Peekaboo & Spooky Slot Canyons: Dry Fork Hike Adventure

4.97

(112 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

I still had sand in my shoes when we pulled up to the Dry Fork trailhead—Escalante’s morning light already bouncing off those wild red and purple rocks. Our guide, Jess, handed out extra water (good call, it was dry as a bone) and pointed at the thin trail winding down into the wash. I’d seen pictures of Peekaboo Canyon before, but honestly, nothing preps you for that first scramble up into its mouth. The rock felt cool under my hands, almost smooth except for these tiny ridges that caught my fingers. Someone behind me laughed when I hesitated—guess I looked more nervous than I felt.

Inside Peekaboo, everything went quiet except for our footsteps echoing between the walls. There’s this faint mineral smell, kind of like rain on hot stone. Jess showed us where the canyon twists into these impossible shapes—arches overhead, sun slicing through in weird angles. We squeezed past a couple from Salt Lake who’d been here before; they told us to watch for “the potholes” ahead (I did not expect them to be actual holes). Getting through took some wiggling and awkward shuffling—I’m not exactly built for narrow spaces—but nobody rushed us. It was just slow, careful moving and a lot of bad jokes about getting stuck.

After Peekaboo, we followed Jess across open slickrock to Spooky Gulch. The name fits—at one point it’s barely wider than my shoulders, maybe 10 inches? My backpack scraped both sides at once. You have to duck and twist sideways sometimes; there’s this part where you drop down a mellow rock face and suddenly it’s darker and cooler. I remember someone’s phone flashlight flickering against the walls while we tried to figure out which way was forward. It got so narrow at one spot that we all started giggling for no reason—maybe nerves or just relief when we popped out again into sunlight.

I still think about how quiet it got in there, with just dust motes floating in the beams above us and everyone whispering like we were in on some secret together. By the time we hiked back out through Dry Fork Wash, shoes full of sand again, I felt tired but sort of giddy too. It’s weird how much you can miss that silence after you leave.