Category: slot canyons

Posted on

Red Rock Canyon, Waterton

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

Three teens from Calgary SOMEHOW had never been to Waterton Lakes National Park, even though it’s only 3hrs drive from their homes.

teens

Almost immediately we came upon 4 bears grazing the hillside.

bears

Like adjacent Glacier National Park, Waterton is a great place to see wildlife.

Due to bear problems in the National Park campgrounds, tenting was not allowed at Crandell Mountain Campground in 2013. We decided to stay outside the Park at Crooked Creek.

Crooked Creek

car camping eggs

We shared the Creek with a family of Beavers.

Beaver

Red Rock Canyon is a classic day hike, an easy loop.

More adventurous is to follow the Canyon up the mountain for as long as possible.

Red Rock

Red Rock 2

The guys ended up scrambling over and under logs, getting wet and generally having a blast.

Red Rock logs

All and all, a pretty good introduction to the joys of Waterton National Park.

more Red Rock Canyon photos

more Waterton photos

Posted on

The Subway – Zion National Park

There are two ways to explore The Subway (the Left Fork of North Creek). …

From the Bottom Up

This is a strenuous 9-mile round-trip hike through the Left Fork of North Creek that requires route finding, creek crossing, and scrambling over boulders. …

From the Top Down

This is a strenuous 9.5-mile hike that requires rappelling skills, 60 feet of rope, and extensive route finding experience. The route also requires swimming through several deep pools of very cold debris-filled water. …

details

Subway Permits are awarded by lottery. Occasionally walk-in permits are available the day prior.

Click PLAY or watch a well edited trip video on YouTube.

November through March no permit is necessary.

Hmm …

Thanks George.

Posted on

Borrego Palm Canyon, California

by site editor Rick McCharles

My second visit to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, I had time for a quick late afternoon day hike.

coyote

Right after I took photos of this coyote, hunting road kill.

AnzaBorregoTrailMap

If you park in the visitor center, you don’t need any kind of State Park permit. That adds a mile or so to the walk.

Borrego Palm Canyon is the most popular trail in California’s largest state park. It leads to the third-largest palm oasis in California, which was the first site sought for a desert state park back in the 1920s.

It’s a beautiful, well-watered oasis, tucked away in a rocky V-shaped gorge. If you’re lucky, you may glimpse a bighorn sheep, in a canyon vegetated by California’s only native species of palm. The park receives many visitors due to its proximity to the metropolises of Southern California, and the trail is relatively easy to access and hike (three miles round trip with 600′ elevation gain). …

EveryTrail

trail

oasis

I got lost on the “alternate” route back.

cactus

more photos

related – official website – Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

Posted on

The (almost) Ultimate Arches Loop

… Getting a back-country permit at Arches is strange. They come just shy of discouraging backpacking and it was apparent that they don’t have many people asking for permits. This is likely due to the small size of the park, lack of water, and lots of absolutely pristine soil crusts (they require that you have camp set up by dusk so you don’t risk walking on soils after dark).

I started the trip at Wolfe Ranch and headed north up Salt Creek. I knew generally what route I wanted to take but had zero beta so knew there would be some adjusting on the fly. The first route change happened pretty much immediately. I had planned on going up Salt Creek and doing some exploring in Lost Creek Canyon, but the canyon above Freshwater Spring looked pretty interesting from the bottom so I decided to head up that way. …

read more on Out. Living.

Fantastic photos.

I assume I saw that linked from Hiking in Finland. Where else?

Posted on

gear for hiking Zion Narrows

Virgin Narrows, Utah is one of the best hikes in the world.

• canyon walk in knee-deep water
• real risk of flash floods
• 1 or 2 days
• 10-12hrs of walking
• 16mi (25.8km)

Tim Miner, Trail Sherpa:

The Essentials

Regardless of your preferences for weight, style, or functionality you will need the following essential gear to tackle the Narrows in Zion:

Backpack
Shelter
Dry Bags
Water Shoes
Neoprene socks or Seal Skinz
Dry Pants (early or late seasons)
Walking Stick
Clothing
Headlamp
Camera and extra battery
Hydration System – bladder, bottles, and filtration system

Gear List for Hiking the Narrows in Zion

Most critical – water shoes. Tim recommends Chaco Tedinho Pros.

If I went again, I’d wear 5-10 CANYONEERS again. With neoprene socks, again. They were perfect for my Narrows trip, perhaps 40% of the time walking in the water.

related – nearby Paria Canyon

Posted on

a new Kloofing video

Kloofing is an adventure activity that typically involves the descent of a deep ravine or watercourse that may be dry or wet. The defining factor is usually that the ravine is several times deeper than it is wide. All manner of walking, scrambling, climbing, swimming, plunging, jumping, bumslides or abseiling (rappelling) could be involved.

A kloofing trip usually combines hiking with the descent of a watercourse. Some of the more “interesting” kloofing involves long abseils or high jumps into pools from varying heights, up to as high as 20 or more metres (for example the popular ‘Suicide Gorge‘ in South Africa). …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Posted on

Müllerthal Trail, Luxembourg

by dzjow from May 2009

The Müllerthal trail is definitely one of the most and perhaps even the most beautiful trail in the whole of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Strong hikers can hike the 35km long trail number 2 in a dayhike but I recommend to do it as an overnighter as there are so many interesting spots to explore along the trail.

Wonderful photos …

… I’m getting stuck with my backpack. I need to take it off and wring through the corridor while pushing my backpack ahead of me. After this first small corridor a second much longer and deeper one follows. At the end of the tunnel it gets so dark that I’m first thinking I must have missed the trail as the corridor seems to end in a dead point. While returning it still seems to be the right route. I get back into the corridor, now with my head lamp shining ahead. The corridor keeps going. It looks more lake caving what I’m doing. This is perhaps the finest passage of the Müllerthal trail. Passed the long corridor I leave the trail for a while to explore the underground circuit of the Kuelscheier cave. Yes, it’s not only corridors to explore here, there are small real caves too! …

DZJOW’S ADVENTURE LOG – Idyllic waterfalls and fairytale rock corridors – hiking the Müllerthal trail

(via Hiking in Finland)

Posted on

Kloofing Suicide Gorge, South Africa

Kloofing is an adventure activity that typically involves the descent of a deep ravine or watercourse that may be dry or wet. The defining factor is usually that the ravine is several times deeper than it is wide. All manner of walking, scrambling, climbing, swimming, plunging, jumping, bumslides or abseiling (rappelling) could be involved.

A kloofing trip usually combines hiking with the descent of a watercourse. Some of the more “interesting” kloofing involves long abseils or high jumps into pools from varying heights, up to as high as 20 or more metres (for example the popular ‘Suicide Gorge‘ in South Africa). …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Looks like FUN.

I’d sign on with a guide to ensure safety.

Doh. Two different guiding sites I visited say that these trips are cancelled “due to maintenance”.

Leave a comment if you know different.

Suicide Gorge is the favourite adventure of James Haden. He also likes Table Mountain in South Africa. And Mt Sinai in Egypt.

Posted on

Grand Canyon slots

A new documentary, Last of the Great Unknown, looks terrific.

It will premiere at the 2012 5point Film Festival in Carbondale Colorado, April 26-29th.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/37927326

Deep within the Grand Canyon’s vast wilderness are secret and intimate tributaries rarely visited by man, hiding some of the Canyon’s most remarkable features.

The barrier to entry is steep. To explore them, one must have a knowledge of backpacking, packrafting, rappeling, anchor building, and off-trail navigation. The Last of the Great Unknown is the story of these slots, the canyoneers who systematically explored their drainages, and the secrets hidden deep within their walls.

official website

(via Northern California Hiking Trails)

Posted on

Louse Canyon, Owyhee wilderness

By Tim Neville / New York Times News Service:

Louse Canyon is among the most inaccessible places in the West

… It was day three of a four-day, nearly 50-mile exploratory hike through Louse Canyon in the Upper West Little Owyhee Wilderness Study Area of southeastern Oregon, and there was no doubt we were getting spanked. …

About 350 air miles southeast of Portland, the West Little Owyhee River, a rarely visited tributary of the better-known Owyhee River, has cut a squiggle of a gorge through sandy expanses of sage and rye. The canyon is surely among the most inaccessible places in the West.

At its loneliest, the nearest human living under a proper roof is about 24 hours away by four-wheel drive, then horseback and foot. This cool crack in what is known as ION country, where Idaho, Oregon and Nevada collide, is so deep in the back of beyond that it sits in a different time zone from the rest of the Pacific Northwest. …

read the trip report on Bend Bulletin – Exploring Owyhee’s untouched wilderness

Very cool.

(via Meanderthals, again)