Steep & Deep
My wife had only one stipulation for our first technical canyoneering adventure: no swimming. “I don’t mind wading,” Chris said, “but if any cold, muddy water gets over waist deep, I am not going to be happy.”
So I wasn’t sure how she’d react as we peered over a chockstone—a boulder wedged between the walls of a sandstone canyon—in Utah’s Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument and saw a 20-foot-long pool of undetermined depth waiting below. “Take my camera,” Chris said. “I want to get it over with.”
She sat down on the chockstone, and Rick Green, the head guide of Excursions of Escalante, pointed to where she should brace her feet as she scooched toward the edge and then eased into the dark water—and just kept going, right up to her chest. “Whoa, I bet that’s deeper than you expected!” Green exclaimed. After a startled shout, Chris laughed and gamely waded toward the far end of the pool. What choice did she have? In canyoneering, moving forward is always the best way.
Canyoneering is the Chutes and Ladders sport of descending
