Paria Canyon, Day 1

A family picture taken by our shuttle driver Betty at the Whitehouse Trailhead, Paria Canyon.

Paria Canyon has been on my to do list since Jen and I started coming down to the desert back in the early 90's. The canyon starts in Utah and within the first day enters Arizona, with an exit at Lees Ferry 38 miles downstream. The beauty of Paria, together with its proximity to Las Vegas and Southern California make it a popular backpacking trip, but they limit the number of permits per day to twenty people, so it remains a remote wilderness adventure. This year, with a four week work trip to Finland in June, I wanted to do something cool with the family before I left, so it seemed the time was ripe.

On Saturday May 19, we left my mom's house in Butte and drove 12.5 hours south to Kanab, Utah, which is a bit too long of a drive, but got us within striking distance. Kanab was a surprise. It is a primary overnight stop for tour bus sightseers visiting canyon country. I hadn't made hotel reservations thinking it wouldn't be necessary, and we just barely got the the last room in town at a budget hotel with a VERY colorful, half-crazed proprietor.

We got up early the next morning and drove the remaining 1.5 hours to Lees Ferry (where boats put in to float the Grand Canyon), where we dropped our (actually my mom's) car and our shuttle picked us up for the ride to the trailhead.


There are a few ways to start Paria Canyon. The simplest, and the one we chose, is at Whitehouse Trailhead. The others -- Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch -- yield a more spectacular first day, but require 16 miles of hiking before water is available, and with the kids I thought that would be pushing it.

The trip from Whitehouse starts out open, hot and a bit boring, but the canyon soon narrows, the walls grow in size, and it cools as the sun drenched stretches disappear. At days end, ten miles from the trailhead, we found a nice camp site near the first spring. By bedtime we were settled into the trip.

Rare shade in the early miles.

Temps were in the 90s in the sun, so the shade was luxurious.

The canyon starts to narrow.

Ellie was our leader, always out front.

A short nap after lunch.

The river started flowing about 7 miles in.

Camp: this one was pretty heavily used, near the first spring of the hike.

Alex is a helpful fellow to have along.

PS: I write this from a hotel room in Salt Lake City, where I'm catching a plane to Helsinki, Finland in a few hours. The family has now been on the road for about 2.5 hours. It was really hard to see them go this morning, and it's hard to be leaving them for so long. I'll be in Helsinki for 3.5 weeks, and then will visit a colleague in Birmingham, England on the way home, for a total of 4 weeks away. I'm not sure I'm made for this work travel stuff, but the hope is that it will pay off and benefit the family down the road.