Slot canyons vary significantly in terms of difficulty and technical skills needed to descend them safely. They can range from tourist-friendly walk-through slots like Antelope Canyon to tight and dangerous X-canyons, where a misstep could lead to death. The term X-canyon refers to the danger rating of the canyon, which borrows from American movie ratings. An R-rated canyon might have the potential for serious injury, while an X-rated Canyon might have the potential for death if you mess up certain climbing moves. When I initially researched canyoneering back in 2012, I read an article about a notoriously dangerous X-canyon called Sandthrax. I thought at the time that there was no way I’d ever do a canyon like that. Little did I know that I would be pursuing X-canyons in just a few years.
 |
| Crossing a silo in Psycho Damage Canyon |
In 2017, I caught the canyoneering bug, and started descending technical slot canyons almost every weekend with my wife Olivia. Though I had been a rock climber for years by that time, I gave up rock climbing in my pursuit of canyoneering. I found that many canyons that were considered difficult or scary didn't bother me, so I planned to attempt my first X-canyon in the Fall of 2017. Reaching out to the canyoneering community on canyoncollective.com, I put out an open invite and said that I planned to descend Psycho Damage Canyon, an entry-level X-canyon. Tom Collins, An experienced canyoneer, reached out to me and said that he would join us the second day, and suggested we do another more difficult X-canyon named Glaucoma. With that, I put together a group of a few friends and drove down to Bullfrog Utah.
 |
| Hiking into Smith Fork |
Psycho Damage Canyon was suggested to me as a good first X-canyon, and we had all done multiple R-rated canyons in preparation for it. However, Tom wasn’t joining us until the second day so we were about to drop into the canyon without anyone who had X-canyon experience. I had done my homework though, and felt confident as we hiked into the canyon. The canyon is located in a beautiful area of Smith Fork, near the edge of Lake Powell. We crossed a small perennial stream and hiked into the end of the canyon to scope it out and leave some gear before heading up to the top. After stashing dry clothes near the large pool at the end of the canyon, we continued up along the rim of the canyon to our drop-in point.
 |
| Hiking into the bottom of the canyon to drop off gear |
The canyon quickly became too tight to progress at ground level, so we got into the rhythm of stemming wall-to-wall up over tight spots, before climbing back down for the ground. We quickly ran into challenging features called silos. Silos are where the canyon walls are belled out in the shape of a grain silo, forcing you to stretch out to cross them. Some of the silos were challenging to cross, but were only 20 feet off the ground at this point, giving us good practice for what would come later on without being as dangerous. The pattern of up and down over and over again was physically intense, and was wearing down a few members of our group.
 |
| Climbing up over a tight spot |
We reached a small open area that marked the start of the X-section. From here on out we would be high off the ground until the end. As we started into the slot, the canyon walls quickly forced us 50 feet off of the canyon floor. In most places, a fall would result in getting wedged into the slot 10 or 20 feet below due to how narrow it was. However, when crossing silos and gapers (wider corridors) it is possible to fall 50 feet down, which wouldn't be very nice. A long and spooky gaper led to a spot where we could overlook the crux of the canyon, the main silo. The silo could be crossed in two different ways with the first being 60 feet off of the ground, requiring you to cross it with shoulders on one wall and feet on the other. The second crossing point was only 30 feet off of the ground and required a specific set of climbing moves. The high option is only really for the extremely tall and bold, so I had planned for us to take the lower approach.
 |
| High off the ground in the X-section |
Researching Psycho Damage Canyon, I read that it was very important to enter the silo with your right shoulder facing down the canyon. The entrance to the silo was about as wide as my chest, so it was clear that there would be no switching directions once you started into it. The first person in our group made it through the silo without issues, and I followed close behind. After entering the silo, I saw why you needed to lead with your right shoulder. Key footholds could only be accessed by being positioned in that way. I had no problem making the moves in the wide area but struggled to exit the silo where the canyon got tight again. Resting on the opposite side of the silo, I watched Olivia enter the silo with her left shoulder facing down the canyon, forgetting what I had told her. She couldn’t find any footholds and made a desperate attempt at turning around in the exposed silo. She was luckily able to turn around and get situated, though she nearly fell in the process.
The last two members of our group made it through the silo with some coaching, and we braced ourselves against the wall to climb back up to where we could continue down the canyon. Very soon after the silo we were able to climb all the way back to ground level. After wading across a small pool, we looked down on the final 20-foot drop with the large pool marking the end of the canyon. Thomas, Olivia’s younger brother, climbed down to the pool and jumped in, opting not to take off his jeans and flannel. From his yelps, as he swam across the freezing pool, I knew we were in for a treat! After throwing my clothes over the pool, I climbed down and swam the freezing 20-foot pool in my underwear.
 |
| The pool at the end of the canyon |
With it only being 42 degrees fahrenheit outside, we were quick to get dry clothes on and start hiking out to our cars. After reaching the cars, we drove down the road to an amazing campsite overlooking Lake Powell. Reflecting on the day, I had felt solid in the canyon and none of the moves had really bothered me. Olivia and Thomas also felt good in the canyon, but the other two other two, Jake and Scott, had their fill and didn’t want to do another X-canyon the next day.
 |
| Tom overlooking the Warm Springs area |
Waking up the next morning, we packed up and drove 45 minutes on dirt roads to the Warm Springs area of Ticaboo Mesa with Tom, who arrived the night before. Since 2016, I had been organizing all of my own trips and had never been out with anyone who was more experienced than myself. This had limited my technical skill knowledge, as I had no one to learn from. Tom changed all of that with the canyons we did that day, starting with Glaucoma. The canyons in the Warm Springs area required advanced anchors that I had never used before, like the sand trap. Tom showed us how to fill the sand trap up with sand and how to place it so we could use it to rappel into Glaucoma.
 |
| The Sand Trap Anchor |
This rappel deposited us in a pothole that we had to boost each other out of to escape. Down the canyon a few hundred feet, there was a 50-foot-long, challenging down climb. It started out tight but got wider and less secure as I went down, requiring a careful hop across the bottom to avoid falling into a pit. It was more difficult than anything in Psycho Damage Canyon, but we were able to pull it off.
 |
| Looking down the big downclimb |
 |
| The difficult dismount at the bottom of the downclimb |
Following the big down climb, there were many silo crossings as we progressed through the canyon. Tom let us go first so we would get route-finding experience and coached us from the back. Glaucoma felt much more physical than Psycho Damage canyon and included many chimney-style climbs.
 |
| Crossing a silo in Glaucoma |
We eventually reached a feature called the mouse trap. It was a hallway about 4-5 feet wide and 20 feet long with a large opening below it called a Bombay. The Bombay meant that if you slipped while stemming through the mousetrap, you would fall a full 30 feet onto solid ground. Olivia is a little over 5 feet tall, so I wasn’t confident that she could span the gap. I tied off a rope to my harness and wedged my body between the walls so I could act as a human or “meat” anchor for Olivia, and she was able to rappel off of me to the bottom.
 |
| Nearing the Mouse Trap |
While Olivia looked for a way to climb up the other side of the mouse trap, Thomas attempted to cross it from above. He used a technique called star bridging, which has you spread out like a star with one hand and one foot on each wall. This wasn’t the right technique for the feature, and he started to slip before making a desperate leap through the widest spot. Thomas, who was a fearless teenager at the time, admitted that this was the only moment during the whole trip that he had been scared. It was scary watching him nearly botch it and fall 30 feet! It was my turn to cross the mouse trap and I started making my way across with my back on one wall and my feet on the other. It got so wide that for a few moves I was on my shoulders and toes, desperately trying not to slip. I was very thankful to have made it across without issue. Tom made it across the Mouse Trap and we closed in on the final stretch of the canyon.
 |
| Crossing the Mouse Trap on a later trip |
After the mouse trap, the bulk of the challenges were over, and we eventually reached our exit rope. The end of the canyon directly drops into Lake Powell, so we had to set an exit rope beforehand so we could escape at the end. We used mechanical ascenders to climb our way out and hiked back to the top of the canyon.
 |
| The escape line for Glaucoma Canyon |
Olivia and Thomas were exhausted, so Tom and I continued on to descend a second canyon called Tinnitus. The canyon was stunningly beautiful, short, and intense. I required us to do multiple sand trap rappels, pothole escapes, and some stemming high off of the ground. The canyon ended with a rappel through a dark pit into an incredible Maidenhair fern garden overlooking the lake. After soaking up the views for a bit, we ascended back up a fixed rope that we had set earlier and hiked back towards our vehicles.
 |
| The cave-like rappel at the end of Tinnitus |
 |
| Maidenhair Ferns in Tinnitus Canyon |
 |
| The end of Tinnitus Canyon |
This trip whetted my appetite for X-canyons, which I would pursue vigorously over the next few years. It also introduced me to Tom, who would help me develop the skills I needed to descend more advanced technical canyons. The danger factor keeps most people away from X-canyons, making them places that very few people get to experience. The experience of being where few have been and overcoming difficult challenges is still one of the most powerful motivators for me in the outdoors.
