Not Indoors

This is part of the description of the Death Hollow hike from the BLM:

An extremely demanding hike along an unmarked route traversing the length of Death Hollow, a beautiful deep, narrow canyon. This is the most difficult and challenging hike in the Escalante Canyons area, and should not be taken lightly. The hike is suitable only for experienced canyoneers in excellent physical condition. Hikers need to be mentally and physically prepared for the challenges this hike offers. Preplanning and proper gear is critical. There are also vast fields of Poison Ivy. During the lower half of the canyon, there are no exit points, so you must hike to the end.

5-7 day 30 mile hike (top to bottom and finish out down the Escalante River).

We would love to thank Casey for taking some awesome photos of the Death Hollow hike:

Casey has provided a site to view the photos:  caseyniederhasuer.com/death_hollow
This is a short video clip that Matt put together from the photos Casey took:

A Casey photo featured on niederhauser.com:

I wanted an idea of what to expect, so I jumped on a Utah canyoneering forum (http://bogley.com) and posted some questions, here is the text, and one guy’s reply.
——
Me:
Wondering if I can get some opinions on the best way to do Death Hollow in Escalante two weeks from now (6/5/08). From what I have read and researched, it seems that there are three basic options:

1- Top to bottom, Upper and Lower, from Hell’s backbone road to the Escalante, 4 days and 20 or so miles.

2- Lower canyon only, McGath Bench Road and Boulder Mail Trail to the Escalante, 1 long day or 2 short days and 7 miles.

3- Lower only, Up and back. Start at the Escalante and go up as far as you want and go back.

If anyone has a suggested route or experience of a good 2 day trip there, I would love to hear it. I am also wondering if it would be worth doing the upper canyon up and back from the Boulder Mail Trail. Any ideas on that?
Also, if you had to pick the best part of the canyon to see and hike this time of year, which would it be? Upper or lower?
thanks!

It depends on how sensitive you are to poision ivy. If you don’t know the answer to the question then you will shortly after completing Death Hollow.

If you aren’t so sensitive, I would suggest doing the entire canyon. Four days seems about right. If you are really sensitive, just do the bottom end from the river.

If you only have two days, either the upper end or lower end would work (i.e. the loop via the Boulder Mail Trail or just visiting the upper up from the BMT). Both are very beautiful. I would say the lower is perhaps more beautiful to me because of all the running water. The upper end is more challenging.

I called the Escalante Field Station and talked to a nice old lady that seemed to know her stuff-

1- Permits: she said that you can just fill out the permits at the trail head and they are free
2- Roads: She said they are really good roads going in, and that a 2WD will be ok
3- Fires: They are permitted on top at the trailhead but not in the canyon
4- Camping: You can camp at the trailhead, but not right in the parking area- she said to go a little ways down the trail.

She wanted to make sure we knew about the Poison Ivy and Flashflood danger.

If you have any questions, you can call:

Escalante Field Station
Telephone: (435) 826-5600

Web Research:  Wikipedia | Google images | link 1 | link 2 | link 3

Only problem is poison ivy- so we read up on how to spot it:  http://poisonivy.aesir.com/img/pictures/pi-pics-may/index.php

Link to current weather forecast.  Plan on having warm clothes and be prepared to stay dry (rain/stream water wadding).

Go to this link for map and directions.

Death Hollow - Escalante Grand Staircase, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating

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