Slot Canyon Adventure with Ryan, Kaylyn, Bri, and Mason

Recently, I mean six months ago, me, my bro- and sis-in-law Mason and Bri took Georgia visitors Kaylyn and Ryan on a real live southern Utah desert adventure. They were in town for a week to get a feel for the Great American West, and what better to show off the place than to go canyoneering?

We got up at the crack of dawn, stopped at the grocery store bakery where Bri worked to get some of their famous doughnuts (which were every bit as good as she claimed), and headed for the San Rafael Swell, more than four hours away. It was a long drive made interesting by the Generation Z crowd fiercely judging Mason's music choices.

We intended to do a short slot in Goblin Valley called Goblin's Lair, but just about the time we were leaving cell phone range, I decided we should instead do a longer and cooler slot deeper in the Swell called Baptist Draw. So we backtracked far enough to get service, I downloaded maps and route description and GPS, and after a pit stop at the Goblin Valley visitor center, we went off-road in Bri and Mason's sweet 4WD vehicle.

The view from the visitor center. I seriously love seeing the Swell from far away. It is so mysterious and inviting.

Another hour on a cool, windy, rocky road, and we were in the middle of nowhere, ready to find Baptist Draw. It wasn't too hot of a day, actually, and we made it to the canyon after about 45 minutes.

 

Hard to believe there's such an amazing slot canyon in this landscape. I took this picture to help us find the route back to the car. 

Into the canyon

Ryan really enjoyed hiding around corners and trying to scare Kaylyn. It did not, as a rule, work.

 

Baptist Draw is the funnest beginner canyon I've done. There were obstacles to overcome and problems to solve, but nothing too crazy, and the narrows went on for a long, long time. 

 

Me and Kaylyn coordinated our outfits ahead of time.

The water we found was refreshing

There were three rappels, if I remember correctly, and everybody handled them like old pros. I don't have very many pictures of them, unfortunately.

  

Every adventure, it seems, has an "Oh no" moment. This time it happened when Kaylyn was on the last rappel, about 100 feet. As she was going down, her shirt got caught in the rappelling device, called a figure 8, and she was stuck. I was at the top, getting slowly eaten by tiny little flies, and I couldn't figure out what to do. I only had 120 feet of rope (with 100 feet of pull cord to get the rope down at the end), so I couldn't rappel down to help her.

We got really lucky. As you can see from the picture, this rappel was down a crack in the rock, so there was wall behind her. She could brace herself against the wall, loosen the tension on the figure 8, and pull her shirt free. And that's just what she did. Before long, we were back on track.

Back on terra firma

This was at the point that Baptist Draw joined Chute Canyon, and from here we hiked upcanyon to the exit. It got really narrow and very, very pretty.

 

We emerged from the canyon late in the afternoon and had to hustle to get back to the car and then all the way home. It rained on us for a few minutes, which was actually a little cold.

 Then the second memorable moment came. Ryan had worn a really old pair of shoes, and had developed a hole under his left big toe. Pretty soon he also had a hole in his sock too. And as we hiked along, he stepped right on a cactus, right on that bare big toe! Bri had to dig all the spines out. Hopefully it made a cool story to tell his friends back home.

  

Conquerors of Baptist Draw