Slot Canyons in Escalante


My 4th day of my Journey and day one with a guide....

Day 4 started early as I was up late the night before packing my backpack and I had to be at the tour office at  6 a.m. I was pretty excited but I was also nervous about what the day would hold Coyote Gulch. It was one of the most strenuous hikes. I packed my wading shoes and neoprene socks because we would be in and out of the river. I did not know how it was all going to go and I wanted to be prepared. I was the first arrived at the tour office. The guide was there but no with the other hikers. I was eager to see what they would be like and hoped it would be a good group and that I wouldn't be the person to hold us back. A young fella came in, 40 years old ER Doctor Who bikes does Triathlon skis. I could tell I might could hold him back - ha.  I found out we were going to pick up the other person in Escalante. That was a two-hour drive from the office.

As we were driving we were discussing the cold snap and how the fall color was gone it what  the chances of hypothermia were as it was very cold and we were going done into  the canyon. The hike we going to do would take us in and out of river for hours. The color we are going for wasn't there. We needed to decide if we were going to do this hike or try something else. There is alot in the Escalante area to do. The three of us decided that we would prefer doing something different but we needed to get get a fourth persons opinion.  There's some neat slot canyons that sounded interesting. 


It was a long drive without the Escalante and finally we picked up a fourth person. He ended up  to be older than me but in good shape. He was from England. We decided to do the slot canyons that day and  we would still do the Golden Cathedral hike (another long strenuous hike) the next day. So headed to Peekaboo and Spooky Canyon the drive being about 45 minutes down the road. The road is called Hole in the wall. The hike to the Canyons wasn't bad, not near what I had feared for our first day. It was going to be a dry hike so was able to leave the wading boots the vehicle. At the beginning of  peekaboo Canyon  there was a 15 ft climb up into the canyon. There were footholds but it was pretty much straight up. Our guide offered to take care of her backpacks thank goodness.It looked hard enough with out having 35 lbs on my back. The Climb wasn't bad and I felt bad for having my guide have to carry my backpack up but probably was the right call. It was a nicecanyon.  I'm not sure how long it went on but we did a nice section of it taking turns shooting that.

Next we headed over to Spooky Canyon which was a very narrow Canyon. One of the people in our group couldn't fit through a section of it so didn't go quite as far as we might've but I think it just kept getting even more narrow so probably not much more we could have done. 

There was one more Canyon in the area we checked out but it wasn't very interesting so  we headed back to the car  and headed to Devils Garden enjoy the sunset. There's a nice Arch formmation there  and something called the three sisters. We caught the Sunburst  through the devil's Arch and then we caught the moon back behind the three sisters with a sunset. What a great day!!