We packed up this morning, headed out by way of Antelope Valley up to Fredionia, AZ which turns out to be the nearest town to this community, despite being a couple hours down a dirt road. It was a lovely little drive back to civilization.
We spent an age re-inflating our tires and trying to mitigate some of the worst of the dust rattles before turning back onto pavement and heading east on US-89A, the Fredonia-Vermilion Cliffs Scenic Road that I found last year. I was excited to revisit that as a team.
We had two choices for today: another Grand Canyon North Rim overlook or an epic slot canyon hike that the Sundial Posse recommended to us last night. Much of Vermilion Cliffs and Paria Canyon are limited by a strict permit lottery so I wrote off the monument for this trip. But they assured us that Wire Pass to the Buckskin Gulch is day-trippable on a standard permit! So I was eager to get a hike in and to see that area because it’s been on my list for a while. (I will say, the BLM’s process for obtaining said day-trip permit leaves a lot to be desired… someone needs a UX researcher somewhere.)
On the far side of Kaibab National Forest, we turned into Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. The dirt road up the west side of the plateau had such intense washboard we all deflated again, which was annoying, but we picked a great spot to do it.
And then we hit the Wire Pass Trailhead. It’s an alternate middle entrance to the Buckskin Gulch, the longest slot canyon in the USA at a total length of over 20 miles. The canyon is narrow for 12 miles; the cliffs become steadily higher downstream, reaching a height of 500 feet above the streambed at the end, where Buckskin Gulch meets the Paria River.
This trailhead is actually in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, checking off another park on the Backtrack. The trail itself crosses through Paria Canyon – Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area too.
Wire Pass opens into wide section of Buckskin Gulch with more petroglyphs and what may have been a decent campground before narrowing back down in both directions.
From Evan From Evan
We stayed in the gulch a while until we realized it was starting to get late and that we wanted dinner, which meant finishing the drive to Page. But since this was our last adventure stop on the trip, I wish we could have stayed all night.
Past due for starvation prevention, we arrived into Page and hit up a local burger joint called Slackers. It was great. Our AirBnB for the evening is much more spacious than the bunkhouse, but I already miss my ranch on the rim.
Our gratitude to the Sundialers for the recommendation. I’m so glad they told us to check this one out.