Moab: Canyoneering Adventure with Two Rappels & Colorado River Hike

4.93

(149 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

“If you’re nervous, that’s normal,” our guide Sam grinned as he handed me the harness. “The rock’s older than dinosaurs — it’ll hold you.” I laughed, but my palms were already sweaty just thinking about that first 90-foot rappel. The air smelled dry and mineral-rich, like sun-baked stone after last night’s rain. We’d barely started hiking across the petrified sand dunes when someone in our group pointed out tiny lizards darting between cracks — I almost missed them, distracted by the weird silence out here except for our boots crunching over sand.

The first drop was… well, I don’t know how to describe it without sounding dramatic. You step off into this sandstone chamber and suddenly you’re inside the canyon itself, cool air hitting your face after the heat above. Sam double-checked every rope (he really did back up every system), and even cracked a joke about his “overprotective” safety checks. I appreciated it more than I let on — my legs were jelly at the bottom but in a good way. There was this echo when we landed; it made us all whisper for some reason.

We squeezed through a narrow slot (I scraped my elbow but pretended not to notice), scrambled over some rocks, and then came to the big one: 120 feet down next to Morning Glory Arch. It’s so close you could almost touch it while hanging there — which is wild because you see photos of arches but never from this angle. The sun was just starting to light up the arch as we went down. Afterward, we followed a spring-fed stream past cottonwoods toward the Colorado River. Sam pointed out some weird-smelling plant (can’t remember the name) that locals use for tea — Li laughed when I tried to say it in Mandarin, probably butchered it.

I still think about that moment under Morning Glory Arch — floating there with nothing but red stone all around and the sound of water somewhere below. If you’re looking for a Moab canyoneering experience that feels both safe and kind of raw at the same time… yeah, this is it.