Dark Canyon Photo Gallery by Brian Dickson at pbase.com

Dark Canyon

Another superb backpack over 4 days in October in southern Utah- this time into the Dark Canyon wilderness. We dropped down the Sundance trail and hiked upstream in this huge deep canyon on slabby terraced limestone with water flowing most of the way. We camped at the confluence of Young's canyon and Dark and spent a day going up Young's canyon before returning to the same camp. The next day we went further up Dark canyon before returning and camping downstream. On our final day we descended down canyon via a side trip up Lost canyon then all the way to about 300m from the confluence with the Colorado river. Deep mud and silt put us off reaching the Colorado although this lower part of Dark canyon was magnificent. Also see our hiking blog

Camp at Hite before Dark canyon	Looking down into Dark canyon before descending	Rubbly descent into Dark canyon on the Sundance trail
Dark canyon	We drop down into a side canyon that provides easy access into the main Dark Canyon	Dark canyon
Dark canyon	Dark canyon - Great hiking along limestone pavements	Dark canyon- good flowing water
The bed of Dark canyon is mostly limestone- these are maybe chert intrusions in the limestone?
Sapsucker peckings?	Camp at confluence of Dark and Young's canyons	Camp at confluence of Dark and Young's canyons (tent bottom just right of centre)
Day 2 - Youngs canyon, traversing above pour offs	Day 2 - Youngs canyon	Day 2 - Youngs canyon
Day 2 - Youngs canyon, traversing above pour offs	Day 3 - Dark canyon	Day 3 - Dark canyon
Day 3 - Dark canyon and a lovely pool	More beautiful intrusions in the limestone	Day 3 Dark canyon in autumn
		Day 3 We camp between Lost and Young's canyons on limestone slabs just above the streambed
Lost canyon- we explored up this feeder canyon for a while	Lost canyon	Lost canyon
Lower Dark canyon below the Sundance trail was stunning	High level trail above lower Dark canyon heading towards the Colorado river	Lower Dark canyon just beyond the first major side canyon
Lower Dark canyon	We near the Colorado river but were defeated by deep silt and mud left from the retreating Colorado water levels	Lower Dark canyon
Climbing out of dark canyon on day 4

comment |

click on thumbnails for full image

Type your message and click Add Comment

It is best to login or register first but you may post as a guest. Enter an optional name and contact email address. Name
Name Email
help	private comment