Little Blue John and Larry Canyon

Just East Outside of Hanksville Utah lies Robbers Roost. A large desert swath of deep, dark, and dangerous canyons with long exhausting exit routes. There are quite a few options for the adventurous canyoneer out here in no man’s land. Each canyon is about a 40-mile drive on washboard dirt roads to get you to the trailhead but the journey is worth it and you will find true solitude in these slot canyons.

We made the two-hour journey in our sprinter van. I will note that these roads are rough and after a long expedition to this area in 2022 we rattled loose a fuel line and finished off our already worn out struts and destroyed our sway bar bushings on these roads. If the roads don’t get you the dust certainly will. Since the Spring is the best time to send these canyons it’s also the season with the most wind so if you are in a tent you have been warned. Our van was covered inside and out with the iconic red dust of southern Utah.

If the approach doesn't scare you the long technical canyons of the area will. This is where the movie 122 Hours was based where Aaron had to cut his arm off after a boulder fell and trapped him in Blue John Canyon. With that being said we decided to send Blue John Canyon First.

Note: These are technical canyons and require route finding, gear, and knowledge on how to descend and ascend a rope. If you are not competent in any of this I would highly recommend not doing these canyons. Also, you can find more beta on the routes on Road Trip Ryan.

Little Blue John Canyon

The first canyon that we wanted to tackle was Blue John Canyon. This canyon can be broken down in three sections where an adventure can be anywhere from 5 hours to 10 hours to make sure you know what arm of the canyon you are doing before you enter the canyon. We chose Little Blue John Canyon for our first canyon in the area.

The approach to the canyon is 2 miles and the entire journey is around 6 miles and took the three of us about 5 hours to complete. This is a great warm-up canyon for getting aquatinted with what you will be getting into in the Robbers Roost area. There were three rappels with the longest one being around 100 feet into a narrow slot that had beautiful lighting the time of day we descended. This was a fun but technical canyon and is suited for all levels.

Make sure you have the exit map downloaded before you head out. All canyons require quite a bit of route finding and they are very remote. If you don’t know your way out you can very easily be lost in the desert with no one around to find you.

Larry Canyon

This is an all-day event. We highly recommend you park a shuttle car at the end of the canyon near the entrance to Alcatraz Canyon. This will cut off about two additional miles and there is an 800-foot class 4 climb out of the canyon and you will be happy to see your shuttle at the top of the mesa.

This canyon was quite the adventure and required a lot of down climbing and squeezing through narrow slots to get out of the canyon. At one point we were moving a mile an hour. There are multiple rappels that take you deep into some amazing slot canyons. There is even a long section of slanted narrows that requires awkward body maneuvering to get through. At one point it got very dark and our party decided to use our headlamps.

Once you exit the narrows the canyon really opens up and is quite beautiful and grand. It seems as if you were in Zion National Park but we were the only people there.

After a while, there is an optional two more rappels that you can bypass we decided to rappel down these two last rappels and we got the rope stuck on the first one. Luckily we had our ascenders and Lee climbed up the rope to retrieve the rope that had got caught on some loose webbing.

After the wiggling our way through the canyon and walking through sand in the wider sections there is a class 4 climb out the canyon. This really wore us out and we were so happy to see our vehicle at the top of the mesa.

All in all the canyon was a little bit over 7 miles and took our group of three 8 hours to finish the canyon. If we hadn't shuttled we would be looking into 2 more hours of walking back to the start.

This was the highlight of the trip to Robbers Roost and we hope to return to tick a few more canyons off our list. We were planning to do Alcatraz Canyon but we returned to our Sprinter Van leaking diesel at the campsite so we had to leave the area and head to the mechanic.