Red Cliffs

Red Cliffs

You’ll wear out several pairs of boots finding a slick rock canyon more sumptuous than this. The lower spot is really only a pot. The pool is trapezoid-shaped with lots of sand in the bottom. The fall and jump is only about six feet. It really needs a year or two of heavy snow runoff to rinse it clean. The better place is farther up where you find a little slot with a slide about seven feet high that spills into a rock walled pool that’s 12 to 15 feet around. It's bounded by smooth, continuous red rock rising 50 feet. You gain the ledge above the pool by using some steps and an aid rope fastened above.
Expectation of privacy is zero. Gerald Grimmett has worked as the campground host since 1993. He describes Red Cliffs as an urban campground. On the Easter Holiday it can draw as many as 6,000. “We’ve got it pretty much under control now, but it used to be so rowdy that I wouldn’t walk out the door without my pistol.”
Average is three medical evacuations by helicopter per season, not all of them alcohol related either. The rocks produce a bumper crop of Moqui marbles which, when scattered on steep slick rock, means a quick trip to the bottom for anyone not extremely vigilant. A ranch upstream has water rights and if there is water flowing in the creek by Memorial Day, that’s usually when they begin to exercise their right. So this is only an early, early season spot.