Southern Utah Wanderings | Canyons of the Escalante
Monday, October 6, 2014
After spending the weekend in The Gulch and then spending Sunday night camped up on the Egypt Bench, we got started hiking in the faint dawn light before sunrise Monday morning from the Egypt trailhead on our way down to Neon Canyon on the other side of the Escalante River. Our main destination for today would be the impressive alcove known as the Golden Cathedral and a few nearby petroglyph panels. From the trailhead we descended the steep sandstone ramp and then hiked cross-country while watching the sun rise before descending into the Escalante River Canyon down a large sand dune.
The first light of the day strikes nearby sandstone domes.
Looking back towards the trailhead we had started from…at the top of the sandstone bench.
A slab had broken off this rock formation making it look like an arch from the distance.
Warm morning light on our cross-country hike.
On our way to the edge of the canyon we climbed up to a higher point to watch the light strike the landscape around us.
A very small mushroom-shaped rock we passed along the way.
Looking down on the Escalante River from the edge of the canyon before our descent.
After descending down to the river we found a path through the vegetation along it’s shore and easily crossed right across from the mouth of Neon Canyon. We then hiked up the canyon until we reached the Golden Cathedral. This short section of Neon Canyon was very beautiful and there were plenty of other scenes to photograph along the way. I managed to walk through a patch of poison ivy that happened to be in it’s colorful fall display along the trail and was worried that it would cause issues on the remainder of the trip. Luckily, it never affected me. We had the canyon to ourselves for well over an hour as we waited for the nice reflected light to fill the Golden Cathedral and we didn’t meet anyone else until we were hiking back out of Neon Canyon.
Hiking up Neon Canyon.
A little slot between a large boulder and the canyon wall just before reaching the Golden Cathedral.
There were nice reflections on the calm water of the pool inside the Cathedral.
View back down-canyon from the Cathedral.
The amazing and beautiful Golden Cathedral.
View from the Cathedral of the large canyon wall reflecting the nice light inside.
Jared taking a photo of the collapsed potholes above gives a little scale to this place.
Just another angle…
I’ve seen enough photos of aspen trees while moving the camera vertically this fall, so I decided to try it with stripes of desert varnish on our way out of the canyon.
Plenty of reflected light in the canyon with stripes everywhere.
Reflections and reflected light were around every bend.
We were still too early for fall colors in this canyon (aside from the poison ivy), but the vibrant green vegetation was still nice.
After exiting Neon Canyon we visited two petroglyph panels along the river before hiking back up Fence Canyon to the trailhead. We hiked down the river to visit the first panel. We thought it would be easier to cross the river at the mouth of Neon Canyon and then hike down on the other side where we would try to find another place to cross again. This turned out to be a bad idea since it was a bushwhack getting back to the shore of the river and we had a hard time finding a good place to cross. We did eventually make it across again and found the petroglyphs.
While there were many petroglyphs found at this site, they were very faint and hard to see. These were some of the better ones.
On our way back from the first site we decided just to hike up the Escalante River which was a much better idea. Jared leads the way…
When we reached the mouth of Neon Canyon again we followed the trail upstream towards Fence Canyon and stopped by another panel of petroglyphs with some historic graffiti. This was a much bigger panel and the petroglyphs were easier to see and photograph.
The trail to Fence Canyon was a little tricky to follow since we had not come down it and it wasn’t as well-used as I thought it would be. We managed to find our way to the mouth of Fence Canyon after a few more river crossings where we stopped for lunch before climbing back up to the Egypt trailhead. It was a long hot slog under the midday sun with little shade to be found along the way, so we took our time on the climb back up.
Jared at our deepest crossing of the Escalante.
We came across some muddy banks along the river and then noticed someone had put up a warning.
View down Fence Canyon towards the Escalante River after climbing out of it.
After reaching the trailhead again, we drove a short distance to our campsite where we decided to spend another night instead of moving elsewhere. We had some dinner and then made a last minute decision to drive over to the Devil’s Garden to catch the sunset. We barely made it and didn’t have too much time to photograph the formations before the sun dipped below the Kaiparowits Plateau.
When the sun was long gone and the Earth’s Shadow had disappeared we drove back to camp in the dark and went right to bed so we could wake up the next morning and start all over again.
outstanding, thank you
Great shots, I was hoping that you would do some of Neon and Cathedral canyons. I was there the week or two before you, had floods couldn’t go to those but went to Devils garden, Zebra slot and tunnel.
Thanks Doug. Stay tuned for some photos from Zebra and Tunnel when I get a few more trip reports done 😉
Really nice! I tried to take that hike in 2013, but, being old and decrepit, I made it only to the Escalante and had to turn around. Didn’t get an early enough start. I understand there’s a nice panel near the mouth of Choprock Canyon.