Dogs & Rockslides
Tucked away in the wilds of Grand Staircase-Escalate National Monument, in the Paria River basin, is a short and narrow canyon in the Navajo that is extremely easy to get into, and well worth the hour or so it takes to complete. Known in these parts as Cottonwood Wash, this is a great intro canyon for someone who hasn't had much experience with slots and narrow canyons before, or someone who isn't a strong hiker. The canyon is superbly easy to enter, as you literally take fifteen steps off a county road and you are in it, and yet it is still enchanting in many ways too. Really, just yet another awesome place in southern Utah!
The canyon is a ways from anywhere. It's over twenty miles to the nearest town, and that is Cannonville, so it's not really saying a whole lot. For a long ways you drive through some rolling hills, over some small ridges here and there. Eventually you come to a big hill and begin to drop into an obvious drainage. After coming down a particularly steep hill you hit a flat area, with a break in the hill on the west revealing a narrows cut into the Navajo sandstone. This is Cottonwood Wash, and there is a parking lot that puts you about 15 steps from the canyon floor.
The cut allows you to go two ways in Cottonwood Wash- up or down. If you choose to go up, it will take you through a section of canyon a couple of hundred yards long, before reaching a dryfall and an open canyon. It's short but it's beautiful, and this is a section that grandmothers, very young children, or non-hiking dogs can get into. My old friend Mr. Hobbes even made it into this canyon!
The cut allows you to go two ways in Cottonwood Wash- up or down. If you choose to go up, it will take you through a section of canyon a couple of hundred yards long, before reaching a dryfall and an open canyon. It's short but it's beautiful, and this is a section that grandmothers, very young children, or non-hiking dogs can get into. My old friend Mr. Hobbes even made it into this canyon!
Going downstream will take you through the heart of the canyon. It never gets that narrow, only about 2 meters at it's slimmest point. But, it is fairly deep, possibly around 200', and it's blend of open areas and narrow pinches means there is a lot of vegetation on the walls and in the bottom. The ubiquitous Ponderosa pine appears here as well.
We came here in March of 2010, and enjoyed a nice leisurely hike through the canyon. Jess Brought his pup Kaya, and my dad and I rounded out the crew. We enjoyed the canyon, taking lots of photos and enjoying being outside. There was a large snowpile wedged in one of the narrowest pinches that we had to hike up and over- way neat when you are in the desert.
We came here in March of 2010, and enjoyed a nice leisurely hike through the canyon. Jess Brought his pup Kaya, and my dad and I rounded out the crew. We enjoyed the canyon, taking lots of photos and enjoying being outside. There was a large snowpile wedged in one of the narrowest pinches that we had to hike up and over- way neat when you are in the desert.
We spent our time going down but at the very end, right before the canyon opened up, we came across a large rockfall that looked really recent. The rock was still stark white, and there was a layer of sand and blown dirt covering everything. It looked quite fresh. The slide had dammed the watercourse a little bit, creating a pool that we (thankfully) were able to walk around. It was also a sobering reminder of what can happen in these canyons; if we had been anywhere near here when the slide happened it could have been bad news. Shortly below this we hit the road and just like that we were out.
All photos copyright Kit Davidson unless noted.