May 25-27, 2024
Escalante Canyons - Ringtail, Choprock and Neon
Laura and I met Joshua and Kelsey at the Egypt parking in Escalante on Friday evening. We hung out and slept in cars that night, ready for an early start the following day, hoping to beat the heat to our camp where fence canyon trail meets the Escalante river. We hiked in, taking just under 2 hours and set up tents before heading along the trail to explore Ringtail canyon. After ringtail, we returned to camp and enjoyed the evening, chatting and making bets on if our friend Lin would make it to camp to join us as he had planned. Lin did arrive just as we all had began to retire to bed. He set up his tent and we all agreed to get an early start the following day, walking by 6 am.
Sunday, we left camp at 6 am and made our way along the 5+ mile approach Choprock canyon. Upon entering the canyon, the scenery was amazing as we passed though a lush area that held a ton of poison ivy. The next section of the canyon was scenic and beautiful before it slotted up and dropped down in elevation. The final areas of the canyon, the "grim section" was in low water, or easy mode and we were able to make our way through efficiently and actually really enjoyed the area many are so wary of. The swims were long and cold, but with heavy wetsuits we all stayed mostly warm. Round trip time camp to camp for Choprock was 11 hours.
On our last day, we ran Neon canyon. This is a beautiful canyon too and was very enjoyable. The final rappel into the golden cathedral was spectacular! Our group spent some time at the golden cathedral chatting and enjoying the special places we get to visit before hiking back toward camp. We made one more stop along the way to view the amazing petroglyphs on the canyon walls.
We all packed up and hiked out of camp right around noon, staying cool by dumping cold water over our heads and clothes as we hiked back out of Fence canyon and to our cars, arriving at about 2 pm.
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