Canyoneer Eardley Canyon San Rafael Swell BLM, UT

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This is a technical canyon. If you are unfamiliar with how to build anchors or the gear required for canyoneering do not attempt this route.

Eardley Canyon is set within a really topographically interesting-looking section of the San Rafael Swell. It's a short canyon, but really pretty, and if you are lucky to get more water than we had it can be a ton of fun. Despite the low water levels, I thought Eardly is great, though the fun was over far more quickly than I would have liked. To reach the trailhead, turn off here (38.76039, -110.4483). There was a steep section here (38.76724, -110.47737) that will cause difficulties for low-clearance. Follow this road north. you were able to make the difficult section, you should have minimal issue at the subsequent lightly difficult driving sections required to reach the trailhead.

We headed into what some maps mark as "Straight Wash" (funny because all except one of our group were homos) from the trailhead, passing by some cool petroglyphs before continuing. There's a gooseneck that you can hike through, extending the hike. We opted to take a cairned shortcut to avoid the gooseneck and get to the mouth of Eardly Canyon more quickly. From just to the right of the canyon mouth, we ascended the rim in order to get cool views down into the canyon itself as we ascended. After a few hundred feet of vertical gain, we located the drop-in spot found on Road Trip Ryan's site. This "shortcut" takes a lot more time than anticipated because it involves a rappel and some Class 3 down climbing to reach the canyon floor. Alternatively, you could coninue along the rim and descend via a drainage to the north, but that would have likely taken much longer. Plus, we were up for a bit of scrambling fun. The descent route rappel was the longest of the day. The route was cairned well enough to follow, and with just a little creativity, we were able to pick our way through the boulders and slopes and make our way into Eardley Canyon's head.

The canyon itself is delightful, lots of fun semi-keeper potholes and downclimbs. We made it a little more difficult by down-climbing some of the rappels since they were relatively short, and we put some extra effort into avoiding the water using partner assists and rope swinging. There is one very short rappel into a large keeper that was a little difficult due to an overhung lip, but if water levels are high it's a non-issue.

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Starting out from the Eardley Canyon Trailhead into what's labeled on maps as Straight Wash.

Petroglyphs on the north side of the wash.

Continuing up Straight Wash.

Avoiding the gooseneck (visible on the top right) via a social trail.

Nearing the mouth of Eardley Canyon.

Mouth of Eardley Canyon. We headed up on the right rim in this photo (Class 2/3).

Looking back into Straight Wash as we ascend the rim.

View down into Eardley Canyon.

Final obstacle of Eardley Canyon, below.

View back toward the trailhead (top left) as we ascend.

We located the Class 3 (plus a rappel) descent option to get into Eardley Canyon.

50-foot rappel to get down from the rim, Eardley Canyon visible below.

Bottom of the rappel.

Descending Class 2/3 boulders to get into Eardley Canyon.

View back at the rim.

At the head of Eardley Canyon.

Already some beautiful narrows as we head down.

Short obstacles created due to lack of water.

Short rappel into a pretty section.

Bottom of the rappel.

Wide shot of the pretty rappel.

A hairpin turn in the canyon.

Tricky, short rappel due to a lip.

The highlight section of the canyon, in my opinion.

Partner assist up-climb on a crack since water levels were low. Some parties may need to potshot this.

View back into the prettiest section of Eardley Canyon.

Short handline/rappel.

Final rappel. You could see the water feature ahead in a previous photo when looking down from the rim.

An unnecessary partner assist we did just to avoid the water.

Nearing the mouth of Eardley Canyon, where we followed Straight Wash back to the trailhead.

Hire me or show me some love!

Hire/refer me as a web developer or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I’m not sponsored, so all fees are out-of-pocket and my time preparing trip reports is unpaid. I really appreciate it!