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heidikins and the Hidden Canyon of Secrets

Robert Frost has become one of the more quoted poets in my world via his line “I took the road less traveled by and it has made all the difference”.   I may be loosely quoting, but you know the thing about woodsy paths diverging, right?  Ok, good.

For the most part, I don’t know if I could be described as a person who takes the less traveled path, I like neat little trails with markers–a cairn will do–and signs and stuff.  I like knowing what I’m getting myself in to.  That being said, I don’t think anyone would describe me as someone who refuses to leave the neat little path.

Case in point: my weekend adventure.  Oh, you thought this was going to be all philosophical and deep?  No.  No philosophy.  Just Awesomosity.  Does anyone remember that time I crawled through pokey bushes to find hidden lava tubes in Hawaii?  Yeah, not so much a “neat little trail” kind of adventure.  This is kind of like that.

Andrea and I had some incredibly vague directions from a friend of hers on a mostly hidden slot canyon not too far from Cedar City (location of the Shakespearean Festival, for you non-natives).  In fact, the directions were so vague I made an emergency call to my sister to verify we were actually going to find this secrety place.  According to the information behemoth that is Google, this is what we got:

“You just get off the freeway, hang a leftish, and drive until you find it.  There won’t be any signs.”

Seriously?  “You just get off the freeway…”  No exit number, no mile marker, nothing.  Just get off…alrighty.

Andrea & I made our best guess and as we hung a “leftish” we drove past a psycho-thriller abandoned gas station that I am positive Quentin Tarantino has scouted for his next on-location horror movie.  It was creeptastic.  At this point, I was almost ready to turn around.  But, we had been talking about this slot canyon for several hours already, and decided to continue  along.

Several miles later we came to a very small, very quaint, very un-horror-movie-like town.  This had to be it, right?  Well, there weren’t any signs, so apparently we were dead on.  We headed in the general direction of the canyon and found a road we assumed would take us to the slot.  We parked and headed that direction, wandering through the small town and enjoying the sunshine.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term “slot canyon”, it is any very narrow canyon, we’re talking less than ten feet wide in most places and as narrow as two feet in some.  They are fairly common in Utah due to massive quantities of soft red sandstone, rivers and streams cut through this soft rock and leave behind absolute gorgeousness.  The most famous slot canyon is in Zion National Park, it is a long hike and you need permits and technical skill to complete it.  There are parts where you may actually have to swim and others where you will need rock climbing gear.  It’s intense.

This canyon was not nearly as technical, we knew there were two waterfalls to climb over, and that you could turn around at any point.  Waterfalls?  Redrock slot canyon?  Sold!

As we hiked up the canyon, there was no slot.  It was just a regular canyon with lots of reddish sand and sage brush.  We were both disappointed.  I was expecting gorgeous naturally carved canyon walls!  Nope, nothing.  Just dusty paths that criss-crossed every-which way.  After a while Andrea and I decided to just stick with the paths closest to the creek and hope for the best.  And on we walked.  It was pretty, but not what we were expecting.

Then, out of nowhere, we turned a corner and found this.

That, my friends, is a slot canyon.  And the trail/creek we were walking on weaves through the base of those giant formations.  Photos just don’t do any kind of real justice.

We kept walking, stopping to look up every couple of feet.  I was speechless.  I was giggling.  I was ecstatic.  I have another crush on nature.

Are you seeing this, people?  Talk about a hidden gem!  We wandered through the canyon (with only a few half-joking comments about how if a serial killer wanted a place to drag his victims, this would be a doozy of a place to hide), splashed around in the creek, climbed up and over the first waterfall with only a little hesitation and kept hiking.

The gorgeous views didn’t stop.  Every turn was something new, something stunning, something other-worldly.  My heart is actually up in my throat again just thinking about it–this place is just so beautiful!

I really wish I had the photography skill to make you understand how massive these cliffs are–easily 100 feet high and absolutely smooth from thousands of years of weather.  After an hour or so we stopped for lunch at a small waterfall and pool and just could not get over Nature.  A couple of hundred yards up we came to the next waterfall, which was scaled with a bit of difficulty and a LOT of getting drenched.  After navigating the falls we decided that due to our running short on drinking water and general tiredness from getting up at 6:00 am, driving several hours, and then hiking we would head back. That being said, next time I am anywhere in the general vicinity of this canyon, I will be making a stop to fall in-love  with it all over again.

Note:  You may have noticed that I have not actually named the town, or the canyon, where these photos were taken.  That is on purpose.  Andrea & I decided that we wanted to keep it as secret as we found it.  If you are heading to Southern Utah and would like to try this hike, just email me and I’ll happily tell you how to get there.  However, on this blog, this will lovingly be referred to simply as “The Hidden Canyon of Secrets”.

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