Paradiso Canyon

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, UT Capitol Reef + North Wash

Trip stats

Distance
4.1 mi
Net Gain
900 ft
Time
4-6 hrs
YDS Rating
Class 5
ACA Rating
3A
Longest Rappel
80 ft
Route
Loop

Ratings out of 10

Effort
2.7/10
Personality
7/10
Beauty
6/10
Solitude
5.7/10
What do these mean? →

Route map + Trailhead

Trailhead Coordinates

37.687010, -110.536500

The directions link below drops a pin on the trailhead coordinates and lets Google Maps pick the route. If the drive has rough roads or access issues that GPS nav might get wrong, I cover that in my trip report.

Get directions (opens Google Maps in a new tab)

Trip report

Technical canyon warning

This is a technical canyon requiring canyoneering skills and specialized equipment. If you are not experienced with building anchors or using the gear required for technical canyoneering, do not attempt this route.

Apr 9, 2021 — Paradiso Canyon was a really nice canyon with a short approach. It's a much more interesting canyon than its neighbor, Purgatory Canyon. To reach the trailhead, we turned off UT-276 here (37.69713, -110.67133) and followed this dirt road to the rim. The road starts in great shape, but a few miles in high-clearance becomes required. There are a couple of rocky sections, but overall it's just some dips and bumps that will stop sedans. We parked at a popular ATV overlook and headed east along the rim, where we began to see down into Lake Powell. A Class 3 descent from the rim led us into the main drainage of Paradiso Canyon.

The first obstacle was a tricky down climb that we chose to handline. More obstacles, including some fun chimneys and lots of stemming, comprised the majority of the canyon. Aside from some nice lighting on colorful and textured walls, I thought the highlight was a pothole that should be avoided while on rappel, requiring some light gymnastics. There were a few pothole escapes that were dry during our visit, but aren't deep enough to require pothole escape techniques. The final chamber before the last rappel is riddled with minor potholes and a sheer cliff, and was gorgeous. The last rappel was uneventful, landing us in a drainage that wrapped around the cliffs to the standard Class 5 escape route option, a single steep slab move. Once above the Class 5 escape move, we continued on Class 2 slickrock as we worked toward a weakness in the cliff band above, where a social trail led along the rim back to the trailhead.

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Photos

52 photos

  1. View from the trailhead.
  2. East along the rim to get to the start of Paradiso Canyon.
  3. View toward the Henry Mountains.
  4. Class 3 descent from the rim.
  5. View toward the Class 3 section to get off the rim.
  6. Entering the drainage of Paradiso Canyon.
  7. First set of obstacles in Paradiso Canyon. There are some tricky moves and partner assists could be really helpful.
  9. Matt putting in some effort to avoid water.
  10. Fun chimney slide.
  13. Lots of fun obstacles as the canyon descends and becomes darker.
  16. Tighter section ends as the canyon opens up temporarily.
  18. Descending into narrows again.
  19. Lots of fun stemming.
  21. Descending deeper into a more narrow section.
  22. Some really nice lighting.
  26. Lots of gorgeous textures as we stemmed through Paradiso Canyon. We did a fair amount of unnecessary stemming a few feet off the ground for the majority of the canyon just to avoid having to wiggle through the narrower lower section.
  29. Wider section of Paradiso Canyon before it narrowed up again.
  30. View back within the open section.
  31. More fun narrows.
  33. Luke in an unnecessary pothole.
  37. A pothole that should be avoided by staying left, following the rope line seen here.
  38. View of the rappel just before Luke has to avoid the pothole.
  39. Another rappel leading to a large pothole that is likely often filled with water, just not on our visit.
  40. More down-climbing into the final chamber.
  41. Easily escapable pothole.
  42. Matt descending into the escapable pothole.
  43. At the top of a cliff leading to the final, beautiful chamber. You can see some friends on the right avoiding the cliff.
  44. View back up-canyon from some cute little potholes.
  45. Final rappel.
  46. View back toward the final rappel.
  47. We headed through the Paradiso Canyon watercourse, wrapped around the cliffs on the right and ascended the Class 5 slab move.
  48. Class 5 slab move.
  49. View down the Class 5 move.
  50. Class 2 led to the rim.
  51. View toward the weakness, located above the vertical crack in the center of this photo.
  52. Weakness we used to gain the rim. We followed the rim back to the trailhead.

Photo 1 of 1

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Hire or refer me as a web developer, or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I'm not sponsored, so it's funded by yours truly. It also takes a ton of work to edit photos and write these reports. I really appreciate it!

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