Photo: Bureau of Land Management / Public domain · source
Buckskin Gulch runs about 16 miles through Navajo sandstone, one of the longest continuous slot canyons anywhere, with stretches barely 10 feet wide under hundreds of feet of rock. Daylight arrives secondhand. The floor shifts between packed sand, logjams wedged overhead, and cold pools that can go chest deep for weeks after rain. Most hikers walk in from Wire Pass, 1.7 miles to the confluence, then turn back. The full through hike out at White House runs about 21 miles over two days. Day use is $6 per person and $6 per dog on Recreation.gov, no lottery. Overnight takes a Paria Canyon permit, $5 per person per night, 20 people a day across all trailheads, released monthly about four months out. House Rock Valley Road is 8.3 miles of dirt, passable by car when dry and not when wet. The narrows run 11 miles with one technical escape route, so check the forecast for the whole upstream watershed before you drop in.
Canyons & deserts
Canyons & deserts
Canyons & desertsCurated guides that feature Buckskin Gulch.
15 placesThe sandstone country of the Colorado Plateau and its edges: corridors sanded smooth by flood water, arches by the thousand, hoodoo amphitheaters and thousand-foot buttes. Fifteen places, honest about which ones need a permit, a Navajo guide, or a high-clearance truck, and which you can simply walk into.
9 placesNowhere else packs this much sandstone into one state. The Mighty 5 national parks, a twelve-mile slot canyon you walk single file, the first Dark Sky Park ever certified, and a river hike between thousand-foot walls. Nine places, from drive-up overlooks to corridors ten inches wide.