Permits and Politics - Red Canyon, Phipps Arch, Egypt 3 - September-October 2013

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With our packs streamlined and delicate items protected, we started off, ready for adventure.

The floor of Egypt 3 soon narrowed dramatically, down to a foot-wide sandy floor. The walls were angled far back, though, so we were still hiking in the open. But it was a harbinger of what was to come.

courtesy RHanel

Starting to narrow

Ready and Clean

Getting deeper and narrower

Within a few minutes, the angle of the walls steepened, and soon we were in shadow. The walls became curvier, swoopier, requiring a bit of up and down scrambling.

The walls then became vertical and narrowed down to about a foot wide, marking the start of the serious slot-canyoning. Along with this narrowing, the floor of the canyon dropped about fifteen feet, creating a very narrow dryfall that had to be negotiated by a bit of strenuous body-jamming. After Roland - our current lead person - had gotten to the bottom, we ferried our packs down to him and then one-by-one wormed our way down into this veritable crack in the earth.

courtesy JInnes

courtesy RHanel

Downs and ups

Slotting up

Body Jam

courtesy RHanel

courtesy JInnes

Reaching bottom of first obstacle

Steep descent

Below the narrow dryfall, Egypt 3 widened, somewhere to between five and ten feet wide. There were many carved-out curves and sweeps of rock here, alcoves and potholes. It was a fun, jungle-gym like experience scrambling over, around, and along these shapes. Thus began what I now like to call "phase 1" of the Egypt 3 slot canyon descent.

courtesy RHanel

courtesy JInnes

Twists and Turns of Egypt 3

Getting deeper

Scrambling through potholes

Back in 2006, the entire stretch of "phase 1" had been almost completely dry, save for one or perhaps two shallow pools. We had stemmed over these pools back then, managing to keep ourselves and our feet from getting wet.

Knowing that several weeks before had seen significant rainfall in the Escalante, this time I expected otherwise, and I had prepared myself (and warned the others) by wearing water shoes. This was a good choice, because it wasn't long down "phase 1" before we encountered the first of several water-fill potholes, much deeper than the ones from 2006.

courtesy RHanel

Tight squeeze

The First Pool

Partner assist

There was no practical way for us to stem many of these water obstacles, and in fact, we didn't really try. Getting wet and muddy was going to be part of the experience today.

Fortunately, the water temperature wasn't really all that bad, and it was actually kind of fun to splash through these pools. Some of the pools were in potholes that were very tricky to exit. They were lined with smooth, flared-out rock, and the muddy bottom of the pools ensured that any foot you got up onto said rock was coated in slippery mud. Many times, we had to enlist the help of a partner, either from behind or from above, to manage an exit. This would be very difficult - in fact perhaps dangerous - to descend solo!

courtesy JInnes

courtesy RHanel

Exit assist

Down a chute

Playing in the mud

courtesy RHanel

Curve-y and Cave-y

More downclimbing

The remainder of the way down "phase 1" consisted of stretches with several pools followed by longer stretches down dark, ribbed and cavernous-like narrows, and then back to more pools. In a few places, we had to carefully slide down 10 or 15-foot deep sloping chutes - chutes that would be slightly tricky if you had to climb back up them. So far, though, nothing we had done was truly un-reversible - always a nice thing to know if you ever encounter an impassable obstacle.