Wolverines Go to the Canyons: Why I love expedition-style Canyonnering

Jeff Wohl in a remote canyon. Photo ( Erik Volk)

This might actually feel like a Monday at the office, I think as I rappel off a pile of wedged logs into a pool of 45 degree water over my head. I tread water while I pull my rope down after me then turn, grabbing my pack like a kickboard, and swim through a canyon passageway just wide enough for me and my Wolverine. 

I finally reach the end of the swim.  When I touch the bottom, mud sucks at my shoes, threatening to pull them off as I struggle out. While everything in my pack is redundantly waterproofed, my pack itself still holds a bunch of slowly-draining water, making it much heavier than the 38 pounds I started the trip with. I see my group ahead, resting in golden rays of sun beneath towering red canyon walls, huge grins on all their faces. 

This is why I love my office–seeing the joy people get when exploring an environment hidden from most. These stunningly beautiful canyons are extremely difficult to access; it takes hard work and a competent group to get here and they know it. 

Feeling small in canyon country

I guide lightweight backpacking/technical canyoneering trips. I like to think of these adventures as “ expedition-style” canyoneering.  What makes this type of travel so special is that we use our lightweight backpacking equipment and techniques that allow us to get deep into the wilderness and descend challenging slot canyons as part of a travel route. 

Most canyoneers head into the backcountry with extremely heavy packs and set up a base camp, which gives them access to several different canyons which they each travel through as a day trip. 

We plan a 5 to 7-day route that will take us through several canyons. We don’t always know exactly what to expect, and have to trust our group to work well together and use the skills of our guide team to be able to solve any challenges that we face. 

Jeff lead climbs a short pitch to set a rope to get the group up.

This style of canyoneering has its challenges; a lot of our lightweight backpacks are not built with the durability of most canyoneering packs. We also end up dragging our packs through narrow slots, which would be much easier if we didn’t have our full camp set-up making our packs wide. But it is incredibly rewarding to travel through more remote canyons, and more of them, and we also have the benefit of an increased safety margin by having everything we need with us to spend a night safely if the canyon takes too long or we need to warm somebody up after long, cold swims.

Chris exiting a swim with his SWD Canyon Cover

My SWD Wolverine has been a dream pack for this. I like to think we’re shooting for lightweight backpacking, but the necessity of carrying wetsuits, harnesses, helmets, and ropes, in addition to seven days worth of food means the loads are just going to be heavier. The Wolverine handles these loads amazingly well, and the Ultra 400 fabric is extra durable,  making this pack well suited for dragging through narrow canyon walls. SWD is now making custom canyoneering pack covers, which allows me to work many seasons without destroying my pack. I recommend the SWD pack covers to all my clients to protect whatever pack they have. 

I also discovered an unforeseen bonus of these pack covers. I was leading a trip where we came to a spot with no obvious anchors for the rappel–a common occurrence in back-country canyons, especially those in Escalante since bolt anchors are illegal. After a few minutes of inspection, we were quickly able to build a sand anchor out of my pack cover to allow us to rappel safely. 

My Wolverine and SWD pack-cover rigged as a sand anchor

Very few people canyoneer in this “expedition-style”, and I don’t know any other program besides Andrew Skurka Adventures (who I guide for) that lead trips this way. This is real adventuring, genuine exploration in which myself and my co-guides head to canyons where we have never been before and probably have very minimal information. We train our group members in the skills they need and then descend canyons, solving each problem and challenge as we discover it.

These trips are extremely rewarding, but it’s best to embrace that at some point you’ll be uncomfortable: whether it’s hanging off a rope in a minimally padded harness, moving through a narrow down-climb, or swimming in chilly water. 

When you’re out truly exploring some of the more remote canyons, the canyon ethic is to do what is called “ghosting,” which means leaving no anchor material behind so the only sign of our passage is our footprints and some scuff marks on the narrow walls. This is tricky to accomplish, since in the less remote canyons it is normal to leave a piece of webbing on the anchor rock or tree, making it easier to retrieve your rope. Ghosting a canyon fits with my own personal ethic, and just means that the guide team and I have had to learn a few different skills we love employing–fancy knots that allow you to descend on one strand of rope and then pull on the other strand to release it, among other techniques. Each anchor becomes a unique problem to solve.

A lucky but good hook toss helping us get up the rim.

Descending these canyons is only half of the technical challenge; often the approaches are very technical. And at the end, we have to find access out of the canyon bottom by studying our maps and looking for places where the contour lines widen enough. Often as we climb up these routes and back to the canyon rim, we see signs that we are not the first. The ancestral people who lived in this area also needed access from the canyon bottoms to the rim. In the steeper sections, these ancestral peoples would use stone hammers to chisel in shallow, dished steps. Every time I find a set of these hidden steps, I am awed by the skill, persistence, and the ability of ancient people to live in this place. There is abundant evidence of these ancient people everywhere. I often find arrowheads, chipped stone debris, and other stone tools decorating sections of the canyons. I’ve even found desiccated corn cobs in dry storage sites. 

A delicate projectile point

Pottery Shards

Thousands of years before my feet, covered in sticky rubber shoes, left tracks in these silty canyon bottoms, people were traveling sections of these canyons “expedition-style” as part of their normal work day–their daily life. My hand might be pressed up against the same water-streaked rock they pushed on to squeeze through this slot. They too might have paused in the widening section of canyon to inspect the white blossoms of a Cliff Rose in bloom, or stepped carefully around a fragile fern beside a trickle of the water sliding down red sandstone. These are the moments when I really love Monday at the office. 

A pack of 3 Wolverines

A short rap to a swim

The group helping each other through a series of " keeper" potholes.

Jeff Wohl has been leading wilderness trips since the mid 1990's. He has taught for NOLS for nearly 25 years. He guides for Andrew Skurka Adventures and lives in Wyoming with the love-of-his-life and multiple rescue dogs.