Best Technical Slot Canyons In Utah

The Narrows is the most popular hike in Zion National Park, and one of the world's best slot canyon hikes. It is pure fun and can be tailored to suite any ability level. The trail is basically the Virgin River. The canyon is so narrow, the river covers the bottom in many spots, which means you have to wade or swim to proceed. Plan on being wet.

• Best Slot Canyons In Utah
• Utah Slot Canyons Hiking Map

• 15 Non-Technical Slot Canyons. Written by Whitney Childers 7 minute read You don’t have to be Spider-Man to explore some of the best slot canyons Utah has to offer. You just need to be ready for an adventure in tight spaces with huge photographic rewards.
• Located along Hole in the Rock Road in Escalante Canyons country, Spooky and Peek A Boo Slot Canyons make a great half-day adventure. Start at the bottom of naturally sculpted Peek A Boo and climb up, passing under a few arches and over a few potholes (usually dry). From the top, follow the cairns over slickrock and sand to the entrance of Spooky.
• Slot canyons, which are narrow canyons, found in the American Southwest are absolutely breathtaking. Go to Buckskin Gulch or the White Canyon in Utah, or the Arizona Hot Springs for an incredible.

Jul 26, 2017

By: Mo Edwards

Making decisions is hard, #amirite? There are so many choices in this modern world! “Should I diversify my IRA or bury it in the backyard?” Depends on your short-term goals. “Should I get a turtle or a dirtbike?” Could go either way. “Should I hike a slot canyon this year?” That one is simple: Yes!

Southern Utah has more tiny, narrow cracks than a shattered iPhone screen. Some are deep, some are wide, some are wet and some are dry, but none of them will shove tiny glass shards in your texting fingers.

Slot canyons are nice because you don’t have to make very many decisions in them. Carved by wind, water and dinosaur tears, slot canyons can be hundreds of feet deep and so narrow you have to cram yourself through sideways. (There’s one near Zion called Fat Man’s Misery.) Another benefit, among many, is that their unique shape and basic astrophysics means slot canyons are shady all but a few minutes a day, making them a pleasant respite from the relentless summer sun!

A word to the wise: Slot canyons can be as dangerous as they are beautiful, much like Kevin Bacon. Much like a giant, bloodthirsty sandworm, flash floods can sneak up on you quick. Rainwater collects from the non-absorbent plateau and drains into these canyons creating an instantaneous wall of water.

DO NOT ENTER A SLOT CANYON IF IT IS RAINING, IF IT HAS RAINED IN THE PAST 24 HOURS OR IF RAIN IS FORECASTED.

Flash flood warning signs:

1. Sudden heavy rains
2. Clear creek water begins to turn brown and muddy
3. Debris such as twigs, leaves or needles appears in the water

Seek high ground immediately! Don’t worry about foot vibrations; just get out of there. Even climbing a few feet could save your life. Check the weather and talk to the appropriate park/BLM authority before you go. And finally, plan an alternative itinerary in case the weather turns against you. If you reeeally want to gamble with slots, go to Vegas. That’ll ruin you too, but more slowly.

Buckskin Gulch (Wire Pass Trailhead)

• Location: Along the Utah/Arizona border, near Kanab.
• Distance: 3.5 miles
• Best for: Families can totally do this slot.
• Best time to go: Spring and fall are ideal, but you can hike here year-round.

The entirety of Buckskin Gulch canyon is one of the longest slots in the world. Or so proclaims the internet. And the internet is always… interesting? ...a spectrum of truth and falsehoods?

Really though, to hike the whole thing would take a few days, a precious permit and some technical gear. Sounds fun! Maybe not with the kids though. Try this: Buckskin Gulch via the Wire Pass trailhead. Wire Pass winds through a spectacularly striated little slot canyon to Buckskin Gulch. There are a few obstacles to toss the kids over (don’t toss the kids; that’s a joke, an internet falsehood, fake news), but nothing prohibitive and round trip it is only 3.5 miles! Do-able for a sturdy five-year-old. Look for petroglyphs at the junction of the two canyons. Bask in the real truthiness of it all.

Little Wild Horse

• Location: South-central Utah near Goblin Valley
• Distance: 8 miles for the full loop, but many just go as far as they like and turn back
• Best for: Ideal for families, but fun for all
• Best time to go: Spring and fall

This place is perfect for all the wobbly little foals in your life. A stone's throw from Goblin Valley — a Burning Man of strange and playful sandstone goblins — Little Wild Horse is a strange and playful sandstone canyon. Smaller in scale than, say, the Narrows, its dry, sandy wash is friendly to all abilities. The kids will naturally propel themselves along the twists and turns with nary an expletive from parents. The entire loop (up Little Wild Horse and down Bell Canyon) is about eight miles — a liiiittle too long for kids who aren’t a pre-Prefontaine, perhaps — but families can explore at their leisure until it’s time to return to the car for more fruit snacks (or kale, or spelt, or gluten-free chia pet seeds, or whatever kids eat these days). If they’re having too much fun galloping about and ignore your call to head back, tell them you’ll call the BLM about some little wild horses in Goblin Valley that need to be immunized. “The feds are coming! With the vacciiiiines!! RUUUUUNNNNNNNN!” Threats don’t work with kids but it doesn't hurt to try.

Spooky and Peekaboo

• Location: On Hole-in-the-Rock Road, 26 miles south of the town of Escalante.
• Distance: 3.5 miles
• Best for: Claustrophiles (is that the opposite of claustrophobes?); robust children and adults unafraid of tight curves and a few drop-offs. Broad-chested, pregnant, or otherwise girthier people might want to skip this one as the paths are extremely narrow.
• Best time to go: Year-round

Have you ever wanted to be bear-hugged by the earth? A nice, firm, sandy squeeze that lingers so long it becomes awkward. “Earth!” you say, “I like you, but… I don’t like-like you.” “Oh,” Earth says, a little embarrassed. “I just thought… maybe you and I—” “No, Earth. No. Our kind cannot be together. We would destroy each other.”

If you’ve never had this conversation, dear reader, you’ve never been to Spooky Gulch. Located along Hole in the Rock Road in Escalante Canyons country, Spooky and Peek A Boo Slot Canyons make a great half-day adventure. Start at the bottom of naturally sculpted Peek A Boo and climb up, passing under a few arches and over a few potholes (usually dry). From the top, follow the cairns over slickrock and sand to the entrance of Spooky. Leave your backpack behind. Shed any unnecessary layers: “fun” hats, push-up bras, ironic mustaches, fanny packs, babies in baby carriers, the ticket to Tremors 7 in your front pocket... Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and nope. Slide sideways through this narrowest of the earth’s crevices and ponder how a canyon can taper so. Kids love this part! Finally an activity they can accomplish more swiftly than adults. Send them to get help when you find yourself trapped hard in Earth’s awkward embrace.

Furniture Draw

• Location: Along Buckhorn Wash Road in Emery County
• Distance: 2.5 miles
• Best for: Families or anyone looking for an easy hike
• Best time to go: April to October

Sometimes you just need a calm, dependable slot canyon. No 10-inch-wide walls closing in on you, no frigid water to wade or swim through, no rappelling or scrambling or climbing. Like a nice hallway. Furniture Draw is the family-friendly slot canyon you’ve been searching for. Bring sunscreen.

Zion Narrows

• Location: Zion National Park
• Distance: Variable up to 16 miles
• Best for: Anyone at least four feet tall can hike out-and-back hike from the bottom; at least some hiking experience and endurance are required to do the whole thing top-down.
• Best time to go: Later spring and summer yield lower water levels in the river.

The Narrows in Zion National Park is the one slot canyon to rule them all. The grand dame of gorge-ous divisions. The Citizen Kane of sightly crevasses. The head honcho of heavenly chasms. The Patti Labelle of parted pathways. The Phil Collins of fault-less canyons. The Beyoncé of handsome breaches. In some places the walls rise 1,000 feet above you and the canyon narrows to 20 feet across. It’s almost as dramatic as the rise of Kevin Bacon (the Meryl Streep of actors).

There are a couple ways to go about the Narrows:

1. Start from the bottom at Temple of Sinawava and mosey upstream in the Virgin River. No, not along the river: IN the river. Bring (or rent from local outfitters) some great water shoes and a walking stick for stability on slippery rocks. Sometimes vintage walking sticks au naturel (aka discarded branches) can be found at the beginning of the hike. Continue up the river for two or three hours and arrive at Wall Street, the narrowest section of the canyon. Gawk. Go back from whence you came. Or amble on for a bit; the farther up the canyon you go, the fewer humans you’ll share it with.

2. This hike can also be a 16-mile multi-day trip from the top, granted you are lucky enough to win a permit and popular/rich enough to arrange a shuttle. It's worth a try!

Box Canyon Hiking Trail in Maple Canyon

• Location: Near Fountain Green, Utah
• Distance: 1.2 miles
• Best for: Anyone who can handle some rock scrambling/basic bouldering
• Best time to go: April to October

This out-and-back trail is short, but don’t think you’re getting off easy. It’s all boulders, all the time. You’ll be walking between boulders and towering rock walls, scrambling over boulders, even climbing between cracks in boulders that fell from the cliffs at some point in time. (Don’t think too hard about that, but don’t not think about it either. Falling rock is a risk here.) Boulders, boulders and more boulders.Kids can totally take this trail, but there is one spot where a generous previous hiker secured a rope to a 15-foot boulder that you will need to scale. Your options are to loosen up that protective instinct and let your offspring give it a try, or hit the gym starting now so you can lift them up to a trusty partner who has braved the rock first.At the end of the trail is a lovely waterfall that has yet more boulders and a rope to climb it, but climbing this spot isn’t recommended unless you come prepared with rock-climbing gear.Note that this trail is on private property, but the public currently has permission to scurry and scramble their way through. Check before you go to make sure that’s still true and also that there isn’t water in the canyon.

Zebra Canyon

• Location: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
• Distance: 5.3 miles out and back
• Best for: Moderate to more experienced hikers
• Best time to go: April to November

Zebra Slot Canyon delivers exactly what it promises: some really cool zebra-ish stripes on its narrow walls that are sure to make you the coolest kid on Instagram. That is, if you’re tough enough to earn them. You’ll enjoy a roasty walk through the desert and Harris Wash to get to the slot canyon, which does not take too long to slither through. (And slithering is about what you should expect — at one point the canyon focuses down to a 10-inch gap. Suck it in!) There are watery spots as well, and while you may see people leaving their shoes at the entrance, you’d be better off hoisting your kicks aloft as you ford the chilly pits. There are places in the canyon that you might not be able to do barefoot. And then you won’t get those Instagram shots of the zebra stripes at the end. And then you’ll be sad. However, do leave your backpack at the entrance as there’s no room for that baby. If you really want to go for the gold, you can keep going through the zebra stripes to the dry fall on the other side where the canyon opens back up again, but this is no small feat and most people treat that trek as an out-and-back. But if you’re still feeling un-slot-isfied after Zebra Slot Canyon, you can head back to Harris Wash and continue on your merry way to nearby Tunnel Slot Canyon.

Willis Creek Slot Canyon

• Location: Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, near Cannonville
• Distance: About 3 miles out and back
• Best for: Everyone
• Best time to go: April to October, but summer is very hot

Willis Creek is one of those unexpected, under-respected kinds of places. Nearby, flashier neighbors like Bryce Canyon and Kodachrome Basin State Park steal all the thunder. Because who can top colorful sandstone spires or golden arches shining in the sun? Willis Creek Slot Canyon, that’s who! Or maybe top isn’t the right word. Complement. Willis Creek Slot Canyon is the perfect complement to its fabulous canyon friends. With its trickling creek and gorgeous canyon walls, Willis Creek is the friend you almost forgot to invite but turns out to be the life of the party.

The trail starts out through brush and trees, then takes a turn down toward Willis Creek. After that, you’ll follow along with the creek the rest of the way. Your feet will get wet so plan accordingly. The canyon walls start off low and comfy but the farther you go, the more they close in on you until you’re snuggled in the earth’s warm clutches. (“No” means “no,” Earth!) The hike is fun for all and great for kids, who will enjoy skipping their way through the creek. Check conditions before you go. Rain can cancel the viability of not only the slot canyon but also Skutumpah Road by which you access it.

The Subway (Top-Down Route)

• Location: Zion National Park
• Distance: 9.5 miles
• Best for: Experienced climbers
• Best time to go: Later summer through early October

Zion National Park is home to more than one slot canyon. While the Narrows may be the Preciousssss, the Subway is still a classic, like Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Casablanca or the first Star Wars (the original one, before George Lucas discovered CGI). But be aware that the Subway will kick your booty into next week and you shouldn’t underestimate it. It’s a tough, semi-technical journey, especially leaving the canyon when there’s nothing to look forward to but your job and the melted fruit snacks in your car. But on the way in, you’ll be looking forward to one of the most beautiful slot canyons in Utah.

The top-down route is the classic way to get to this classic canyon. This route involves wading, scrambling, slip-sliding, climbing your way down the Left Fork of the North Creek. Expect a long, hard 6–10 hour day with a few rappels, down-climbs and a couple surprisingly chilly swimming sessions. But all work and no play makes Jack/ie a dull climber, so take plenty of time to use all your senses. The reward for all your work: the tubular — in both senses — rock formations that give the hike its name. They’re just a smidge photogenic.

If technical climbing isn’t your bag of gummy worms, you can also start and end your climb at the Left Fork Trailhead, which is about 8.2 miles up the Kolob Terrace Road from Virgin, Utah. This route is not technical and you can still see some waterfalls and the lower Subway formations. It’s still a slog, though, and you’ll be hiking for 5–9 hours, and the scenery is not nearly as great as the top-down route.

Note that you will need a permit as this hike has become so popular that visitors are now limited to 80 per day. You can get a permit from the National Park Service a few months in advance through a lottery process, or cross your fingers for a last-minute drawing two to seven days before you’d like to go.

Burro Wash

• Location: Capitol Reef National Park, 7.8 miles down Notom-Bullfrog Road
• Distance: 8 miles
• Best for: Experienced canyon-country hikers
• Best time to go: Spring and fall

There are a few slot canyons in Capitol Reef National Park but Burro Wash gets the most action. This canyon requires some skill and, depending on how far you go, can give you an excuse to slide your butt cheeks into a climbing harness.The hike starts with a two-mile trek through an open wash before you get into the canyon. Once you’re there, expect a slot chock-full of chockstones — giant boulders that fell in/conveniently into your path. Bonus: Sometimes you get to approach them from a pool of water. Some of the chockstones in Burro Wash have ways you can bypass them, while others require Spider-Man web-jets (or climbing gear in a pinch). After several of these chockstones, you’ll reach a set of not one, but two of them near the end of the trek. If you can get past these babies, the hike ends soon after at a pour-off about 3.5 miles from the trailhead. Unless you’ve got mad technical skills and a shuttle, this is an out-and-back hike.

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. 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.

Best Slot Canyons In Utah

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

Utah Slot Canyons Hiking Map

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

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.

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