In the medical field there is a thing called chasing Zebras. A Zebra represents those rare, but serious conditions that a patient could have, but more than likely doesn’t. If you’re chasing a Zebra, you may end up running a ton of unnecessary tests, and get nowhere. Or if the patient actually has a Zebra, you may end up saving a life!

In this case, I’m referring to a different Zebra, but I’m still not referring to the animal. When I was at the Bryce Canyon visitor’s center, I was browsing through the books, and found one titled Photographing the Southwest. This was the first volume in a series, and was focused solely on southern Utah. In this book I found this amazing slot canyon called Zebra Slot Canyon. I had seen pictures of this place before, but I didn’t really know where it was. I looked it up, and it was only an hour and a half from Bryce! It left a 4-hour drive to Moab, where I was headed next, but I HAD to go visit this place!

This is well off the beaten path. To start, you’re in the small town of Escalante, UT, population 779. From there, it’s an 8 mile drive down a ROUGH gravel road. A 4WD vehicle is not necessary, however, and my Accord got there just fine.

When I got to the parking area, there was one other guy who was just leaving his vehicle and heading out on the trail. I’d end up catching him later on and passing him, and then I never saw him again.

The hike out to Zebra Canyon is really pretty easy and flat. There are some sections that get a little confusing, but you can always look around and find the trail.

My feet were still in bad shape from my hike through the Zion Narrows, so the hike was a bit painful at times. I found it was worse in sand, because I couldn’t really keep the pressure off those wounded areas. There were several sections where I had to cross the Halfway Hollow creek, and while it was muddy, there was no water running through it, so I would get some mud on the sole of my hiking shoes, but it wasn’t a big deal. Then I came up to this…

What would you do? I walked up and down the bank here, and while some sections became more narrow, there weren’t any narrow enough that I could jump over. I had to cross it. I thought I may be able to throw some rocks down and create a little bridge, but the rocks were just sliding in the mud on the bottom, not to mention covered with slippery mud on top! The risk of a fall was high, so I decided to forego that. Alright… off with the shoes and socks! Yep, I crossed that sucker barefoot! When I came out on the other side my feet were caked with mud! I knew I was close, so I just continued on barefoot, but that became an issue shortly as the sand was filled with spiny little twigs that were getting stuck to the bottom of my feet. Ouch! I eventually sat down and scraped off as much mud as I could, and put my socks and shoes back on.

It wasn’t much further until I finally came upon the mouth of the slot canyon. Hooray!

I had read that there could be pools of water at the beginning of this canyon, their depth of which would depend on how much rain had recently fallen. This water was stagnant, dirty, and disgusting! There were tadpoles swimming in it, and these huge water bugs on the surface. But there was no other option if I wanted to get to the sweet spot of the canyon, so into the nasty water I went! I was at least prepared for this by wearing swimming trunks. I had hoped it would only be knee deep. Well, that hope vanished about 4 feet in. It was clear I wouldn’t be able to wear my backpack, so I came back out and took all of my stuff off, took my cell phone and keys out of my pocket, and went back just to test how deep that water was.

It got deeper. A lot deeper! All the way up to the top of my chest! Did I mention it was dirty water? I know I didn’t mention it was also cold! I’m not sure if it was the fact it was cold, dirty, or that it was in this narrow space, but for whatever reason it literally took my breath away. I was afraid it would continue to get deeper, which would not have allowed me to bring my camera in, but luckily it did not.

It did, however, get more narrow. VERY narrow. To the point where my feet wouldn’t even fit on the bottom, so they were getting scrunched and scraped all the way through that joint! I was still angry at my water shoes from Zion, so I did not have them with me. I wasn’t going to get my hiking shoes wet either, so I continued to do this barefoot. Finally I hit the point where the water ended, but there was still a very narrow section to navigate. The best way to do it was to “sit” against one wall with my hands behind me, and put my feet (bare feet, I remind you) up on the other wall, and… I’m not sure what you call this… spider walk? Whatever you’d call it, it takes a lot of energy to do! And at one point I slid down the face of the walls, giving me rock burns on my right palm, and left sole.

It’s certainly not easy to get to the back of the canyon, where the magic is located. But in the end, it’s worth it. I scraped up my feet quite a bit, particularly my right foot, where the wounds had been healing, but they were both opened back up, and would prove to be an issue for the remainder of the week as a result. Anyway, I had finally reached the sweet spot, and this is what I saw…

WOW, was it beautiful! That wasn’t even the best view, however. After going further in and looking back, the view was even better!

Because of the difficulty in getting back there, I had only brought my camera, which I just carried above my head through the water, and hung around my neck for those sections requiring use of both hands. I really wanted to go back and get my tripod so that I didn’t have to shoot at ISO 2000, but after going a little ways I decided it was too much trouble, and I’d just come back some time in the future and be better prepared!

I was also somewhat pressed for time, as I had a 4-hour drive to get to Moab, check-in to my room, and then get up to Delicate Arch for sunset, or really well before sunset for the photos I wanted. So I didn’t stay any longer.

When I got back to the front where all of my stuff was, I realized… I never took my wallet out of my back pocket! Oh, goodness. It was soaked, of course! So on the drive to Moab, I came up with a decent way of drying it out…

I was so dirty and gross, and I’m sure I smelled terrible, but it was all worth it! I’ll definitely go back sometime, but this time I’ll be better prepared! Perhaps the best part was that I had the canyon to myself the entire time! On the way back, I passed a group of four who asked me if they were on the correct trail to Zebra Canyon. It was a young couple with two older women. I informed them what they were about to encounter, and showed them pictures as motivation, but I really doubt the two older women were able to make it back there! Then when I was almost to the parking area, I passed a large group of boys and a couple men. I’m not sure if they were headed all the way to the canyon or not. But chances are good if you head out there in the morning hours, you’ll be all alone, or will only see a few others!