slot canyons rock

[thelawgoddess]

went to the san rafael swell for a couple of days this week for a taste of slot canyoneering. did little wild horse and bell canyons one day - "weekend warrior" stuff. and ding and dang canyons the next - a little more "hardcore." nothing technical, but i sure was glad i had a climbing background for some of that stuff. it was super fun and i highly recommend!!!

[ken4ord]

Cool, I have always wanted to try canyoneering. Got any pics to post, I'd love to see 'em?

[thelawgoddess]

i took a few and hopefully they turned out but it might be a little while before i can post them. (still don't have a digi!)

[glacier]

There are a good handful of slots in the Escalante area - I explored a few back in college. I don't remember the names of the canyons right now - some are in the guidebooks, but many are left for adventurous souls to find on their own.

[chirp]

Link to a few of my slot images from when I lived in Vegas.

Chirps Image board/canyoneering

[griz]

Cool pics, Chirp. Ever check out the Buckskin Gulch in South Central Utah? Not technical but around 14 amazing miles long...Pretty nuts but frickin' gorgeous, for sure. Several hundred foot high walls and varied from just a few feet wide to maybe twenty feet or so. A real flash flood hell if you got caught deep in cuz the only exits were the beginning, the end and a 4th class scramble out in the middle...that's it...for 14 miles! It's in kelsey's Hiking and exploring the Paria River . Highly reccomended to any slot addicts.

[chirp]

Hey Griz! Thanks and no I havent .

There is so much killer slot canyon in UT/AZ that it would keep anyone busy for a LONG time.

 

Check out this link for an awesome reference for Utah slots:

Toms Canyoneering page

[Off_White]

Thanks for the pics Chirp, totally inspiring.

 

Griz, I went down Buckskin back in 1977, it was an awesome trip, practically hallucinogenic. Sounds like you've done that trip too? I suspect it's become a little more popular since then. I particularly liked the logs wedged sideways in the slots fifty feet overhead.

[JayB]

I second the motion's for the Buckskin Gulch and the Canyons around the Escalante.

 

There's a permit sysem in effect for overnight camping in the Buckskin Gulch area, and you'd do well to reserve your spaces a few weeks in advance if you plan on hitting the canyon during peak season.

 

The Canyons of the Escalante are pretty well covered in Kelsey's book, and are well worth visiting if you are in the area.

 

I take that back. Escalante is an overdeveloped patch of hell that no one should ever visit under any circumstances, and there are no good slots within a 100 mile radius. Stick to Moab and Zion and avoid Escalante at all costs.

[chirp]

I first did the Subway in Zion in 1983 and it was pretty obscure...fast forward to the summer of 1999 and during PEAK days it was seeing upwards of 300 people per DAY!

 

The Park then made a 50 person limit per day in 2000, not counting the folks that blew off the permit, thats still WAY too many folks for a fragile "wilderness" environment.

 

The ticket then is the obscure trips like shhh...Right fork of North cr. or technical monstrosities like Heaps or Imlay.

 

But "joe bag of doughnuts canyoneer" is still gonna head to Subway and well...thats kinda sad unless he is prepared to be as respectful as a parishoner entering a church

[thelawgoddess]

sweet pics, chirp! i definitely want to go back and do something longer and more technical now.

 

here's a good personal page for some utah slots:

http://www.climb-utah.com/index.htm

[ken4ord]

Thanks Chirp and TLG great photos and interesting articles.

[binger]

the san raphael swell is chronic...ill post some pics

[Pencil_Pusher]

Frickin cool stuff! Never done any of it, but it looks fun. So I checked out Heaps Canyon (among others) and was wondering the setup for that last 300' rappel? Anyone know? One report said they had two 50m ropes for the regular raps and then one 8mm 300ft rope for the last. They rapped on the 8mm, with the two others tied together to pull the setup down.

So I was thinking you could put a figure eight bite on the end of the rap rope, put the other end through the rap rings then through this loop. I guess you could clip a biner to the loop for the pull rope or leave the bite end long to tie together with one of the 50s. I tried to do a paintbrush sketch to help illustrate, but in the end wound up confusing even myself.

 

The other way would be to tie all three ropes together, rap down to the knot halfway (on the two 50s), and then pass it.

 

But these are only thoughts on how it might be done. Three hundred feet is one helluva rap. Anybody ever faced anything similar and what was your setup?

 

On a side note, if you could keep your rig dry, this would make a seemingly nice base jump.