Escalante
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Waterslide
Paddler:Ture Hoefner
Photographer:Paul Hemming
NOTE: New Gauge is a Barometer only (see below). The only way to know the real flow is from a visual at the 57' Chevy Fin:
Driving up the narrow dirt road through Escalante Canyon you're presented with 400' sandstone cliffs framing a wide desert valley. At the bottom of this valley is a narrow gorge carved into dark igneous rock, hidden deep inside is Escalante Creek. This is a very beautiful place, even if your not a class V paddler this canyon is worth seeing! Two drops upstream of Escalante Falls is a short drop, 57' Chevy, with a fin of rock sticking straight up. If the fin is exposed the level is low, if it is partially covered it is medium, and if it is completely covered the level is high.
The season for running Escalante Creek is extremely short. Most years it will run for a week, maybe two. In dry years it won't run at all. It is fed by snow pack on the Uncompahgre Plateau, which is in a low elevation, hot and dry part of the state. The run-off goes quickly, and starts earlier in the season than anything else in Colorado. Usually in the second half April after several days of hot, sunny weather. If it becomes overcast, or if a storm rolls through, the creek will shut down quickly.
The creek is a typical desert stream in that it is very muddy. There are a lot of shallow rocks hidden in this silty water so you have to very carefully read the surface of the water to avoid pitoning or being deflected off your line. This is compounded by the fact that this creek rarely has good water to pad it out and is usually run very low. Also, many of the major falls require you to boof hard left or right to avoid sharp rocks, pitons, overhanging walls, etc... Scout all horizon lines!
In the upper 3/4 of the run all the major drops are spread out and have clearly defined horizon lines with good eddies above them. There is a good amount of III/IV boogie water between the major drops.
The lower gorge is very intense, it's like all the previous major drops placed end to end. Know where to get out before the gorge if you don't want to run it. The only rapid you can scout from river level in the gorge is Escalante falls, all others you have to scout before dropping in.
Flow Information:
Two drops upstream of Escalante Falls is a short drop, 57' Chevy, with a fin of rock sticking straight up. If the fin is exposed the level is low, if it is partially covered it is medium, and if it is completely covered the level is high.
Flow Barometer - Robideau Creek:
Just prior to the 2008 season, Ian crunched the numbers (from 2 seasons of data) using R-squared regression analysis and came up with an 85% correlation between the relationship between the flow on Robideau Creek (an adjacent drainage) and the flow on Escalante Creek (no gauge, only visual). We are working on collecting more data to refine the correlation, so please help us out by emailing us your trip reports with flow levels.
Robideau Level (cfs) = Estimated Escalante Level (57' Chevy Fin)
0 - 149 = TOO LOW (fin very exposed)
150 - 249 = LOW (fin exposed)
250 - 349 = MEDIUM (fin barely covered)
350 - 599 = HIGH (fin completely covered)
600+ = CRANKIN
Video Clips:
Helmet Cam by Josh Parker
Disclaimer
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| | Put-In
The dirt road to Escalante Canyon is between Delta and Grand Junction on Hwy 50. It is narrow washboard road with tire-punching rocks to watch out for, but can be easily driven in a passenger car. 11 miles up the road from Hwy 50 is Captain Smith's Cabin, a well marked funky stone cabin on the right with a covered picnic table. 1/2 a mile further, just after entering public land, is the takeout on the left. Another 1/2 mile or so up the road, on a short gravel road to the left, there is a large sign warning swimmers of "potholes". This is the lower gorge, and the best place to camp. Beware! All glass is prohibited! Rangers WILL give you tickets if you have ANY glass bottles at your camp. To get to the put-in continue up the road for several miles, and through alternating public and private lands - but it all looks the same. Take the gravel road to the left just before leaving public land for good, there will be an obvious ranch with irrigated fields beyond the fence. |  | Leap of Faith (Mile 1.0) Class IV
Be aware that Leap Of Faith is a sieve, sometimes it is blocked by wood the pool behind it fills up and there is a great boof on the left, sometimes the sieve is clear and all the water goes under the rocks.
| | | Waterslide (Mile 1.5) Class IV
This is a very dangerous spot on the river, you can eddy out on river right above the drop and set safety at river level. Very sticky hole that causes a lot of swims and protracted thrashings. | | | Double Drop (Mile 2.5) Class V-
Two slot drops with stout holes back to back. |  | Slot (Mile 4.0) Class IV
This small drop could be very painful if you casually drop into it. It has a can-opener shaped rock hidden in the spray on the right side. You can barely make out the rooster tail it creates in the picture. Good motivation to boof hard left;-) | | | Corkscrew (Mile 4.5) Class V-
Very aptly named. At the lip of the drop the current slams left directly into a smooth rock. With a good boof right you can brace into the dynamic current coming off the rock, but if you just bob into it straight it will flip you so fast you'll be dizzy. The paddler in this photo has a bad line. At this point your right at the doorstep of the Lower Gorge, get out now if you don't want to run it. There is no pool to swim into, and gradient picks up pace dramatically as it enters the gorge, so this is a bad place to swim. |  | Escalante Falls (Mile 5.5) Class V+
Entrapment city! The river right channel drops into a killer pothole. The center channel is the only one that goes, but it is a tricky move and you face the very real possibility of blowing it and heading down the left channel backwards. The river left channel stair steps down with a bad vertical pin spot that is hard to miss. | | | Magnetic Wall (Mile 6.0) Class V
This is a tricky drop that is responsible for most of the swims on Escalante Creek. Fortunately there is a big pool to swim into. Just after the drop the current pulls strongly into an overhanging wall. If you’re upright you can push off of the wall, or just "pogo" of it with your bow - no big whup. If you are upside down it's unlikely you will be able to roll up. |  | 57' Chevy (Mile 5.3) Class V
A 7-foot drop in the inner gorge. At low and medium flows left stroke river-right of the obvious fin (river-middle-right), then prepare for a right-boof stroke to avoid a sticky hole. At higher flows consider boofing left of the fin. | | | Take-Out
Either just upstream of the lower gorge, there is a rock cairn to look out for, or at the start of the private property. Just follow the fence down to the river near the stone cabin. |
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