Trip report
Apr 18, 2019 — The Canaan Mountain Wilderness Area has some really interesting terrain, and this trip out to the high point of the mesa, Canaan Mountain, really exposed me to a lot of it. I'd been to Water Canyon in the past to do it as a technical canyon, but I was using it this time just as an ascent, without any technical gear. So, I set out up Water Canyon, where a trail parallels the technical a section on the left side of the canyon, leading up Class 2 (sometimes Class 2+) ledges before zig-zagging up the west side of the canyon and up to the mesatop. This high point at the top is known as Top Rock to canyoneers who use it as a reference for getting down into the technical section of the canyon. From Top Rock, I dropped down to the north into a wash which led to the northwest. I was lucky to encounter a lot of water in this wash, which flowed down slickrock and formed pretty little pools. The wash split and I headed up the right fork. This landed me at the base of a big, wide slickrock bowl, which I ascended up to White Domes. This was a gorgeous little pocket of hoodoo formations, and I spent a bit of time just enjoying the colors before finding the trail (which looks like it's just an old converted access road of some sort) just to the north of the White Domes. The trail leads for most of the way to the Canaan Mountain summit, passing a feature called Notch Viewpoint and then some ruins marked on the trailhead map as "Windlass". I think the trail basically ends here, because I certainly couldn't find it. Or, it at least didn't continue the direction I wanted to go, which was the Canaan Mountain high point to the west. So, I did some easy cross-country bushwhacking, passing some great pools among the slickrock landscape, over sandy hills, and eventually to the summit. The views were pretty amazing, especially the sheer cliffs of the Canaan Mountain mesa faces. But what stood out to me was Zion's monoliths in the distance from this angle, which looked so small and interesting.