Fall 2024 Back to the Southwest, 10.19.24 - 11.13.24, Part 5, White Rocks Canyon, UT
The day after returning from our overnighter in Blue Canyon, we picked up Mike at 6AM and drove up 89 past Big Water to the little clump of houses known as Church Wells. We turned off the highway and followed a dirt road up a few miles to an unmarked trailhead just past a retention pond. In the photo below, we would start at the bottom at Parking White Rocks Trailhead. Our plan was ambitious. We would hike up White Rocks Slot Canyon, turn east and get up to Colorful Canyon which would lead us to Sidestep Canyon. After exploring Sidestep Canyon we would then backtrack to the junction, head west across the head of White Rocks Canyon and then continue west to a canyon that held Zebra Hoodoo before dropping down that canyon back to the car to complete a large loop.
Map of planned route
The Gaia track I was following turned out to be incorrect and this foiled our plan. It all started out just fine. We started up White Rocks Slot Canyon just as the sun kissed the highest points above us. It was still a wide wash down low and the hiking was easy and pleasant.
Starting up White Rocks Slot Canyon
As the canyon closed in on the sides, our first obstacle was a cement dam across the width of the canyon. It was about six feet high. My research assured me there would be a ladder attached (I’d even seen a picture with the ladder there) but when we arrived the ladder was nowhere to be found. With no real places to climb up on, this turned out to be a formidable block. Thankfully, Mike is taller than the Newmark family so he managed to get up first and lend a hand for Bridgit and me to scale the wall.
Harder than it looks
Above the dam, the walls of the canyon got higher and we passed by some really cool slickrock that Mike scaled because it was there. Following my Gaia track, when we came to a large four way junction we turned east. This was the track that would lead us to Colorful Canyon and then Sidestep Canyon. This eastern side canyon was absolutely beautiful. It was full of bluish grey slickrock. When the bottom of the canyon tightened up we began to run into chockstones and pour-offs that we had to climb over. When they became more formidable we climbed up out of the bottom of the canyon and found ourselves on a beautiful slickrock bench. It was a really cool area and easy to hike through. At the far end of this area the walls closed up completely but for a large entrance to a slot canyon.
The beautiful area at the head of the eastern side canyon. You can see the entrance to the slot on the right of the photo.
Just before the slot canyon (Mike photo)
After crossing the slickrock plateau we worked our way to the entrance of the slot canyon. Immediately the walls rose up very high and narrowed to just a few feet wide. The further we went in the darker and narrower it got. Soon I had to duck under an area of overhanging rock and it began to feel more like a tunnel than a canyon. Just then a large owl flew right over our heads and out the entrance to the slot. It was so dark I need my flashlight to see but up ahead I saw some light so I continued and it opened up again. However, just a few feet later we came to a massive wall of rock that rose up as far as we could see. This was the end of the road in this canyon.
Looking back at the entrance to the slot canyon
Deeper into the slot canyon
Puzzled, we backtracked out of the slot. We looked for any other possible ways to continue in an easterly direction but there were none. We had to conclude that the track on my Gaia app was incorrect which meant we weren’t going to see Colorful Canyon or Sidestep Canyon on this trip unless we went a totally different way. Much later after we had already returned from our hike I found out that if we had climbed out of the canyon before even reaching the dam and hiked on the sage hills east of White Rocks Slot Canyon we would have made it to Colorful Canyon and eventually Sidestep Canyon. I plan to go back at some point and devote a day just for those two canyons.
It wasn’t a total loss though. The eastern side canyon we hiked up was extremely beautiful and we got to see the owl twice (it flew back in after we left). We also still had the second leg of our loop to deal with so we hiked back down to the main junction. According to Gaia, we were at a four way junction. We had already tried the eastern track which dead-ended. Now we wanted to head north to the head of White Rocks Canyon. Before doing that however, we had two other tracks we wanted to explore. The first veered off to the northeast to a place called the Colors Of The Desert. It sounded cool so away we went. This side canyon was exceptionally wild looking. It was all grey mudstone and twisted and turned as we made our way up. We had to climb over several obstacles that impeded our progress and soon we ended up in an open bowl of white and grey mudstone that seemed to be another dead end. High above the bowl was an opening and there was a vertical rock right at the gap that didn’t quite look natural. We could then see a faint path leading very steeply up the side of the bowl to the gap so we worked our way up. The side of this hill was very loose rock and got a bit dicey but when we made it to the top it leveled out to a fine platform overlooking a large basin filled with colorful hoodoos. Aha! This had to be the Colors Of The Desert!
The side canyon leading to the Colors Of The Desert
The side canyon leading to the Colors Of The Desert
The final climb to the Colors Of The Desert
Jon and Mike making their way back down from Colors Of The Desert (Bridgit photo)
Looking into the Colors Of The Desert
Hoodoos in the Colors Of The Desert
The Colors Of The Desert with Mike and me for scale (Bridgit photo)
Looking back down the side canyon we came up from Colors Of The Desert
The side canyon to Colors Of The Desert
The side trip to Colors of the Desert was totally worth the effort. It didn’t take us too long to get back to the four way junction. Now we thought we’d try the left hand track that led to what was called White Rocks Slot Canyon. Bridgit loves the slots so she was leading on this one. Just as she was about to enter the slot she whipped around faster than a Tasmanian Devil and hollered “SNAKE” as she quickly retreated. We went up to look and right in the middle of the floor of the entrance was a humongous serpent. It had to have been at least as thick as a #2 pencil and maybe just a tad longer than one. We determined it was a fairly rare Midget Faded Rattlesnake. This one was almost certainly a juvenile since it had quite bright colors that fade as they get older, thus the name. They are only found in southwestern Wyoming, Utah and western Colorado. Its venom is the most toxic of all rattlesnakes. This particular fellow was moving very slowly in the relatively colder rock of the shaded slot canyon. Somewhat surprisingly, this was the first time Bridgit or I had ever seen a rattlesnake in the wild.
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
It’s a ssssserpent!
At this point in her day, Bridgit had no further plans to go into the slot canyon. Mike just stepped over the dreaded viper and determined the slot ended almost right away anyway so there wasn’t much point in going any further in.
This left us with our final track at the four way junction. My app said that we still could proceed in a northerly direction to get to the head of White Rocks Canyon but there was no other canyons to proceed up. To the east was the first side canyon that dead ended, to the northeast was the cool canyon that went to Colors Of the Desert and to the west was the snake. We knew there had to be a way to continue north so Mike did an exploratory climb up high on the rocks surrounding the junction and found another canyon up above. We climbed up and began to follow this new canyon which headed in the direction we wanted to go. After awhile it became too difficult to stay in the floor of this canyon and we were forced to climb out to higher ground. We found a steep hill and when we got to the top we were on a ridge between two canyons. And there, right on the spine of the ridge was a clear and obvious trail. We walked a very short way north to a high point that looked down into both canyons. We decided this was a good lunch spot. At this point we spotted a solo woman hiker coming toward us from the opposite direction. She had started at the other end of our loop and was going clockwise. She said the remainder of the loop was pretty clear trail so we knew we’d made it past the most complex stuff.
Can’t go this way!
Looking back into White Rocks Canyon from up on the ridgetop
After lunch we knew we would be on the easier leg of the journey. Before heading that way, we took a short side trail out to a spot that looked down on the Colors Of The Desert from up above. There were several hoodoos where the overlook was and one of them seemed to be defying gravity its base was so thin.
The Colors Of The Desert from the ridge top. You can see the flat spot on the right where we popped out above the steep white hill.
Wineglass hoodoo with Chimney Rock in the background
Don’t even think about it!
From the top of the ridge, our next move would be to drop down into the head of the canyon west of White Rocks Canyon. Along the way we passed by several nice hoodoos. Crossing around the head of the canyon, we climbed a hill and now we were done with rock and hiking on a well defined trail through the sage. After passing north of Chimney Rock we dropped down into a wash that led to the extremely wide main wash that came down from Zebra Hoodoo. It was pretty warm and we were a bit spent by this point so we bailed on Zebra Hoodoo and just followed the wash south and back to the Jeep. It had been a wild day and a very fun route finding exercise. Despite not getting to Colorful Canyon or Sidestep Canyon, we had a blast.
White Giant Hoodoo (Gary calls it Dromedary Hoodoo)
Looking back to our route. You can see the high point above the canyon to the right of White Giant Hoodoo where we had lunch.
Chimney Rock from the north. We made a giant loop around this rock.
Our actual route.
Thanks once again to my friend Gary for turning me on to this place. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we get back and do Colorful and Sidestep!