Hike up Ashdown Creek, June 13th, 2015

Located at 37.631241, -112.932158. Ashdown Creek is a wide slot canyon in Cedar City. I was recommended to check it out by my buddy Jason Murray, who runs the Pizza Cart in Cedar City. Thanks Jason!

Getting into and out of the river is probably the most challenging part. There's a big landslide hill that has to be traversed, and it takes plenty of strategic limb-placement and balance control to get down without causing more landslides.

A few hundred feet up the river, I gave up on any hopes of keeping my feet dry. I was wearing my grippy, cheap Nevados, and it's a good thing I did. Going upstream means keeping the feet aimed up-river and walking sideways to ford the river (to make sure your feet don't get swept out from under you), which can be a few feet deep in some spots. There walls are typical pocked sandstone, but the river is filled with all sorts of rocks. Concretions, agates, lava and a peculiar burnt carboniferous ash fill the area. Fossils, too; mostly spiral snail shells, old clams and flattened oysters, along with cakes of micro-fossils.

This is typical of the hill up and down; it is very treacherous.

I used this log as my first and last bridge, before giving up on the dryness of my socks.

The fine gravel was most dangerous in the river; larger gravel was easier to stand on.

The peculiar turret-shape of the tower on the mid-left grabbed my attention.

Tiny pebbles are strewn through the water, and the longer you ford, the more tiny stones will appear in your shoes, and then hamper your movement.

At the mouth of the slot canyon, wildly pocked sandstone walls decorate the vertical views.

What an odd formation.

I only made it this far before determining that limited daylight was of concern.

These sandstone walls in Ashdown Creek almost look like castles.

This looks rather like the moorings of a bridge. The forces that carved the canyon made a mockery of whatever this was.

Making it back towards the car. The steep, crumbling slopes were much harder after being exhausted by fording rapids.

All in all, this was incredibly enjoyable and very cheap; only 8 miles into the canyon of Highway 14, and parking is abundant at the large gravelly turnoff just prior to the intense vertical walls of the road. It's easy to find. Ashdown Creek will definitely test your endurance.