A Slot-monkey’s Experience

Filled with slot canyons, Capitol Reef National Park lives in the south-central Utah desert. I love exploring slot canyons.

Experienced slot-monkeys know to tell someone where they’re going and to never go alone. Breaking both rules, I went in with only my day-pack.

Now, should I come to a fork, I’ll pick either left or right, and will stick to that, making back-tracking easier should I come to a dead-end. On this day though, I got lost.

To make matters worse, a thunderstorm had begun unleashing buckets of rain somewhere beyond both the hearing and sight of the canyon’s bottom. I had no way of knowing what was coming my way, until it was too late.

By that afternoon, a stream of water began trickling, then flowing, and finally cascading through the slot. After chimney climbing till it was too wide, I chanced wading the torrent, where a misstep swept me under.

The slot narrowed, trapping me when my pack got caught. Almost out of air, I slipped my straps and corked through the rest of the gap.

It spit me out into a shallow pool ten feet below the slot. Landing on my back, my head bounced off the rock floor as small rocks, pieces of dry wood, a couple of drown lizards and a half-eaten deer carcass pelted me.

Fairly battered, severely scraped-up and bruised, I scrambled down the rocky ledge and limping back to my truck, never seeing my day-pack again.