We took another cool hike that started out by dropping 1260 ft of elevation over the first three miles to get down to the Escalante River. Then we hiked down the river bottom for a mile. We had to ford the river 5 times before we came to a side canyon called Neon Canyon. We hiked up this narrow slot canyon for a mile until it ends at a huge cavern called the Golden Cathedral. It has a large emerald colored pool in the bottom and 2 huge round openings in the ceiling that the water pours through when it rains. The water reflections onto the rock walls inside the cavern were quite a sight. My garmin read a total of 11 miles for the hike but we had an extra mile on the way in with some meandering we did to find the best routes. There isn't a trail for a lot of it. There are rock cairns sometimes to help guide you and it helped that I had programed some gps coordinates into my garmin that I had gotten from searching google earth before the trip. We never saw another person on the whole hike until we were almost back to the jeep. My son and I climbed the last three miles out of the canyon at a very brisk pace. It took us an hour and was a great workout.
looking back up to the rim where we're parked. It's a lot steeper than it looks. View of the river bottom.
One of the 5 crossings each way. Very cold water Indian petroglyphs in the canyon bottom Water reflections on the walls of the Golden Cathedral. Reflection below is after skipping a rock
Dinosaur tracks
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