Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah

Photo Credit: Red Desert Adventures

• Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah State
• Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah
• Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah Ski Resorts
• Utah Slot Canyons Hiking Map
• Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah Near Las Vegas

Canyoneering is a way to explore the intricate Sandstone Slot Canyons of the Southern Utah landscape.

1. This is the place. Deep, spectacular canyons with lots of water make Zion the ONLY place for canyoneering at the height of summer. A few dramatic, technical routes challenge the veteran canyoneer, but most routes in Zion offer more beauty than challenge, with well-established anchors that make them a good place for folks to start their canyoneering careers.
2. Moonshine Wash slot canyon is tucked away in the middle of the San Rafael desert, and is now one of my favorite non-technical slot canyons in Utah. The best section of the Moonshine Wash slot canyon lasts for about 1.5 miles, and at every nook and cranny the lighting can look very different and vibrant.
3. Jenny’s Canyon is located within Snow Canyon State Park about 20 minutes north of St George, Utah. To get there, you’ll head north on Bluff Street from St George. Take the Red Hills Pkwy/Snow Canyon Pkwy exit and turn left onto Snow Canyon Parkway.
4. Bryce Canyon National Park. #4 of 21 Nature & Parks in Bryce Canyon National Park.

Routes are documented geological records with varying levels of difficulty and technical obstacles that give way into the powerful and creative forces of nature. With literally hundreds of canyons in the area, we’ve highlighted a few of the most epic explorations in the St. George / Zion region.

With any canyoneering trip, you’ll want to keep an eye on the weather, check for seasonal closures and permit requirements, but with so many in the area, no matter when you visit, you’ll be able to get a good taste of canyon life.

Conclusion: Slot Canyon Arizona and Slot Canyon Utah. The best Slot Canyon Arizona would be Antelope Canyon. Whether you go to Upper or Lower Antelope Canyon you will love it. You can check out my article on the pros and cons of each. The Best Slot Canyon Utah would be the Zion Narrows. The scenery in the canyon is just amazing.

Beginner

Ordville – The easiest semi-technical canyon in the St. George area, Orderville is the little sister to the Narrows and a great day hike for beginning canyoneers. Like the Narrows, you’ll be in knee-deep water almost the whole time with a few down climbs, two 25 foot rappels, and a bit of swimming to challenge you.

Johnson Arch Canyon – Located in Snow Canyon State Park right outside city limits, Johnson Arch is an urban canyoneering experience that’s great for beginners for it’s accessibility. It’s a great place to get your feet wet (literally) by practicing basic down climbs and rappels (the longest being 200 feet).

The crème de la crème for outdoor enthusiasts, canyoneering in Keyhole, Pine Creek and the Subway are some of the best in the world and should be on every adventurer’s bucket list.

Zion National Park – Guides are not permitted to come along so a high degree of self-reliance, stamina and preparation are required to tackle Keyhole, Pine Creek or the Subway. You must obtain a permit to go privately, but Red Desert Adventure, Zion Adventure Company or Paragon Adventures can give you all the training you need the day beforehand in order to feel confident conquering all the obstacles you may face — waterfalls, plunge pools, chockstones, stone fins, and waves. If you’d be more comfortable going with a guide, technical backcountry trips take place in the many excellent canyons outside park boundaries.

Intermediate

Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah State

Buckskin Gulch – One of the main tributaries of the Paria River, Buckskin Gulch is alleged to be the longest slot canyon in the world. The narrows extend for nearly 15 miles and are ever changing in length and depth. Roughly 21 miles total, it is best split into two days with a night spent camping.

Neon Canyon – Remote and rugged, Neon Canyon has been featured in many outdoors publications for it’s “Golden Cathedral,” an impressive rock formation reminiscent of a natural amphitheater formed by high orange-red cliffs streaked with desert varnish, containing a triple natural bridge above a large pool.

Located in the center of the state at the entrance to Escalante National Monument, it’s a three-day backpacking trip that is reserved for ambitious adventurers.

Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah

Advanced

Heaps and Imlay Canyons – The most advanced sections of Zion National Park, Heaps is dark, wet, and intense with rappels up to 280 feet, while Imlay has shorter rappels, big potholes, and two sets of Narrows. They both get very wet with unpredictable conditions that can change in an instant. You must be physically capable of climbing and belaying.

Sponsored by St.George Tourism

Other Voices you might like

Fresh Off The Grid

Outdoor, Camping, Lifestyle, Cooking

By Golden Webb

It's spring and the air is full of the saccharine watermelon scent of cactus rose in bloom. A cool early afternoon breeze buffets me as I follow cairns down a series of ledges until I am above the sheer walls of White Canyon. Cobalt oxide streaks delineate contours of almost perfect sheerness as the walls plunge down into the depths, down to sugar white sand, rippled mud, shimmering tanks and the liquid green of a lone cottonwood.

Due north is the cleft of Cheesebox Canyon, an artery of the mother canyon, its mouth shadowy and green. I seem to have lost the trail, see a pinyon pine snaking up the wall, use it to climb down, and drop onto softly yielding sand. Blackjack happy hour. The light in the canyon is indigo, the suns rays reflecting blue off varnished white walls, as if filtered through a polarizer. I take a few steps through sand and over mud, my body immersed in cool scented air, and the peace, stillness and mystery begin to work their drug-like magic.

Suddenly, from down-canyon, comes the howl of rushing wind. I whirl around &

A huge golden eagle explodes around a bend in the canyon, with two ravens close behind. The eagle's wingspan is 7 or 8 feet, the canyon walls just wide enough to accommodate the great wings. The ravens circle the huge bird, one above, the other below. The one above dives for the eagle's head and when the eagle wheels to clutch at it with its claws, the raven below attacks, forcing the eagle to whirl through the air in its direction, and they do this dipping, wheeling dance down the canyon, all in complete silence, like a dream or a hallucination, until they disappear around the next curve.

Whoa.

I wait for the electricity arcing down my spine to dissipate into the pooling sand at my feet and then I walk down over white sand and rippled mud toward the mouth of Cheesebox, the setting, and now the mood, perfect for another magical experience in the canyons.

Many people dream of bygone days when the earth was largely unexplored and the rounding horizon was still imbued with the mystery of the unknown. We read of Captain James Cook sailing into the sunset toward the undiscovered islands of the South Pacific or of Burton and Speke risking lion attacks and torture as they trudged through the wilds of Africa amongst hostile tribes, questing for the Mountains of the Moon and the source of the Nile, and we feel an intense nostalgia for a larger world in which such adventures were possible. And yet there are places, still, that remain untouched by the presence and the mind of man. Certain portions of the Sahara for example, the deepest jungles of the Congo and inaccessible, Lovecraftian Mountains-of-Madness type ranges in the arctic contain areas where no man has ever gone.

But it's the canyons and gorges of the world that remain the last frontier. We know more about the surface of Mars and the floor of the 35,802 feet deep Mariana Trench than we do about the inner sanctums of some of the worlds canyons, even some of the canyons here on the Colorado Plateau.

In China the Yangtze River slices through the flank of Jade Dragon Peak and forms the Tiger Leaping Gorge, a stretch of white water and sinuous canyon that is as inaccessible as it is mysterious. The travertine blue pools and waterfalls of China's mystical Huanlong Valley were only recently photographed by Westerners. The Barrancas of Mexico, including Copper Canyon and Barranca de Sinforosa, remain unexplored. The canyons, or wadis, of the Sinai Peninsula, sinuous slots that open onto the white sand beaches and coral lagoons of the Gulf of Aqaba, remain untouched, virtually unknown. And the water gorges that cut through the Blue Mountains of New South Wales in Australia have only recently begun to be explored.

Thus in some ways the depths of certain canyons are more mysterious than the dark side of the moon. Here, on the Colorado Plateau, are the worlds ultimate slots canyons _ clefts in the earth so narrow, so dark, so deep, that in many we don't know where they bottom out. Expert and pioneer canyoneers like Steve Allen of Colorado and Richard Fisher of Arizona have made first descents of many hitherto virgin, extreme canyons. But that often entailed stemming or chimneying over the darkest, coldest, narrowest, wettest, most gruesome cruxes of the route, simply because without scuba gear, spelunking equipment, and a rats ability to squeeze through a hole 1/8 the size of your body mass, it's physically impossible to plumb the absolute depths of some of these canyons.

No one, to my knowledge, has ever dived deep into the depths of the Black Hole of White Canyon, to see what's down there. Hundreds have swam through it, shivering, hypothermic, squeezing through the 90-degree corkscrew in the middle and then wading out laughing into the welcome sunshine where the canyon opens up. But what about the pools? What's down there, deep below our kicking legs? How deep do those pools go? Do they even have a bottom?

What about the deepest, narrowest stretches of Echo Canyon in Zion, or Brimstone Gulch in the Escalante, or the darkest pit in Gravel Canyon of the White Canyon drainage, where in certain places the walls are so tight, the stone so smooth and slick, the water so crude-oil black and glacier-melt cold, that it would be suicide to try and find the Ultimate Bottom, the Maximum Depth, the true Inner Sanctum of the canyon.

Suicide, or exciting as hell! So here, for your exploring pleasure, in no particular order, is our extremely subjective list of 10 of the worlds best canyons. Some are relatively tame, thoroughly explored, well beloved. Others are killers, dangerous, impossible, just sitting out there waiting to entomb somebody alive between squeezing walls.

Enjoy!

Gravel Canyon

A side drainage of White Canyon, expert rock climbers only need apply. Chokestones, black pools, multiple rappels, stemming, chimneying, Anasazi ruins, near death experiences and sublime beauty await the adventurers who traverse this canyon.

Boulder Creek

My favorite place in the universe. Boulder Creek slips down off Boulder Mountain, carves a canyon of white walls and clear pools in its upper reaches, then dives deeper into the orange Kanyenta formation after its confluence with Deer Creek to form the funnest narrows wade-boulder hop-swim on earth. The water is so pure, so clear, the walls pumpkin orange, the green of cottonwoods and sage glowing in pure light ˜ its like you're swimming through a rainbow.

Salome Creek

Salome Creek is the showcase canyon for Arizona's many spectacular slots and gorges, most notably the side canyons of the Salt River and the canyons that cut through the Mogollon Rim. Located amongst the mesquite and cactus slopes of the Tonto National Forest, Salome forms crystalline pools, waterfalls, chutes and runways, an oasis in the midst of a dry desert.

Buckskin Gulch

Probably the longest deep slot canyon in the world. Quicksand, mud, standing pools that sometimes require swimming, and endless miles of scalloped, rippled walls awash in pink, lavendar, and orange light.

Dark Canyon

Just over the ridge from Natural Bridges National Monument, this majestic, epic canyon deserves a monument status all its own. Starting high on the flanks of the Abajo Mountains along Elk Ridge, a stream trickles down through aspen and ponderosa pine forests toward the Colorado. Many miles later it is a yawning gorge, with waterfalls, runways, and the deepest, clearest, most beautiful and inviting pools on earth.

With any canyoneering trip, you’ll want to keep an eye on the weather, check for seasonal closures and permit requirements, but with so many in the area, no matter when you visit, you’ll be able to get a good taste of canyon life.

Conclusion: Slot Canyon Arizona and Slot Canyon Utah. The best Slot Canyon Arizona would be Antelope Canyon. Whether you go to Upper or Lower Antelope Canyon you will love it. You can check out my article on the pros and cons of each. The Best Slot Canyon Utah would be the Zion Narrows. The scenery in the canyon is just amazing.

Beginner

Ordville – The easiest semi-technical canyon in the St. George area, Orderville is the little sister to the Narrows and a great day hike for beginning canyoneers. Like the Narrows, you’ll be in knee-deep water almost the whole time with a few down climbs, two 25 foot rappels, and a bit of swimming to challenge you.

Johnson Arch Canyon – Located in Snow Canyon State Park right outside city limits, Johnson Arch is an urban canyoneering experience that’s great for beginners for it’s accessibility. It’s a great place to get your feet wet (literally) by practicing basic down climbs and rappels (the longest being 200 feet).

The crème de la crème for outdoor enthusiasts, canyoneering in Keyhole, Pine Creek and the Subway are some of the best in the world and should be on every adventurer’s bucket list.

Zion National Park – Guides are not permitted to come along so a high degree of self-reliance, stamina and preparation are required to tackle Keyhole, Pine Creek or the Subway. You must obtain a permit to go privately, but Red Desert Adventure, Zion Adventure Company or Paragon Adventures can give you all the training you need the day beforehand in order to feel confident conquering all the obstacles you may face — waterfalls, plunge pools, chockstones, stone fins, and waves. If you’d be more comfortable going with a guide, technical backcountry trips take place in the many excellent canyons outside park boundaries.

Intermediate

Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah State

Buckskin Gulch – One of the main tributaries of the Paria River, Buckskin Gulch is alleged to be the longest slot canyon in the world. The narrows extend for nearly 15 miles and are ever changing in length and depth. Roughly 21 miles total, it is best split into two days with a night spent camping.

Neon Canyon – Remote and rugged, Neon Canyon has been featured in many outdoors publications for it’s “Golden Cathedral,” an impressive rock formation reminiscent of a natural amphitheater formed by high orange-red cliffs streaked with desert varnish, containing a triple natural bridge above a large pool.

Located in the center of the state at the entrance to Escalante National Monument, it’s a three-day backpacking trip that is reserved for ambitious adventurers.

Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah

Advanced

Heaps and Imlay Canyons – The most advanced sections of Zion National Park, Heaps is dark, wet, and intense with rappels up to 280 feet, while Imlay has shorter rappels, big potholes, and two sets of Narrows. They both get very wet with unpredictable conditions that can change in an instant. You must be physically capable of climbing and belaying.

Sponsored by St.George Tourism

Other Voices you might like

Fresh Off The Grid

Outdoor, Camping, Lifestyle, Cooking

By Golden Webb

It's spring and the air is full of the saccharine watermelon scent of cactus rose in bloom. A cool early afternoon breeze buffets me as I follow cairns down a series of ledges until I am above the sheer walls of White Canyon. Cobalt oxide streaks delineate contours of almost perfect sheerness as the walls plunge down into the depths, down to sugar white sand, rippled mud, shimmering tanks and the liquid green of a lone cottonwood.

Due north is the cleft of Cheesebox Canyon, an artery of the mother canyon, its mouth shadowy and green. I seem to have lost the trail, see a pinyon pine snaking up the wall, use it to climb down, and drop onto softly yielding sand. Blackjack happy hour. The light in the canyon is indigo, the suns rays reflecting blue off varnished white walls, as if filtered through a polarizer. I take a few steps through sand and over mud, my body immersed in cool scented air, and the peace, stillness and mystery begin to work their drug-like magic.

Suddenly, from down-canyon, comes the howl of rushing wind. I whirl around &

A huge golden eagle explodes around a bend in the canyon, with two ravens close behind. The eagle's wingspan is 7 or 8 feet, the canyon walls just wide enough to accommodate the great wings. The ravens circle the huge bird, one above, the other below. The one above dives for the eagle's head and when the eagle wheels to clutch at it with its claws, the raven below attacks, forcing the eagle to whirl through the air in its direction, and they do this dipping, wheeling dance down the canyon, all in complete silence, like a dream or a hallucination, until they disappear around the next curve.

Whoa.

I wait for the electricity arcing down my spine to dissipate into the pooling sand at my feet and then I walk down over white sand and rippled mud toward the mouth of Cheesebox, the setting, and now the mood, perfect for another magical experience in the canyons.

Many people dream of bygone days when the earth was largely unexplored and the rounding horizon was still imbued with the mystery of the unknown. We read of Captain James Cook sailing into the sunset toward the undiscovered islands of the South Pacific or of Burton and Speke risking lion attacks and torture as they trudged through the wilds of Africa amongst hostile tribes, questing for the Mountains of the Moon and the source of the Nile, and we feel an intense nostalgia for a larger world in which such adventures were possible. And yet there are places, still, that remain untouched by the presence and the mind of man. Certain portions of the Sahara for example, the deepest jungles of the Congo and inaccessible, Lovecraftian Mountains-of-Madness type ranges in the arctic contain areas where no man has ever gone.

But it's the canyons and gorges of the world that remain the last frontier. We know more about the surface of Mars and the floor of the 35,802 feet deep Mariana Trench than we do about the inner sanctums of some of the worlds canyons, even some of the canyons here on the Colorado Plateau.

In China the Yangtze River slices through the flank of Jade Dragon Peak and forms the Tiger Leaping Gorge, a stretch of white water and sinuous canyon that is as inaccessible as it is mysterious. The travertine blue pools and waterfalls of China's mystical Huanlong Valley were only recently photographed by Westerners. The Barrancas of Mexico, including Copper Canyon and Barranca de Sinforosa, remain unexplored. The canyons, or wadis, of the Sinai Peninsula, sinuous slots that open onto the white sand beaches and coral lagoons of the Gulf of Aqaba, remain untouched, virtually unknown. And the water gorges that cut through the Blue Mountains of New South Wales in Australia have only recently begun to be explored.

Thus in some ways the depths of certain canyons are more mysterious than the dark side of the moon. Here, on the Colorado Plateau, are the worlds ultimate slots canyons _ clefts in the earth so narrow, so dark, so deep, that in many we don't know where they bottom out. Expert and pioneer canyoneers like Steve Allen of Colorado and Richard Fisher of Arizona have made first descents of many hitherto virgin, extreme canyons. But that often entailed stemming or chimneying over the darkest, coldest, narrowest, wettest, most gruesome cruxes of the route, simply because without scuba gear, spelunking equipment, and a rats ability to squeeze through a hole 1/8 the size of your body mass, it's physically impossible to plumb the absolute depths of some of these canyons.

No one, to my knowledge, has ever dived deep into the depths of the Black Hole of White Canyon, to see what's down there. Hundreds have swam through it, shivering, hypothermic, squeezing through the 90-degree corkscrew in the middle and then wading out laughing into the welcome sunshine where the canyon opens up. But what about the pools? What's down there, deep below our kicking legs? How deep do those pools go? Do they even have a bottom?

What about the deepest, narrowest stretches of Echo Canyon in Zion, or Brimstone Gulch in the Escalante, or the darkest pit in Gravel Canyon of the White Canyon drainage, where in certain places the walls are so tight, the stone so smooth and slick, the water so crude-oil black and glacier-melt cold, that it would be suicide to try and find the Ultimate Bottom, the Maximum Depth, the true Inner Sanctum of the canyon.

Suicide, or exciting as hell! So here, for your exploring pleasure, in no particular order, is our extremely subjective list of 10 of the worlds best canyons. Some are relatively tame, thoroughly explored, well beloved. Others are killers, dangerous, impossible, just sitting out there waiting to entomb somebody alive between squeezing walls.

Enjoy!

Gravel Canyon

A side drainage of White Canyon, expert rock climbers only need apply. Chokestones, black pools, multiple rappels, stemming, chimneying, Anasazi ruins, near death experiences and sublime beauty await the adventurers who traverse this canyon.

Boulder Creek

My favorite place in the universe. Boulder Creek slips down off Boulder Mountain, carves a canyon of white walls and clear pools in its upper reaches, then dives deeper into the orange Kanyenta formation after its confluence with Deer Creek to form the funnest narrows wade-boulder hop-swim on earth. The water is so pure, so clear, the walls pumpkin orange, the green of cottonwoods and sage glowing in pure light ˜ its like you're swimming through a rainbow.

Salome Creek

Salome Creek is the showcase canyon for Arizona's many spectacular slots and gorges, most notably the side canyons of the Salt River and the canyons that cut through the Mogollon Rim. Located amongst the mesquite and cactus slopes of the Tonto National Forest, Salome forms crystalline pools, waterfalls, chutes and runways, an oasis in the midst of a dry desert.

Buckskin Gulch

Probably the longest deep slot canyon in the world. Quicksand, mud, standing pools that sometimes require swimming, and endless miles of scalloped, rippled walls awash in pink, lavendar, and orange light.

Dark Canyon

Just over the ridge from Natural Bridges National Monument, this majestic, epic canyon deserves a monument status all its own. Starting high on the flanks of the Abajo Mountains along Elk Ridge, a stream trickles down through aspen and ponderosa pine forests toward the Colorado. Many miles later it is a yawning gorge, with waterfalls, runways, and the deepest, clearest, most beautiful and inviting pools on earth.

West Canyon

Draining Cummings Mesa, West Canyon is like Buckskin Gulch only with waterfalls, pools, and a clear running stream. Best accessed from Lake Powell, its upper reaches are accessible only to the adventurous and technically experienced. Expect much rapelling and swimming. Many people rate this as the very best slot in the entire Mountain West.

White Canyon

Just west of Natural Bridges, White Canyon and its many tributaries has yet to be completely explored. Cheesebox, Fry, the aforementioned Gravel, and Long canyons are Terra Incognita, just waiting for some intrepid explorer to uncover their mysteries. The Black Hole of White Canyon is one of the most thrilling hikes in the world, with its 200-meter stretch of dark cold water and its sinuous, gorgeous slot. The Black Hole is the perfect introduction to more extreme canyoneering, as it doesn't require ropes or expert climbing skills, but it's no place for kids, youth groups, the out of shape, or the elderly.

Great West Canyon

Zion National Park is famous for slots. Indeed, the narrows of the North Fork of the Virgin is the most famous slot canyon hike in the world. Hundreds flock to Parunuweap Canyon along the East Fork, to Orderville, Kolob, and Deep Creeks which empty into the North Fork, and to the Left Fork of North Creek and its Subway. But the jewel of Zion is Great West Canyon. A route drops into the Right Fork of North Creek and goes through the Black Pools, a series of pot holes of indeterminate depth and temperature, and then enters the Grand Alcove, a place of such majesty and beauty that it rivals the legends of the Cathedral in the Desert, the crown jewel of Glen Canyon before it was drowned by Lake Powell. A rappel over Barrier Falls, a swim through its crystalline plunge pool, a scramble down the flank of Double Falls, and you've just traversed some of the most enchanted country on earth.

Chute of Muddy Creek

The San Rafael Swell is a region of spires and domes as spectacular as any Zion or Capitol Reef. It has hundreds of slots and narrows, most notably the Black Boxes of the San Rafael River and the slots of the Moroni Slopes. But the Swell's signature canyon is the Chute of Muddy Creek. The headwaters of Muddy Creek are high on the Sevier and Wasatch Plateaus, trickling springs among the lupine under aspen and spruce and pine. Far below the creek has cut a deep and goosenecked chute through Coconino Sandstone. This is the easiest of the showcased canyons, if you call wading, slipping in mud, and boulder hopping easy.

Death Hollow

Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah Ski Resorts

An ominous name for an epic canyon. It starts high on Hell's Backbone as a wide gorge with towering ponderosas and sheer white walls. A third of the way down are gruesome pools that must be negotiated and poison ivy that must be avoided. Towards the end the canyon walls are so high and bulky they're like skyscrapers, the work of some divinely inspired architect, and the pools under these walls are considered by many to be the most lovely in the Escalante, green and clear and deep and purifying.

Utah Slot Canyons Hiking Map

So put away your H. Rider Haggard, turn off Raiders of the Lost Ark, grasp your ropes, your boots, your river-type dry bag, your faded leather jacket and bullwhip, and head south for the greatest adventure in the history of mankind. Because the discovery of the Golden City of Eldorado, King Solomons Mines, or even the mythic spoils of Genghis Kan hidden somewhere deep in the Mongolian steppes is nothing compared to the precious stones, the vistas, the danger, the lurking creatures, and the magic awaiting you in the neverbeforeseen depths of the undiscovered canyons of the Back of Beyond.

Copyright Dave Webb, 2005

Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah Near Las Vegas