Southern slots: Exploring the narrows of Buckskin Gulch and the Paria River Canyon
By BEN PIERCE Chronicle Outdoors
It’s been less than a week since I dropped my pack beneath the dark desert sky just north of the Colorado River. The blisters on my heels remain raw, my shoulders are still sore from 15-mile days. I can still sense the coarse red rock beneath my fingertips; hear the frantic footsteps of lizards scurrying over the blazing sand.
I can still feel the desert. Somehow it is with me.
For four days the parched arroyos and Navajo Sandstone cliffs on the borderlands between Utah and Arizona were my home. Along with my girlfriend and four others from around the country, we set out to explore the longest slot canyon in North America – Buckskin Gulch – and the Paria River Canyon below. In all, our trip would cut through more than 50 miles of rugged and beautiful and unforgiving country.
Our adventure began with a visit to the BLM office in Kanab, Utah. As water, wind and time have joined to shape the grand landscapes of the Southwest, they also present some of the desert’s greatest dangers. The dry washes that litter the parched land in all directions funnel raging torrents of water through slots like Buckskin Gulch. A clear weather forecast is essential before entering any of the narrow canyons along the Colorado Plateau.
“Buckskin Gulch drains to the west of Bryce Canyon National Park on what is called the Paunsaugunt Plateau,” said Paria Wilderness ranger Mike Salamacha. “A flash flood in Buckskin can come from more than 50 miles away, ten hours after the rains fall.”
With clear skies and warming temperatures forecast through the week, we rendezvoused with our companions Mark Szeliga and Cassandra Mason of Bozeman, John Mason of Bethel, Maine, and Eric Gage of Vail, Colo., near the Wire Pass trailhead on the east side of a rock upthrust known locally as The Cockscomb.
Many backpackers entering Buckskin Gulch choose to do so from Wire Pass, a short slot canyon even narrower than the Buckskin. Our hike began there, in a wash surrounded by low hills pocked with juniper, pinyon pine and sage. The heat of the morning sun abated quickly as the pale walls of the slot enveloped our group. In areas so tight I had to remove my pack, expressions of astonishment rose skyward as we worked our way through the pass.
In short order we reached the junction with Buckskin Gulch. In contrast to the confines of Wire Pass, Buckskin looked dark, deep and foreboding. As we descended the narrows of the gulch, the walls of the canyon constricted around us. Temperatures dropped to a chill as the azure sky above waned to a bare sliver of light. Brilliant tones of crimson, ochre and orange poured down upon the contorted rock.
Sixty feet above our heads tree trunks perched oblong between the rock walls, a grim testament to the ferocious power of flash floods in Buckskin. Last summer multiple 50-year and 100-year floods ripped through the canyon, rearranging boulders and redefining the route.
“Flash floods usually subside in eight to 12 hours,” our Hiker’s Guide to the Paria River read. “Many times a flood can leave you stranded for several days due to treacherous footing, even with lower flows.”
Szeliga and I contemplated escape routes as we marveled at the gulch’s formations. While a hiker might be able to scramble 20, even 30 feet above the canyon floor, it would take an experienced climber with true grit some time to ascend the narrows.
Salamacha said the debris-choked torrents that rage through Buckskin can easily reach 50 feet high in the tightest areas of the gulch. It would seem likely anyone caught in a flash flood would perish of blunt force trauma before they had the time to drown.
For nearly 11 miles our group followed the narrows of Buckskin. Though warned in Kanab of multiple waist- to chest-deep wades, we were fortunate to find icy, stagnant pools of water and mud no deeper than our thighs. We managed to navigate a few drop-offs of 15 feet through boulder jams with the aid of ropes, and by passing our backpacks beneath and above obstructions.
Our first camp (there are no campsites or reliable water sources for the first 14 miles from Wire Pass to the Paria River) offered a mild reprieve to the near-lifeless void of the gulch. Save for the odd insect, dead bird and occasional plant, we’d seen few signs akin to the outside world. At the confluence of Buckskin Gulch and the Paria River, the slot widens enough to allow a degree of consistent sunlight. The sandstone walls soar more than 400 feet overhead. Blaze green boxelder leaves contrast the red rock of the canyon and the blue sky impossibly high above – the desert palate on full display.
It is an otherworldly place.
We broke camp the next morning and entered the Paria River from Buckskin Gulch. The waters of the Paria churned a constant tan, carrying sediment from Bryce Canyon to the Colorado River. Alkali deposits, strong enough to burn our legs, caked the low recesses aside the flow.
We kept our second day short, packing our gear just five miles downriver to a lovely campsite across from a seep in the sandstone. We filled our water bottles and relaxed in the creeping shade of the canyon, dining on dehydrated meals and discussing the incredible geology of the canyon.
As we progressed downriver the next two days, the Paria cut beneath the 1,200-foot layer of Navajo Sandstone. Near our final camp, in the Kayenta Formation, we discovered petroglyphs – evidence of the Native American people that once used the canyon.
Salamacha said archeologists believe the petroglyphs were left by Anasazi Indians that used Buckskin Gulch and the Paria Canyon as a route to reach the Colorado River and an area to hunt bighorn sheep.
Our final day – a 16-mile march out the mouth of Paria Canyon through scorched earth ablaze with blooming cacti – brought with it the relentless heat of the high desert. Gage’s thermometer read a blistering 105 degrees Fahrenheit in the afternoon sun.
The heat still burns bright on my bare skin; the desert dust still in my eyes.
I can still feel the desert. Somehow it is with me.
Related posts:
- Exploring the waterfalls of Silver Gate
- Paradise found: Chasing salmonflies in the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone
- Yellowstone: Exploring the Grand Loop
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