Utah's slot canyons offer surreal adventure

[Iceaxe]

I recently returned from a canyoneering trip to Neon Canyon in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah with a multigenerational group of friends from Florida and California.


The highlight of the trip was an 85-foot rappel into a stunning geological feature appropriately known as the Golden Cathedral.


At 61, I feel fortunate to have experienced Neon Canyon in a 16-hour adventure that ended by hiking in the soft light of a full moon that lit our way across the slickrock desert.


Canyoneering is hard to explain. Every slot canyon like Neon starts with route-finding your way with little or no trail to the upper reaches of what usually amounts to a minute crack in a drainage plateau, then dropping in via rappel or scramble to a twisting and curving corridor of sandstone intricately carved by water.


Canyoneering usually involves dank pools that need to be waded or swum. Drop-offs are common, rappels or handlines may be frequent, and crawling is often mandatory.


Slot canyons are often highly inaccessible, reached only after hiking for several miles. Neon's approach was reached after driving 40 miles down the teeth-jarring dirt track known as Hole-in-the-Rock Road, and then hiking around 4 miles to the Escalante River.


Once we reached the Neon entrance, we hiked 1.75 miles up a plateau sliced by the canyon and looked for a good spot to rappel in. By the time we reached that point with heavy packs, it was around 1 p.m. and we were hot and tired from the effort.


The real work begins when you reach the belly of a slot canyon. In the case of Neon, the canyon was so tight that much of the navigation required inching along sideways, holding packs high in the air or passing them back and forth through dozens of obstacles, tight passages, stagnant pools and, near the end, an infamous "keeper pothole.''


A keeper pothole is aptly named because there is a danger that once you enter, you can't climb out. Fortunately, the Neon pothole was full of water and we could swim