Classic Slot Canyoneering Adventure

Beginner-Friendly Utah Canyoneering Trips

Come and explore one of America’s most beautiful and amazing wilderness areas; a vast and extraordinary landscape of sweeping slickrock, beautifully sculpted sandstone cliffs, and narrow twisting canyons that have challenged and amazed wilderness adventurers since the late 1800’s.  Our adventures through this explorer’s paradise take us through some of the last known places to be mapped in the United States.  Traveling through this region provides a feeling of remoteness, ruggedness, and awe that are unmatched in the modern world.  For many, their first experience in Canyon Country is transformational in nature.  It becomes an intrinsic part of their heart and soul that serves to draw them back time and time again.

1. Experience beautiful, seldom-visited canyons.
   
2. Learn about rappelling and test your limits with the support of a professional guide.
   
3. Customize your adventure with help from experienced professionals
   
4. Learn about the area’s unique history and geology
   
5. Enjoy lunch and refreshments in the depths of a slot canyon
   

Duration 

Location / Where to Meet

Ages & Requirements

What's Included

1. Experienced and professional guides
   
2. Canyoneering equipment
   
3. Canyoneering and rappelling instruction
   
4. Snacks and refreshments
   
5. State park entrance fees
   
6. Safety equipment, including a team first-aid kit and satellite messenger
   
7. A commitment to make the tour as exciting, challenging, and informative as you’d like
   

Not Included

1. Travel Insurance
   
2. Transportation to trailhead
   
3. Gratuity for your guide
   

What to Bring / Wear

1. Layered clothing
   
2. Comfortable, sturdy footwear
   
3. Sun protection
   
4. Small backpack
   
5. Water bottles or bladder
   
6. Headlamp or flashlight
   

Your Slot Canyoneering Itinerary

Where We Guide

In the heart of the Colorado Plateau, just southeast of Hanksville Utah, lies one of the truly undiscovered gems of North America. The Dirty Devil River winds for over ninety miles through a labyrinth of red-rock canyons surrounded by some of the most rugged and remote wilderness landscapes of the American Southwest. Over thousands of millennia, this small desert stream has carved a wilderness paradise that has been home to an interesting variety of inhabitants. The Fremont Indians lived in the canyons for over 800 years—from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1300. Signs of their presence can be observed throughout the region in the form of pictograph panels, granaries, and chiseled moqui steps. More recent inhabitants include bands of outlaws from the late 1800s—most notoriously Butch Cassidy and the Wildbunch Gang. The maze of wild and remote canyons provided an ideal hideout for these fugitives and wild-west outlaws.

Hidden amongst the spectacular hoodoos and mesas of Goblin Valley State Park lies a truly fantastic canyoneering adventure. Following a short and fun scramble through the Valley of the Goblins, we enter a beautiful slot canyon that disappears into a dark and mysterious chasm in the Earth. It is here that we put on our canyoneering gear and rappel into this spectacular and awe-inspiring chamber that resembles a Gothic cathedral. The Goblins Lair and Chamber of the Basilisk is truly an unforgettable canyoneering adventure and like most of our trips is suitable for the entire family.

For those unfamiliar with the park, it is characterized by colorful sandstone formations, cliffs, canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths. Its most stunning geologic feature is a 100-mile-long warp in the Earth’s crust known as the Waterpocket Fold. This 65 million-year-old fold is the largest exposed monocline in North America. It is comprised of younger and older layers of the Earth’s crust which were folded over each other in an S-shape. This striking geologic feature was probably caused by the same collision of continental plates that created the Rocky Mountains. It has weathered and eroded over millennia to expose a fascinating amalgam of brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs and canyons, gleaming white domes, and contrasting layers of intricately shaped rock and sand.

The Horseshoe Canyon complex of Canyonlands National Park is a vast, remote, rugged, and beautiful canyon system with some of the most exquisite Barrier Style rock art in the U.S. You can spend days exploring this incredibly expansive area and the Indian rock art and artifacts hidden within its myriad of canyons. The most well-known and recognizable of these is the Great Gallery. Lesser known sites within the 35-mile-long canyon include Cowboy and Walters caves which contain some of the richest and oldest paleontological remains on the Colorado Plateau.

FAQ