Escalante UT October 2023

 The first week of October we went to Escalante UT for a hike that we had cancelled twice before because of weather. This time the weather was perfect. We stayed at the new Canyon Country Inn which was very nice with an included breakfast and a restaurant on site for dinner.

The first hike was the afternoon of our arrival to a pictograph about 5 miles east of escalante called the Circle of Life, or Circle of friends.

The next day we drove down Hole in the Rock Road, HITR. about 4 miles to the trailhead for Big Horn canyon.

Big horn canyon goes through very nice slickrock. Sometimes it is narrow and sometimes open. But not very deep in the east fork section.

It is not a very narrow canyon but has some nice striped rocks on the sides. There are two forks. The east fork is longer and more open with the best color. The west fork is short but narrow.

A narrow section of the east fork

Short open section

Break time at the narrow part of west fork. It is about 30 feet deep also but very short before it gets to advanced scrambling.

At the end of west fork some people could have gone further. but we voted to turn back.

The short section that is narrow and deep.

After Big Horn canyon we drove down to the Devils Garden. An Outstanding Natural area.

This is where Metate arch is.

The happy hiker group

The next day we headed 26 miles down HITR road to Peekaboo slot. There are 4 slots around that area. Dry Fork narrows, Peekaboo, Spooky, and Brimstone. The road is a wide dirt road with no chance of getting stuck when dry but is very wash boardy. It is not recommended for a hard sprung vehicle such as a lifted Toyota 4runner. You could risk spinal damage. Subaru did OK but was still rough.

Trail junction sign near the three slots

The trail down into the wash for Peekaboo.

The entrance to Peekaboo. It was a hard climb for us. The rock is slippery and not many handholds. About 20 feet of exposure.

One member of our group, Xian Lee, was able to climb up with foot support. She belayed the rest of us with the rope I thought to bring. Some young folk there just walked right up. Most had problems.

Group shot at the bottom.

There were many other difficult spots but no more exposure.

It was a little tricky here getting a foot hold to get over the lip.

A hand strap came in handy too

There were several arches over the slot.

After peekaboo we walked thru Dry Fork Narrows which is right there and no difficulty.

Down the main wash about 1/4 mile is the entrance to Spooky canyon. It is the narrowest canyon a normal sized person can fit through. 

The wide entrance to Spooky

About 50 feet into the slot I came to a spot where I had to scooch down to the bottom to get through.

The next day A few of our group dropped out due to injuries, washboard roads, and general tiredness. We were reduced to three hikers instead of the 9 we started with. We three were on our way to a new hike I saw on google that i call Beyond Zebra Slot. 

It is a large expanse of slick rock that could be explored  with 10 miles or more of hiking. We just did a little over 7 miles. We did not reach the Golden Dunes about a mile past the conical rock in this photo.

Of interest there are the large number of Hard Moqui Marbles. Some were as large as a grapefruit.

Looks like a cow hipbone with a large Moqui ball.

Some Moqui balls emerging from the sandstome.

See my boot for size.

This is the upper end of Zebra slot. No way to climb down without ropes. The  bottom entrance has a lot of standing water so we missed it.