Red Breaks Slot Canyon Escalante Utah
But on the way in, you’ll be looking forward to one of the most beautiful slot canyons in Utah. The top-down route is the classic way to get to this classic canyon. This route involves wading, scrambling, slip-sliding, climbing your way down the Left Fork of the North Creek. We are a family owned and operated business located in the town of Escalante, Utah. Along with slot canyon tours, we offer a variety of day and evening hikes, backpack trips, photo tours and catered base camp trips. Open year round. The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is home to thousands of canyons, large, small, spectacular, remote, popular, and fascinating all at the same time. It holds some of the world’s most exhilarating technical slot canyons that require keen rope skills, teamwork, and yes, cojones. Zebra Slot Canyon—Northern Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument When you’re surrounded by white paintbrush strokes among tall, flowing red sandstone walls in the middle of Utah’s stunning desert landscape, you’ll see that this hike lives up to its name.
Overview
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When I first started going to Escalante in the 1990's, I heard about Red Breaks. Often described as one of the best canyons around, it wasn't until 2015 when I finally was able to visit. What took me so long?!?!?! The canyon is exquisite! This route, the Upper Red Breaks Loop, visits the two most stunning sections of Red Breaks. The adventure requires good navigation skills (or a gps), technical skills for the single short drop, and some climbing skills to surmount the dozen or so minor up climb challenges getting back to the trailhead.
Non-technical hikers, can visit from the top down of each fork as far as comfortable, then return the same way. Technical canyoneers can make a loop of it. The single rappel CAN be down climbed, sorta, but is hard. My scrapped up back and even more slow to heal scrapped ego will attest to it being hard. 'I got this, no problem. . .Uggg, this isn't very secure . . . *splash*' Best to bring a rope and rappelling gear. Hand-lining is an option, but the anchor is above a sheer vertical section, making a hand-line do-able, but again, a little tricky.
Big views, tight narrows, up climbing challenges, navigation fun, and stunning colors, Red Breaks lived up to the hype for me.
The top of the goods!
Getting There
There is excellent primitive camping at many spots along the road in, and pretty good primitive camping at the trailhead proper.
Head east out of the town of Escalante about 9.5 miles on highway 12 until you reach mile post 70. The old Sheffield road goes off on the east side of the highway here, right on a bend.
- Reset your odometer as your turn onto the Old Sheffield road. ( 12S 460529mE 4177402mN / N37° 44' 35' W111° 26' 53' )
- Follow the generally well maintained Old Sheffield road for 5.8 miles to a junction where the main road goes right (south), and a two track road goes straight. ( 12S 467108mE 4174030mN / N37° 42' 47' W111° 22' 23' )
- Go right (on the main road) an additional 2.6 miles to the roads end at a drill hole. ( 12S 467031mE 4170382mN / N37° 40' 48' W111° 22' 26' )
Amazing light on a corner.
Route
Approach (1 hours)
From the trailhead, go due east, around the prominent butte visible from the trailhead. When around the corner, it is easy to scramble up to the top of the hill. Once on top, the route finding fun begins. There seems to be a multitude of game trails and intermittent human trails heading in a variety of directions. Stay on them when possible to avoid damaging the crypto.
To reach the canyon, look for the mountain range in the far distance to the north east. A pyramid peak with a big saddle to its right is the direction to head. (Mt. Ellen is the peak to the right of the saddle, just a few feet taller than the pyramid peak.) As you head in that direction, keep an eye out for a prominent wash heading east, and follow it to the West Fork of Red Breaks. If you reach Red Breaks too low or high, and can't find a reasonable place to cross, follow the rim up canyon or down canyon until an easy crossing is found.
On the return, you will reverse your route from this crossing back to the trailhead, so be sure to make note of it so it is easy to find on the way back.
Cross the upper west fork, and continue slightly north east for 5-10 minutes until the next fork is encountered. This is the fork to descend, rim walk up canyon until an easy entry is found.
Canyon (2-3 hours)
Let the fun begin! Heading down canyon, a dryfall is quickly encountered. The canyon is wide here, and there are a couple of options for bypassing the first dryfall on its left side. Just below this, the canyon begins to narrow and offers a downclimb before narrowing even more at a boulder section. Pass the boulder section by squeezing under (if your small enough and don't mind mouse droppings) or down climbing it on the left.
The canyon becomes deep, dark, and sinous. Stunning! Work down canyon through amazing narrows until it quickly opens before the confluence with the main fork and has an 8 m ( 27 ft. ) drop into a likely pool. This is the single rappel in the canyon. Below the rappel, the main canyon becomes wide and colorful. Follow it down with easy walking for 20-30 minutes (1 mile) until the west fork comes in on the right. It is guarded by an impassable dryfall.
Just down canyon from the dryfall and around the corner is a 4th class scramble on the right to get on the bench and above the dryfall, or continue down canyon a bit further to a well used social trail that gets you to the same place.
Heading up the west fork, it is wide and easy going before reaching the first of many boulder challenges blocking the canyon. All of these yield easily to a little climbing ability or team work. The higher you go, the deeper and narrower the canyon gets. Stunning!
Exit (1 hour)
When the canyon finally opens a bit and becomes easier, a dryfall may require backtracking and scrambling around it on the right (looking up canyon). This is just below the crossing marked on the map. Re-trace your approach route back to the trailhead.
Photos
Maps
| Trailhead | 12S 467031mE 4170382mN N37° 40' 48' W111° 22' 26' |
| Hill Top | 12S 467941mE 4170329mN N37° 40' 47' W111° 21' 49' |
| Crossing | 12S 469107mE 4170688mN N37° 40' 58' W111° 21' 01' |
| Canyon Head | 12S 469425mE 4170952mN N37° 41' 07' W111° 20' 48' |
| Rappel | 12S 469544mE 4170370mN N37° 40' 48' W111° 20' 43' |
| Exit | 12S 469878mE 4168855mN N37° 39' 59' W111° 20' 30' |
Comments
| Sunset on Boulder Mountain |
After a great breakfast, we broke camp on Friday morning and headed down Hole in the Rock Road with a backcountry permit and plans to explore Zebra and Tunnel slots canyons as well as find a place to camp for Friday night. Some trail guides make these canyons sound difficult to find, but there was a well established trail from a parking area along Hole in the Rock Road leading directly to Upper Harris Wash. Once in the main wash, there were enough footprints to make the location of Zebra Slot Canyon fairly obvious. Still, the GPS was useful to confirm we were heading up the right drainage from Harris Wash.
| Roger exploring a dryfall and pothole. |
| Along the trail to Zebra Slot Canyon |
The fun began as soon as we reached Zebra Slot Canyon. The canyon narrowed up and water presented itself immediately. Trail guides seem to indicate there is almost always water in the canyon, but recent thunderstorms meant that water levels we running on the high side. There were a few minor obstacles to crawl over which were only difficult because we were often in water over our waists, but overall this was a spectacular and easy canyon to explore.
| Wading into Zebra Slot Canyon |
| Zebra Slot Canyon |
| Roger works his way through the canyon |
| Zebra Slot Canyon |
Red Breaks Slot Canyon Escalante Utah Restaurants
| Zebra Slot Canyon |
| Zebra Slot Canyon |
After enjoying Zebra Slot Canyon, we walked down Harris Wash to find Tunnel Slot Canyon. This was another fantastic, short slot with lots of water to add to the fun. This canyon was deeper with the water being about chest high in one spot. After the main tunnel section, the canyon opens up a bit but remains beautiful and worth exploring. We finally turned around for the return trip back through the cold water of the tunnel before sunning and drying ourselves on the rocks and hiking back to the trail head.
| Roger in Tunnel Slot Canyon |
Red Breaks Slot Canyon Escalante Utah Lodging
| Tunnel Slot Canyon |
| Roger trying to avoid the deep water |
| Flowering yuccas in Harris Wash |
After a fun day at Zebra and Tunnel slots, we headed off to the Harris Wash trailhead to find a place to camp for the night. We found a great spot about a half mile from the trailhead and enjoyed a great dinner and a walk along Harris Wash before calling it a day.
| Awesome company for a fun adventure |
| Harris Wash |
| Camping near Harris Wash |
We spent Saturday hiking from our camp near the Harris Wash through a portion of Red Breaks Canyon, another slot canyon that doesn't receive much in the way of hiker traffic. This canyon was much longer than either Zebra or Tunnel and presented many obstacles to overcome along the way. Some trail guides indicate this canyon is generally dry, but we found water throughout most of the canyon on this trip. Avoiding the water added another fun challenge to the hike.
| Roger in Red Breaks Canyon |
| Red Breaks Canyon |
| Red Breaks Canyon |
| Red Breaks Canyon |
| A dryfall at the end of the main canyon |
We returned to camp for a nap after hiking through Red Breaks Canyon and back down along the canyon rim to Harris Wash. Although our campsite was great, there wasn't much shade and it was too hot and sunny to be hanging around camp. We decided to check out Devil's Playground a few miles south on Hole in the Rock Road and spend our last night camping back at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. We took the opportunity to hike the petrified wood trail within the park, my first time despite several trips to this park to camp.
Red Breaks Slot Canyon Escalante Utah Location
| Whipple's Fishhook |
| Cottonwood Trees are my favorites |
| Metate Arch at Devil's Playground |
| Cowboy |
| Petrified wood |
| Petrified wood |
| Sunset at Wide Hollow |