Backpacking Lower Death Hollow in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (Video)

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah offers some of the best trekking on the planet, a unique combination of geological wonders, hidden streams, old growth forests, and desert sands.

The snowcapped peaks of the Henry Mountains flank the area to the east, while the meandering Escalante River flows some 90 miles south-southeast through it along the Waterpocket Fold before eventually dumping into Lake Powell. The side canyons and drainages within the area have shaped the rocks into arches, causeways, and natural bridges, but the most striking features down there are the deep gulches, gorges, and gullies.

And, in this particular instance, its hollows – particularly Lower Death Hollow, which flows north-south into the Escalante River just east of the town of Escalante, Utah. It was through it on a roughly 22 mile loop hike off the old Boulder Mail Trail that my good friend George and I trekked and splashed back in April of 2023, a trip I detailed in two parts several years back here at Lit Wick.

As I was digging back through photos and footage I took during the trip, I realized I had enough to put together a short video of the excursion, one that still ranks among my absolute favorites to this day. It’s not the best camera work – I wasn’t intending to turn it into a video when I shot it at the time – but the beauty of the place is such that it’s really hard to make it look unwatchable. In fact, I think it actually turned out pretty decent!

We walked across plenty of slick rock, and through some sands. We had big views of Mount Pennell in the Henrys towering above us at over 11,000 feet before eventually dropping into the old Ponderosa pine forests at the base of Death Hollow some 5,500 feet lower in elevation. We saw endless trout as we walked first the stream and later the Escalante River itself after reaching the confluence, got stuck in a little quick sand, and saw numerous pictographs and petroglyphs on the towering walls surrounding us.

The Lower Death Hollow narrows were the highlight of the trip, as we effectively walked through a series of cascades and waterfalls as if it were natures own water park.

Here’s the video!