Unless you want to get lost in the desert, suffer from heat exhaustion, and be rescued by a ranger, DO NOT do what I did when hiking Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyon and Spooky Slot Canyon in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument in Utah. Also, do not let my crazy adventure deter you from doing this hike. In fact, I wish I had an extra day on my Utah Road Trip, so I could do this amazing hike right!
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About the Spooky and Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyon
Peek-a-Boo Canyon and Spooky Canyon are extremely narrow slot canyons that look very similar to Arizona’s Antelope Canyon but better. Antelope Canyon is located inside Navajo Indian reservation and requires you to be escorted by a tour guide (and can be quite pricy!) All you need for Peek-a-Boo and Spooky Canyons is your America the Beautiful Pass or $5. This hike has been on the top of my bucket list and was the main reason I planned my entire Utah Road Trip to begin with.
The trailhead is located 26 miles down Hole-in-the-Rock Road, which is a rough and rutted dirt-packed road that is difficult to drive on without a 4×4 vehicle. I knew this, and it is why we upgraded our Alamo rental to a Jeep Wrangler. After driving 26 miles, you will see a sign for Dry Fork Narrows and the two slot canyons pointing you down a road to your left. Follow the signs to the parking area for the trailhead. There is overflow parking, but this will add to your overall hiking distance if you must start from the overflow lot.
Trust But Verify Travel Information
Generally speaking, I felt like I was very prepared for this hike. Being it was the #1 trail I was looking forward to, I did a fair amount of research prior to the trip. So I was quite disappointed in my “go-to” travel blogs (blogs….plural) and All Trails (my “go-to” website for trail length, elevation changes, and trail difficulty) for several reasons.
Lie #1 – The Trail is an Easy Hike
Both travel blogs I read indicated that other than the 12-foot rock wall climb that starts Peek-a-Boo Canyon, the hike was an easy one. And yes, that might be true for the walk to the canyons because it is downhill the entire way. However, they failed to mention that the first part of trail from the slot canyons to the parking area is strenuous. Shortly after you climb, turn, duck, swivel, and swerve through the narrow canyons, you have to climb roughly 350 feet in just 0.3 miles on slick rock. I was not prepared for that.
Lie #2 – Trail Length
If you want to go through both the Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyon and Spooky Slot Canyon, this trail is a minimum of 4.5 miles long. Let me repeat it for the people in the back…this trail is 4.5 miles long! And I have the trail map and verification from a ranger to prove it! I do not know why multiple travel blogs claim this is a 3.5-mile trail, but it is not. All Trails only lists a trail that includes these canyons plus the Dry Fork Narrows which is a total of 6.3 miles.
Lie #3 – Easy to Follow Path
This lie is a lie of omission. Neither blogs mentioned how difficult it is to follow this trail. Usually trails are easy to follow because there is a clear path and sometime signs to direct you. The type of terrain here makes it seem like there are more trails than there actually are. The park placed cairns along the trail to help direct you to the correct path. A cairn is a mound or stack of rocks built as a landmark and is pronounce like ‘Karen’. There are several problems with using cairns: they are sometime difficult to see, people like to build their own stacked rocks when in nature which can be confused with official cairns, and cairns can vary in appearance.
Bottom line is travel blogs are generally great resources for travel information. This is one of the reasons I started one. I wanted to share my travel experience with others. But I have learned an important lesson. I will now be taking a “trust but verify” approach when using travel blogs to plan trips.
So Here’s What Happened
Knowing that Spooky Slot Canyon is super narrow and difficult to get through, I was contemplating whether I should take a backpack or not. I usually carry a pack mainly to hold water needed for hikes. Since I thought this was only a 3.5-mile, easy hike, and it was early in the morning, I did not think I would need much water. I did ultimately decide to carry a backpack but only carried two bottles of water for myself. (I was only going to carry one but last minute I tossed in another bottle ‘just in case’.) My thought process was “I walk 3 miles in 95 degree temps with 100% humidity daily with no water at home, so two bottles of water for this hike was plenty!
After walking the 1.4 miles to the entrance of Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyon, scaling the 12-foot rock wall, and maneuvering through the slot canyon, I had drank almost the entirety of one bottle of water. No problem! The hike should have been half over. But here is where things really went awry!
After passing through Peek-a-Boo, you should walk a short jaunt on a wide, sandy path before turning right onto the path that leads you to Spooky Slot Canyon. Remember those cairns I told you about earlier? There is allegedly 4 cairns that mark the path to Spooky, but I never saw them. So I kept going. And to make matters worse, it did not take long before I entered a different slot canyon. Thinking I was in Spooky Slot Canyon, I just kept going. And going. And going. I ended up walking over a mile through various slot canyons (which now I know these are the Upper Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyons.)
When I Knew I Was in Trouble
I finally reached an opening, and I did not know which way I was supposed to go. To make matters worse, there was a cairn there. I now know that was a civilian-built cairn – not an official cairn to mark the trail. I knew if I turned around and went back the way I came, I could get back to the main trail. But if I tried to go any farther, I would have been completely lost. So I turned around. Now I have started conserving water but am down to half a bottle.
I knew I was starting to suffer from heat exhaustion as the temperature had reached 102 degrees. I had chills, felt nauseated, and was getting disoriented. Part of me wanted to take breaks every time I saw shade (which was not often), and part of me wanted to rush to get back since I was low of water and had no food.
Finally, I heard voices in one of the slot canyons we were walking through. The couple claimed we were in Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyon, but I was so disoriented. I did not believe them. They offered to give us their extra bottle of water even though they had already drank a little out of it. The COVID pandemic crossed my mind. I thought “if I get COVID because of this, that is a problem for another day. Today I need water.” So I accepted their water. It was not long after we left our new friends that we came to the top of the 12-foot rock wall. So I guess we were in Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyon after all!
Ranger Bob to the Rescue
After escaping the canyon, we rested under a tree before we had to make the 1.4-mile trek up the steep slick rock and across the canyon rim to the parking area. Here a park ranger, Bob, was talking to hikers and handing out maps. We told him of our little adventure, and he gave us an extra bottle of water he was carrying. Ranger Bob offered to walk with us back to the parking area, so he could make sure we were ok.
After walking about halfway up the steep incline, Ranger Bob knew we were not going to make it. He parked us under a shade tree and walked over a mile back to the parking area where he had more water to bring back to us. While we were waiting, another hiker kindly offered us his extra bottle of water. When Ranger Bob made it back, he had an extremely large bottle of Gatorade and water for us to drinks and to pour on ourselves to cool our bodies. It worked like a champ! We walked the rest of the way back to the trailhead without any problems. Ranger Bob said he had not walked that trail in several months but randomly decided to walk it that day. Talk about Someone looking out for us!
A Silver Lining
I laugh about our crazy adventure now, but in the moment, it was very nerve-racking. Thanks to the kindness of strangers and to our guardian angel, Ranger Bob, we were able to finish the hike. What was supposed to be an easy 3-hour walk turned into 7-hour ordeal. I never did make it to Spooky Slot Canyon. But I did get to discover Upper Peek-a-Boo Slot Canyon, and very few people have ever explored it!
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If you want to visit Antelope Canyon, see it as part of your 4 days to discover Northern Arizona.
