Utah Slot Canyon Hike - Leprechaun Canyon & Indian Ruins

Utah Trip Report 2014 March

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Day 5

Leprechaun Canyon / Mule Canyon Indian Ruins / Butler Wash Indian Ruins

I had to get at least one slot canyon hike in on this trip to add to my 60 by 60 Slot Canyon Challenge list so I headed for Hanksville and Leprechaun Canyon. There are four tributaries very close to each other that run into North Wash. These four canyons are known as the Irish Canyons with three of them with very Irish names. I arbitrary select Leprechaun Canyon to hike today. I spend a little bit of time finding where each tributary feeds into North Wash getting the GPS coordinates and then I parked on the side of a short spur dirt track for Leprechaun Canyon. My first chose for today was Hogs Springs but it was still closed for the winter.

It wasn’t hard to locate the drainage at the highway and start following it up canyon. It starts out as a fairly wide wash with vegetation. Everything is still dormant and eventually I get to a sandy streambed which is dry. There appears to be a fork in the canyon which is a minor ravine on the left. Some people may confuse this junction with the real split in the canyon which I’m only halfway to. After a ways the canyon walls rapidly close in to only 3 to 4 feet apart. There is a 3 foot boulder stuck between the canyon walls about 4 feet off the ground. I crunch down and walk under the boulder. I ended up setting up the tripod in three different positions for a self-portrait.  For the second shoot I was in the scene which caused the camera to focus only a foot from the camera resulting in a bunch of blurry shots since I was using burst mode. So I repeated the exercise again. The slot narrows down to less than a foot but by backtracking a little there is a gentler and more manageable dry-fall  only about 7 feet to bypass this first obstacle. I was alone so I couldn’t overcome this easier obstacle but it would have been no problem with a hiking partner. I returned back to the vehicle. I drove into Hanksville for gas, lunch and a cell-phone call.

I drove back to UT-95 and stopped at the Mule Canyon Indian Ruins that were wheelchair accessible. Not very photogenic with the modern manmade structures around it and the information boards but it was a very educational visit. The history of the Anasazi culture was on the information boards. This was a drive up and walk around ruins experience.

I drove a few more miles east on UT-95 to the Butler Wash Indian Ruins. It was getting a little late in the day to start a hike but the sign states this is a one mile round trip. There is a real parking lot and trailhead here. This is not a backcountry adventure but I was hiking on Slickrock and a wide maintained path that had been cleared of rocks. Even though this is called the Butler Wash Indian Ruins it is really a tributary or Butler Wash splits into forks and this canyon was a box canyon and the ruins were on the far side quite a distance a ways but this was probably the best view for the ruins. I was looking west and facing the sun that was getting lower in the sky. I was a little disappointed on how far away the ruins were but if you are looking for a short easy ruins hike, this is one of them.