The South Fork of Choprock Canyon ranks highly on the lists of many canyoneers as one of the best for challenge, commitment, variety, and beauty in the American Southwest. Particularly noteworthy are long dark hallways requiring long swims and logjams that become extremely difficult to surmount when water levels are high. The canyon has eluded me repeatedly (four times!), more than any other adventure goal, since 2008. Several times I had camped near its base at the Escalante River only to have rain, thunderstorms, or a cold shift in the weather cause plans to be abandoned in the eleventh hour. A full seventeen (17!!!) years after my first attempt, it was time to make it happen. This was also a nice opportunity to reconnect with my longtime friend Ryan, who was a part of one of these false starts and who inexplicably I had not seen in over a decade.
An early start from Riverside saw me arriving in Cedar City, Utah around noon. After a bit of catch-up, rock/curio chat, and a tour of Ryan's neat place, we loaded into Ryan's beasttruck 2.0 (same make and model as we used on many adventures a decade earlier but taller so that I felt like I had shrunk) and set off for the comparably short drive to Escalante. We stopped briefly in the coffee shop in town to ask about recent rain and canyon conditions- the response we got from the two clerks was tepid and I was sorry I asked.
We found Hole In the Rock Rd to be in excellent shape overall with only light washboarding and we made good time down the first 16 miles to the turnoff to Egypt. We drove the familiar 10 mile side road traversing above the headwall patios of Egypt 1, 2, and 3 slots, then parked at the roadend trailhead. We were surprised to be the only car at this increasingly popular trailhead and the last entry in the register was from about a week earlier. We carefully high-graded rope and gear to take just what we might need (canned margaritas perhaps being the exception), then set off down the trail towards the mouth of Fence Canyon. Once again the cross-slickrock and cross-sand hike was familiar and the downhill 3.5 mile hike took us a leisurely 1hr40min. Upon arriving at the Escalante I found that I had miscalculated slightly, expecting to find clear water to filter but instead finding a semi-opaque creek muddy from some recent rains upstream. We initially walked barefoot in the river bumping toes on occasional cobble banks, but then crossed and instead dealt with the Russian Olive thickets armoring the riverbanks. With a strong breeze still passing through, we cleared out a couple camp spots under the junipers near the wall of the canyon that would be our climb out to start the next day's hike. We still had a little day left so decided to drink the margaritas to celebrate a trip together in our favorite place, instead of a successful descent of Choprock that we hoped would follow.
At daybreak we awoke to thunder and lightning to the north and south of us. Brutal I thought! Not again! We climbed up the slickrock and watched to see how things would develop over the next hour while we ate breakfast. As the weather rapidly moved past leaving clearer skies in its wake, dismay turned to mild optimism and we figured we should at least try to hike.
We packed up for the day's adventure and set off up through cliff bands on a long 4.5 mile cross country jaunt to the head of the slot canyon. On the way we were treated to spectacular views overlooking the green ribbon of the Escalante, dense pockets of moqui marble concretions, the skyline of the Waterpocket Fold, dryfalls, and slickrock patios. We made good consistent time with a couple shortcuts but it still took us about 4 hours to go 4.5 miles. The weather seemed to be cooperating when we reached the start of Choprock so down we went.
As we dropped in we found things sufficiently dry that we could hold off on putting on our wetsuits which was appreciated. What I expected to be a wash walk to the rappel into the riparian section actually turned out to be several awkward slot sections with tricky downclimbs, which caught me off guard. There was clearly going to be more to this canyon than the brief highlights mentioned in the beta. So far I was unimpressed by this 1600ft of canyon but I did enjoy the numerous frogs.
The prequel slot finally ended at a nice little rappel into a scenic grotto that was the obvious start to the riparian section. Once down it was time for a snack and some water in the shade before continuing on. Several of the accounts I had seen raved about the "riparian section" with many calling it their favorite part of the canyon. It did not take long for Ryan and I to find this to be an overgrown poison ivy jungle we were very unimpressed with. Strikes were unavoidable so we did our best to step on and limbo our way through with minimal but inevitable contact. A different flavor of awkward. Sections were certainly pretty but the poison ivy was terrible and it was not even close to being a pleasant riparian section. Through horsetails, down rockfalls, and past tasty springs we continued to where the canyon narrowed with overhanging walls and waist deep water. This was the end of the riparian section and the start of the "happy section". I struggled to scrunch into my wetsuit, down more water and onward we continued.
The happy section did indeed have some nice subway-esque hallways, corrugations, and sculpting making for a high quality slot. Swims were generally brief and mostly waist-deep wades. Bathtub rings on the walls indicated the canyon was in a low water mode and was typically 3 feet higher. Though wet, the going was great and scenery top notch. But this was over all too soon. After a short rappel into a mini-grotto with a joint hallway, things gradually deteriorated until we were clearly in the "grim" section...misleading since this was most of the length of the canyon.
The obstacles in the grim section were numerous and not particularly fun. There were several slots too narrow for our packs. There were several 100ft+ swimming sections. But worse of all were the many many awkward downclimbs and nuisance rappels over, under, and through logjams. Many sections were in the near dark so between the lighting and the obstacle course I took few photos to adequately represent this section. It went on for ages with hallway after hallway. In typical fashion the canyon was often dead straight and narrow when it followed a joint and sinuous and sculpted when it jogged to find its next joint to follow. Neither was an accurate predictor of a pleasant section of canyon and so onward we scraped and swam.
It was about 6:15pm when we finally reached the obvious 90ft rappel marking the end of the technical canyon. Here we found the existing anchor option to be a haphazard collection of wood wrapped in webbing I was not particularly thrilled about. We began evaluating and rigging to this but I was baffled by its existence. It had been a decade since I last walked up to the grotto at the base of this dryfall but I distinctly remembered bolts for this final anchor. Sure enough once I climbed up to the edge of the drop I spotted those same two bolts on the wall just out of sight. Relieved for a proper anchor, I rerigged and was the first one down. I was all smiles- happy to have finally been through this elusive canyon and all too eager to peel off my wetsuit after several hours' journey. Ryan followed and after about an hour we pulled our rope, filled up on filtered water, and began walking the 2.2 miles down the wash back to the Escalante and our camp. The light faded fast and we were soon navigating by headlight and phone light, still managing to sniff out a petroglyph wall on the way down. Once we reached the Escalante we had the surprise that the semi-opaque brown was now a swollen liquid chocolate- although we had not seen rain clearly the headwaters to the north got lots of action.
We were well tired by the time we finally reached the remnants of our camp and not at all eager to hike 2 hours up in the dark back to the truck. The compromise was to pack up the last of our stuff and move our camp 15 minutes to the sandy campspot at the base of Fence Canyon. This allowed us to not deal with crossing the Escalante River again in the morning. Down to backup snacks and slightly rationing water, we had a grim dinner and settled in for the morning's light. We made great time back up to the trailhead, waylaid slightly by a couple women needing a jumpstart and greeting a guide/guided hiker pair. With that task complete we filled our face full of the nearest snacks and drove on back towards Hole In The Rock Road, surprised to see plenty of evidence of the washes flashing since we crossed them 36 hours earlier. So that was it, South Fork Choprock finally checked off my wish list. It had its moments but the one word summation is Awkward. It was worth doing but not worth the wait and anticipation after nearly two decades. Perhaps I am thoroughly spoiled at this point but I would probably not even place it in my top 20 Colorado Plateau canyons. Nevertheless it was nice to finally get redemption after so many trips and to tackle it with Ryan.
