Overview

Hype:

Upper Egypt 5 Canyon is an advanced technical canyon in Grand Staircase-Escalante Nataional Monument. With a 300-foot starting rappel and high stemming (up to 40 feet off the ground), this canyon is not for the faint of heart. For the capable, though, this canyon is a lot of fun. It has a quick approach and exit and the stemming is straightforward.

Canyon Rating: 4A R

Time: 3-5 hours

Length: 1.5 miles round trip

Longest Rappel: 300 ft

Gear: 300 ft rope, standard rappelling gear, waist sling, smallest pack possible, body pads.

Fees: None

Recommended Ages:

	0-3
	4-11
	12-19
	20-49
	50-69
	70+

Recommended Months to Visit:

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Links: www.bluugnome.com

Getting There

Navigate to 37.593080, -111.218486.

Route

Approach

Park at the Egypt trailhead and walk 0.4 miles to the top of the canyon. There is a steep slickrock section (downclimbg #1) above the canyon that you'll have to navigate through, but it's not impossible. 

Route

Downclimb #2 - Climb down a sloped crack. You'll need to climb down and back up when you retrieve your rope after completing the canyon.

Rappel #1 - 300-foot, two-stage rappel. The first stage is anchored on a rock. The second stage is off a deadman anchor. Leave your rope (and disconnect from the lower anchor before the last person rappels) and retrieve the rope on the hike out.

Downclimb #3 - 10 feet into a pool of water (shin-deep). If you can stem over the water at this location, you'll likely be able to avoid all other water. 

Maps

Closest City or Region: Escalante, Utah

Coordinates: 37.587970, -111.218347

Interactive Guide Map

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May 21, 2017 Trip Report

By Jeremy Dye

Trip Members

Jeremy Dye, Anthony Dye, Alex Woolsey,

Logistics

3 hours 30 minutes

Story

Tara offered to tear down camp while Anthony, Woolsey, and I did Egypt 5 Canyon (the upper section). That was a great birthday present for me! We didn't have great beta on the canyon, so we weren't sure how long it would take. The beta said 4-6 hours (but they were guessing because it took their group 8 hours). We had to be home by 3:00 for my 5:00 birthday dinner with friends (48 people RSVPed), it was a 3-hour drive home, and it was a 30-minute drive each way to the canyon trail head and back. So if we could finish the canyon in 5 hours, we would be able to make it. We hiked to the canyon start.

We downclimbed to the top of the rappel.

The canyon starts with a 300-foot rappel. The webbing was pretty old, so we replaced it.

We didn't have a 300-foot rope, and we didn't want everyone to have to pass the knot, so rigged a rappel/lower and sent Woolsey down. He rigged below the knot (which was right up against the quick link) and rappelled to the bottom of his rope (which had a stopper knot). Then Anthony lowered him the rest of the way to the bottom. Only the bottom came a lot sooner than we were expecting because it's actually a two-stage rappel.

When Woolsey got to the bottom of the first drop, he wanted a second opinion on how to do the second drop, so I went down the first drop to meet up with him. The knot was above the second tie-in point, so I tied the rope to the second anchor and got ready to rappel down the second drop. The reason we did it that way was so Anthony could go down the first drop while we went down the second drop, and it wouldn't be so much of a bottle neck. Well, Woolsey notice as I was about to go down, that I would be shorting Anthony's rope (because it swooped over to us), and Anthony likely wouldn't be able to go all the way down, so we ended up waiting for him anyway before doing the second drop.

Once he was down the first drop, I went down the second drop, then Woolsey followed. Then Anthony untied from the second anchor, clipped in below our splice knot and rappelled the second drop without having to pass the knot mid-air. It was a bit of an exciting drop for him though because the rope was just a touch bit too long, so he did a 15-foot swinging start before the rope caught him. There was only 1 rappel in the canyon, and it was right at the top, so we just left our rope there to grab on the exit hike out. That's the other reason Anthony didn't use the second anchor. Immediately at the bottom of the rappel, the high stemming began. We took off our harnesses, clipped them onto the end of the rope, then we used a webbing loop to extend our packs so they were swinging below us while we chimneyed or stemmed.

Egypt 5 is an X-rated canyon, meaning it is very exposed. At the bottom of the climb up, I was very anxious. I was worried about what we'd committed to because ascending up a 300-foot rope made it very difficult to retreat up canyon. I stemmed up first, to about 40 feet above the ground, where it opened up wide enough to stem comfortably. Then I moved down-canyon. There was one point where I lost some elevation and instead of climbing back up to where it was a reasonable width, I tried going in the skinnier portion. Man, that was a mistake. It was all I could do to keep from falling. I eventually scooched over a chockstone and managed to get a foothold so I could get my balance and climb back up. After I made it about 100 feet down canyon, I stopped and waited for the other two. I wasn't sure what was ahead or how long we would need to stem. I found a good resting position and watched as Woolsey tried several times to get up that initial climb. It was really tricky because the crack tried to spit you out. Also Woolsey was doubting his abilities and was very adamant about never wanting to do another x-rated canyon again. Anthony gave him a hand up, and then they were both up to elevation. By this point, I was really nervous about making it home in time for my party. If we kept going at the rate we were going (a bit of a late start, replacing webbing, long time at rappel #1, slow climbing and stemming), I was afraid it would take us closer to 8 hours instead of 5.

The high stemming ended up not being very long, maybe 200 feet total, thank goodness. Then we were back at ground level cruising through the canyon.

There was one downclimb into a pool of water. I offered to go first, and based on the beta we had and our experience in other canyon, I decided to just wade through the water rather than wasting energy keeping my feet dry only to have to wade through the next pool. So I got my feet wet and scout ahead. The other pools were easy to stem over, so I relayed that information, and the other guys managed to stay completely dry at the downclimb pool.

We got to the bottom of the canyon and started the hike out.

On the slickrock hike out, we stopped and took a bunch of fun panorama pictures with everyone running around to be in the same picture more than once.

When we got to the top of the canyon, we blew right past the start of the canyon and went too far west. Good thing we had our GPS apps on our phone so we knew it before we wasted too much time. Anthony went down the first down-climb, fetched the rope and harnesses, and climbed back up.

We made it back to the truck by 10:30, with plenty of time to spare!

Video of Trip

Pictures