Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Welcome back for another episode of "Rebecca Rocks Out." After 2 years, I returned to Dry Fork Coyote Wash and to Peekaboo Gulch, where I broke my foot in April 2023. No injuries this time! Well, except to my camera, which finally succumbed to all the desert sand and grit halfway through the hike. I'm glad that cell phones these days have great cameras, so the trip wasn't a photographic loss. We went on from Peekaboo to Spooky Gulch, an even narrower slot canyon, though not in my opinion as pretty a one.   The hike starts with a short walk to the edge of the canyon, then a long walk along the shelf atop the sandstone. Starting the hike. Two years ago we climbed into Peekaboo from the bottom of the wash, a climb that I don't like and can't do without help. This time we hiked up alongside the slot and dropped in from the top. A bit of a search located the place we climbed out after I broke my foot. It was a less obvious route than I remembered! From there we hea...

I've been there four times now, and probably shared photos each time, but I can never get too much of these twisting and narrow slot canyons. You'll have to put up with the repetition! In four visits, this was not only the first time the slot has been dry, but the first time it's had anything less than chest-deep pools of cold, murky water. It's more pleasant without the wet. A hike of just under 3 miles takes you into the wash and across to the opening to Zebra slot. A close eye on the weather is essential here--rain anywhere in the area could result in a flash flood through the slot, and that would be... bad. It would be bad, also, to do this in the heat of a summer day, as the climb back up to the car is hot and exposed. We found it so even at noon on a comparatively cool April day (the wind was no fun, either). Once, long ago, there were sand dunes. Zebra is a popular hike, so it's easy to follow the trail and the footprints to the opening.   On other visits, th...

I know I reported on Zebra last year, but this time I managed to get a phone, at least, up into the good stuff. And before anyone asks: we checked forecasts and did some serious visual scans of the drainage area for the slot before going in. Here's the scoop: We are still in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and in fact only a few miles from the Golden Cathedral , which I reported on last week. The full Zebra-Tunnel loop is somewhere in the 6-mile range, but there's not much climbing, as Harris Wash at that point hasn't dropped much below the level of the road. Zebra is a very tight slot, not for the claustrophobic! Tunnel slot is easy, though accessing the top end involved a little scrambling. As usual, an early start to beat the heat. Zooming in to admire the cross-bedding in the sandstone The mouth of the slot, and the first hint that the rains that left a lot of mud down along the Escalante might not have all drained off here. We sent the tallest guy in f...