KANAB, UT
Wow, wow, WOW!!! This hike was incredible. It runs through a "slot canyon" in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, on the border of Arizona / Utah.
Unlike The Wave, located very near here, which requires a lottery-based permit, the Wire Pass Trail simply requires a $6 daily pass that you can purchase online. I haven't seen The Wave, but I can't even imagine what it's like if it's better than THIS!
From the trailhead, you follow a boring flat trail for about 1.5 miles. And then ... everything gets awesome.
You enter a narrow little slot in the canyon and follow it for miles. It's crazy! Here's the beginning of that slot canyon:
Not too far in, you come to your first little adventure: getting down this ladder into the slots. Do you see it?
That rock figured out how to make a boring little ladder into a bit of an adventure ride. Here's the view of the ladder from the bottom:
Then you follow the canyon, with new patterns and colors around every turn. I must have taken a hundred pictures, so I'm trying very hard to be judicious in the ones I choose to share, but it is so hard to pick just a few!
This one might be my favorite because of the blue/black color that is swirled in with the red, coupled with the unusual shapes in this section of the pass. I can't tell you how awesome this hike was.
I showed my mom some of these pictures and her first reaction was, "It looks frighteningly claustrophobic!" It wasn't. In most places, the walls are well over an arms-width apart. There were only two spots where I think a guy with big broad shoulders might have to turn a bit sideways to get through, but otherwise it was fine.
To give you better perspective of the height and width, check out this photo below. See the person in the background?
The photo below is gorgeous. I turned a corner and bam! Blue rocks. Even more interesting is that the rocks on the left are blue, but on the right they are gold. I'll never pretend to understand geology.
Twice, you emerge from the slot canyons to huge open areas. Here are some shots of those. Notice the two people on the left to give you perspective. And I know, if I mention that blue sky one more time, you're going to unsubscribe, but seriously - look at that blue! :)
Also, the two people above are looking at a wall of petroglyphs - more on that in a moment.
The wall below is at least 100' tall. Love the swirl that spans the entire expanse of the face of this cliff.
About that wall of petroglyphs ... here is a close up. A family was studying it at the same time I was there. We started chatting and we all questioned whether they are authentic and how would scientists know and are they really thousands of years old and how have they lasted so long?
Maybe sharing a picture of this petroglyph below will help you understand why were so skeptical. :) Oh, TJ + LJ, you little lovebird vandals!
Wire Grass total miles = 5.92. Elevation gain = 252 ft.
And that's all I have to say about this trail ... BUT ... I do have a few more pics to show you. :)
