Southern Utah climbing and backpacking - April 1st-8th 2006
[Clint's Indian Creek trip report] [Alex Indian Creek pictures]Polly and I took our semi-annual spring break trip to the desert, this year hitting up Paria River in south-western Utah for some backpacking, and then meeting a bunch of folks in Indian Creek for a few days of climbing.
First, Paria Canyon: an amazing, deep, Navajo sandstone canyon straddling the Utah/Arizona border in southwestern Utah. The canyon is apparently very popular in the peak spring and fall seasons, but threat of rain and somewhat colder weather successfully kept the crowds down while we were there. The canyon starts wide but quickly slims down, so most of the walking is in the river.
Polly early in the canyon:
Further down the canyon, the water got much deeper.
Our nice campspot, about seven miles in on a bench above the river, just below the confluence of the Paria and Buckskin Gulch.
The next day, we walked down the river for a while until the canyon started to open up, then headed back up to our campsite.
On our way out, we dropped packs and checked out the lower part of Buckskin Gulch. Both the BLM and our hiking book claim that Buckskin Gulch is the longest continuous slot canyon in the world, apparently continuing for over 13 miles without a break. Reports of neck-deep freezing water and no sun made us a little less interested in the continuous descent.
