Little Bluejohn to Horseshoe Canyon

Perhaps as penance for earlier canyoneering trips when underestimating and poor planning gave my parents way too many gray hairs from worry, I now tend to over-plan and over-prepare for canyons. I spend weeks reading everything I can find about it online, I trace the route on Google Earth over and over, I check the weather forecast for the four closest towns as though it's a tenet of my religion. And then I hope it pays off and makes for a smooth, incident-free experience.

I'd been eyeing Bluejohn Canyon for awhile as the next on the bucket list. It has beautiful narrows, some fun little problems to solve, is super remote so you should have to the place to yourself. Plus, if you do the entire canyon, you end up at the Horseshoe Canyon Unit of Canyonlands National Park, with its famous Great Gallery rock art. The fine print: Bluejohn is also famous as the canyon where Aron Ralston got stuck and cut his arm off. I read his book again beforehand and decided I'm not a big fan of the guy - a little too willing to take uncalculated risks and to make himself the hero - but if I wrote a book and he read it, maybe he wouldn't like me either. Anyway, that wasn't the main reason I wanted to do the canyon. I'd just read a lot about it, and one the major canyoneer authors, Michael Kelsey, had rated the canyon as one of the best he's ever done. I read more details on an awesome website called Road Trip Ryan (seriously, if you are planning a southern Utah adventure, use his map!) and decided to do a side canyon entrance to Bluejohn called Little Bluejohn, which then joins with main Bluejohn and continues down to where Ralston got stuck and then on to Canyonlands. About 13 miles total, with a few additional rappels and apparently some better slots than main Bluejohn.

Sign at trailhead intended to scare off hikers

Incredibly, Michelle was on board with my going - or at least she hid it well. I recruited Keaton, who did Buckskin with me last year but had no rappelling experience. Keaton's wife and her sister also agreed to come down and meet us at the end of the hike so we had a way to get back to our car at the trailhead. I invited a few other people, but schedule's didn't allow, and then I got Robert, an old friend from high school, to commit. His wife wasn't thrilled at the idea of him canyoneering, but he played up my squeaky-clean high school image, failing to mention my history of getting stuck in canyons. He also didn't think it relevant to tell her about the canyon's notoriety until after he left. Smart move, though maybe he paid the price later.

So the plan was to drive down in Robert's SUV to the trailhead Friday evening, camp, and get an early start Saturday morning. We'd meet Keaton's wife and sister at the Great Gallery at around 3:00, hike out together, drive back to the SUV, and Robert and I would drive home Saturday night while Keaton et al. spent the rest of the weekend in the area.

We made it down to the trailhead a little after dark, after stopping in Green River for Burger King and making it down a long dirt road. Keaton and I are relatively introverted people, but we soon discovered Robert was one heck of a conversationalist and storyteller. I was worried that things would devolve into rehashing all of high school, which would make Keaton want to throw himself off a cliff, but there was only a little of that (I learned more about what's happened to people I went to high school with in one weekend than I have in the last 15 years). All in all, it made for a much more fun experience to have Robert around. Also, Keaton and Robert are both just the type of people I want to be canyoneering with - smart, capable, even-tempered, good-humored, used to endurance hiking. They were a great team.

When we got to the trailhead, we were a little dismayed to find that whereas we thought we'd be alone, there were three other groups not too far away. Keaton and I pitched a tent in the sand while Robert slept in his car. We stayed up late playing Uno and eating junk food. Nobody slept amazingly well that night, but it wasn't bad.

Keaton's photo of the sunrise

Early the next morning, we ate some oatmeal, geared up, and set out around 7:30 - before anyone in the other camps could get ahead of us. And we ended up seeing no one all day until we got to the Great Gallery, which was fantastic.

After about half an hour of crossing over sagebrush country, we came to the head of Little Bluejohn. There were officially only three rappels in this section, but we played it safe on a couple possible down climbs and ended up rappelling five times. I was a little nervous about making sure the drops went OK with two guys who were relatively new to the sport, but they did awesome, and we all had a great time in this section.

Once we got the confluence of Little Bluejohn and Bluejohn, we were ahead of schedule so we decided to explore up main Bluejohn for a ways. Before long we got to a spot where rocks and sand had fallen into the canyon, about 15 or 20 feet high. As we scrambled up, I said, "I feel like there's going to be a lake or something on the other side of this." And sure enough, when we got to the top, there was a huge backup of deep, thick goo. We decided to not go any further, despite Robert offering $100 to anyone who would go swimming in it.

From there we headed down what was now an open wash, but still very pretty.

After another hour or so, we made it to the last slot, lower Bluejohn. This is the exact spot where Aron Ralston got stuck, though the chockstone that trapped him is no longer there. Some of the online guides I'd read had made it sound like these narrows weren't worth the long hike to get to them, but I totally disagree. This was the meat of the sandwich. Just gorgeous - dark, deep, winding. There was a little water in them too from recent rain, and we got wet up to our thighs.

All too soon, we burst out the far end of the narrows and were looking at the 90-foot drop that Ralston rappelled after being trapped for five days, no food or water left, and only one arm, with the other stump losing lots of blood. Crazy that he managed it. We enjoyed our lunch at the top, jammed out to Robert's mood music (awkward footage of me below), and set up the big rappel. It was nerve-racking to send both my friends over the edge before me, knowing the gear and knots were all right but still dreading the thought that something might go wrong and I'd have to tell their families some awful news. But it all went off perfectly and we were soon standing at the bottom, admiring the soaring canyon walls as we packed up the technical gear for good.

From there it was another four miles or so to the Great Gallery. At one point we crossed over a huge suspended barbed-wire fence that signaled our entrance into the national park.

When we were almost to the Great Gallery, we met up with Keaton's wife and her twin sister, and they were delightful company. When we got the rock art panel, I think my jaw was hanging open for at least five minutes. The Great Gallery is billed as the most spectacular rock art panel in the world - and it lives up to the hype. It's estimated to be 2,000 to 2,500 years old but is remarkably well preserved. They have a volunteer ranger on site, guarding and interpreting the art for visitors, and he was likewise delightful company. He told us where to find the other panels as we walked down the canyon, and we met up with him later where she showed us a panel that was out of the way and which we might have missed.

I can't recommend the Great Gallery enough. It's a long hike - close to 8 miles round trip, but I feel like everyone ought to see it before they die.

We made it back to the car around 5:00, drove all the way back to Robert's car, and parted ways. On the way back to the main highway (we drove west toward Hanksville rather than following the dirt road we'd driven down from Green River the night before), we saw Keaton's car had stopped at some sand dunes and everyone had gotten to do what I can only describe as frolicking. It was awesome to see how much fun they obviously have on outdoor adventures.

I really enjoyed the car ride all the way home with Robert. Good conversation, good food at the Circle D. I look forward to further adventures with both these fellows in the future.