The Wives of Cohab Canyon in Capitol Reef National Park

[french_de]

The Wives of Cohab Canyon in Capitol Reef National Park

If you aren’t already familiar with the 7 parallel, aptly named slot canyons that intersect Cohab canyon in Capitol Reef NP you should take the plunge.

The Wives are surprisingly good and very fun canyons, easily accessed AND the exit is downhill.
Many a trip report and comments have passed before me about these canyons, so I will abstain from the usual banal jokes and comments that so easily arise with these canyons

We decided to follow the recommendations of the beta suppliers and do a combination of the two best wives; wife 3 followed by wife 5.
By the way, what is the penalty for having two wives? Two mother-in-law’s! The wives are quick enough so that 2 canyons can easily be done in a half day outing.
There is a limit by the way to the number of wives anyone can do – 16 to be exact: 4 better, 4 worse, 4 richer and 4 poorer

We used the betrothed gully for our initial entrance to get on top of wife 3. We left the 220 foot rope at the top of the big rappel in Wife 3.
Paul monogamously remained at the top of wife 3 and retrieved the rope and met up with us at the top of wife 5. That big rappel in wife 3 is mostly free hang
For our second ascension we took the sandstone ribs between Wife 5 and Wife 4 topping out right above Wife 5. Question: why did the polygamist cross the road? To get to the other bride
Wife 5 is the best. This was my favorite of the day. It has the beauty and requires some moves to get thru .Did you know that some people consider bigamy and monogamy as the same – One wife too many.

Thanks to Bluugnome and AjRoadtrips for Beta
Thanks to Paul, Sandra and Monica for pictures


Thanks as always to all my canyoneering partners (Dave, Monica, Paul, Kari, Matt and Sandra) for a great time.


Doug French

[Iceaxe]

Maybe I need to give these canyons a try on your recommendation, in the past they have never been very appealing to me.


A man left work one Friday afternoon. Being payday, instead of going home, he stayed out the entire weekend partying with the boys and spent his entire paycheck. When he finally appeared at home, Sunday night, he was confronted by a very angry wife and was barraged for nearly two hours with a tirade befitting his actions.

Finally, his wife stopped the nagging and simply said to him, "How would you like it if you didn't see me for two or three days?"

To which he replied, "That would be fine with me."

Monday went by and he didn't see his wife. Tuesday and Wednesday came and went with the same results.

Thursday, the swelling went down just enough where he could see her a little out of the corner of his left eye.

[DesertDuke]

Thank you. the great photos add much! I did not even know there were there.

[davehuth]

We left the 220 foot rope at the top of the big rappel in Wife 3.

And we removed the existing anchor webbing as it appeared to be affected by the elements, used another rope for the anchor. The beta spells this out, but if you are going to pull the rope you need 40ish feet of webbing for this anchor. As of this post there is no anchor at the top of wife 3.

[accadacca]

Epic report! Tks!!!

[Scott Card]

Excellent report.

[peakbaggers]

Like Shane, I think we're going to have to bump these up on the "Visit real soon" list. They're close enough to us to do on a weekend trip. Thanks for the report.

[ilipichicuma]

Great report! I've done both canyons and really liked them. I'd kind of like to check out some of the others if I get a chance.

[Slot Machine]

Strong work Doug! Nice of Larry King to chime in!