order to reach Spooky Gulch, visitors should drive the 26 miles down the Hole-in-the-Rock Road off of Highway 12, until they find the Dry Fork Road, heading northeast into the desert. The Dry Fork turnoff branches after only a few hundred yards, and visitors need to stay left in order to reach the Dry Fork overlook.

Spooky can be combined with Peek-a-boo Gulch to make a fun loop hike. The recommended route is to take Peek-a-boo Gulch first, scrambling north up through its depths, and upon exiting, hiking overland to the east for half a mile until the wide streambed above Spooky Gulch is reached. From there, follow Spooky back down to Dry Fork, and then hike back to the overlook. The total loop route is about 3.5 miles long.

Dry Fork Turnoff

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The entire route from Highway 12 is an extremely rugged washboard road with sand traps and the occasional rut. Though vans and cars can tackle the route, a four-wheel drive vehicle with decent suspension is recommended.

Dry Fork Overlook

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There is a parking lot at the end of the Dry Fork road, beside an overlook that sits 300 feet above the canyon systems below it. From this vantage point, visitors can see the rock formations that hide Spooky and Peekaboo Gulches.

Dry Fork

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A short climb from the overlook takes hikers down a winding path along the slopes and boulders of the cliff, and into the sandy bottom of Dry Fork below. Immediately ahead is Peek-a-boo Gulch, heading north, and the Dry Fork itself continues west. But in order to reach Peek-a-boo, follow the dry creek bed east as it winds its way downstream.

Slot Canyon Utah Zion

Spooky Gulch Bottom

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The opening to Spooky is wide and dark, though it closes up within short order. Only a few hundred feet into the canyon, normal-sized adults will begin having difficulty.

Top of the Gulch

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As the canyon begins to widen again, the sheer sides falling away to gentler slopes, hikers will find themselves at the bottom of a sandy streambed. From here, they can turn around and go back the way they came, or mount the east rim of the canyon and hike back. Or they can trek west until they hit Peek-a-boo and journey back to the Dry Fork overlook by that route.

Slot Canyon Utah Escalante

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