At the end of winter, I head into the canyons to find frozen falls.   There are a number of them in our area, but many are hard to get to.    A favorite is deep in Red Canyon in the Red Plateau Escarpment.   I donned my microspikes and hiked up the Dewdrop Trail, then veered left into the mouth of Red Canyon.

The route up the canyon starts as an easy sloping trail, but the canyon continues to narrow and become steeper.   The upper end of the canyon requires scrambling.

The upper canyon has very steep cliffs on both sides with many ragged towers, hoodoos, lava pockets, and alcoves.

The first waterfall falls about 70 feet from the cliffs on the east side.

The main creek flows down the gully, but is met by another creek flow from the left, some from seeps in the rock.

One of the most interesting waterfalls in Red Canyon is one that flows out of a tunnel in the rock.

Any further progress up the canyon requires scrambling or climbing on snow or ice, but I will return later in the year to try a detour scramble route on the left side.

On the previous exploration to the canyon, I climbed up the steep slopes on the east side, a very challenging route to the top of the Escarpment.   On this time, I returned back the way I came up, with a lot of care to down climb the steep and difficult upper section.   The return route was 6.2 km, a slow route on snow, rock, and ice, only for the adventurous.

More Information – The Frozen Falls in Red Canyon

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