Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is littered with slot canyons. Most are remote and difficult to navigate. So we pressed the easy button and took the paved road to Singing Canyon. The diminutive slot is known more for its acoustics than any degree of difficulty.
- Singing Canyon Trail (Sept 21, 2021) – 0.3 miles
The winding 13-mile drive down Burr Trail Road from Boulder, Utah, to Singing Canyon was pleasant and easy. Finding the elusive crevice in the red bluffs of Long Canyon proved a challenge.
We mapped the route using Google maps but still came up short. After wandering around the wrong trailhead for about 15 minutes, a fellow traveler kindly directed us to a short row of parked cars about a quarter mile down the road.
The unmarked slot is little more than a beautiful crevice in the vastness of the 7.5-mile canyon. A walk through a dry creek bed and a patch of shade trees led us to the entrance of what must be the shortest and easiest slot canyon hike in the American West.
Trying to extend the outing, we stopped at the Deer Creek Campground on the way back to Boulder to find a place to eat lunch. Unfortunately, we found only dust and flies. We ate in the car.
Only later did we learn that Singing Canyon is better known for its acoustics. We should have packed a guitar instead of lunch.
In September 2021 we drove from our home Coastside on the San Francisco Peninsula to Rocky Mountain National Park via southern Utah. It was our first trip off of the the West Coast since the pandemic reached the United States in January 2020.