One thing we love about living in Utah is that people actually get out and enjoy the outdoors. So when my friend Adrienne invited us to go backpacking in the slot canyons in Escalante National Monument, we eagerly jumped on board. We’ve been wanting to go down there since we moved here, but have been hesitant since we were inexperienced and don’t really know the best places to go, where to camp and how to get there. Luckily Adrienne’s family goes there all the time, so our trip should be perfect.
Right.
The weather report went from bad to worse, and whenever I’d mention the increasing probability of precipitation (”uh, it’s now at 75%… should we be concerned?”), I was told that I had a negative attitude. So instead, we packed extra fleeces, rain jackets, umbrella and sent a positive, sunshine-filled message out to the universe and hopped in the car for the long drive down south.
It rained the entire drive. We stayed the night in Torrey, UT and continued through the windy canyon and then finally sloshed through about 15 miles of mud until we met our fate: a dry wash road crossing that had developed into a torrential river. We contemplated trying to cross it after it had shrunk to about mid calf deep, but the banks of the river were so silty that we sunk half way up the tires. The 4 wheel drive Expedition probably could have made it with a running start, but the second car in our caravan was only 2 wheel drive and nearly got stuck and spun out several times on the “dirt” road and most definitely would have taken a long bath in that river had we attempted to cross it. Adri waded across the river to talk to the people who were stuck on the other side, and they said they had been in the Neon & Fence Canyon area (where we were headed) for the last 3 days and weren’t able to go in any of the slot canyons because of the constant flash flooding. They had been planning on staying the entire week but were getting so sick of the non stop rain that they were heading back. They had been waiting on the other side of the river for about 3 hours already, when the river was waist deep. I hope they were able to get across it before the next wave of torrential rain started later that day.
The “dry” wash crossing, aka the moment we declared trip failure.
So after 8 hours of driving and our tails tucked between our legs, we dayhiked to the waterfall at Calf Creek, hit up some great burgers in Beaver, and headed back to Salt Lake, without even setting up a single tent or eating a single hot dog.
The umbrella actually worked quite well.
Despite the fact that we never even made it to our destination, it was actually a really fun trip. Adrienne and Max’s families are really nice and fun and we hope they’ll think of us when (if?) they go back. And maybe I’ll have to find a better method of weather manipulation than sending messages out to the universe.
















They reported 26″ of powder and he “needed” to test out his new ski boots. At least that was his excuse.






















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