Baptist Draw 3B

[rcwild]

A fun technical canyon in the heart of the San Rafael Swell.

Rating: 3B III
Time Required: ~6-8 Hours
Longest Rappel: ~75 Feet

Permit Information
No special permits required for canyoneering.

Camping/Lodging
Primitive camping in the trailhead area

Preferred Season
Spring to autumn, when rain isn't threatening. Summer is ok but can be hot.

Water Concerns
Waist deep wading in the canyon, possible short swims. High flash flood potential, check the weather.

Special Challenges
Lots of climbing, finding & constructing natural anchors. Moderate climbing and bouldering.

Equipment Suggestions
Standard Technical Gear (harness, descending device, helmet, multiple locking carabineers, slings, etc), 200’ rope, ~ 20 feet of webbing, rap rings/links

Topographic Maps
USGS 7.5' Map ‘Horse Valley’

Directions to Trailhead
From Highway 24 (linked I-70 and Hanksville), take the Temple Mountain road west to the Reds Canyon road junction, and turn onto the McKay Flats road. After 2-3 miles you'll pass a fence and cross a cattle guard. A few hundred feet past this point a track leaves on the left (pt 6748T on the topo map). Don't turn off of this track (new tracks are appearing all the time) for 2.8 miles, then turn left and head for pt 6698T. As you get closer to the point, you'll see a large teepee-shaped bluff in the valley to your immediate north (it's pretty obvious when you see it). Park at a spot that gives you reasonable hiking access to Teepee Rock, about a half mile past the last turn, or 3.3 miles from McKay Flat road.

Trailhead UTM Grid Coordinate
- -

Approach
Pick your way down cliffs, cross a draw, and hike to the base of Teepee Rock on the east side. Continue northward and drop into Baptist Draw. Hike downstream.

Canyon Entry UTM Grid Coordinate
--

Description: Standard Route
Several rappels with natural anchors, may find some water. The second rappel (long, 75 feet or so) will drop you into Chute Canyon. Head up Chute Canyon from the rappel. You will encounter a lot of fun bouldering and climbing, and a little wading, through a beautiful slot. Continue up the canyon until it opens. You may need a boost up some of the drops.

Exit
When the canyon opens, pick your way up the divide between Chute and Baptist Draw, cross Baptist and reach the base of Teepee Rock. Follow your entry route back to your car.

Variation
A second option is to descend Chute Canyon. If you descend it all the way to the reef, you'll need a car shuttle parked at the mouth to retrieve your upper car. Another option is to continue down Chute for 2.5 miles (1-2 hours or so) until you reach a major intersection of canyons. Turn right, and head up what some call "Fault Line Canyon" (this is marked pt 5883T on the maps, though it is hard to read). Head due west up Fault Line Canyon until you reach the mesa top, and head northward back to your car (this will take some routefinding, bring a map and mark where your car is before you go).

Canyon Exit UTM Grid Coordinate
- -

[rcwild]

Reserved for accident reports from this canyon

[rcwild]

Posted by charlybldr on 13 May 2004:

As of 5/9/04:
Baptist Draw has 2 or 3 pools that you have to
wade, up to waist deep, and several shallow pools
(ankle deep).

Upper Chute (that is, Chute Canyon above where Baptist Draw enters) has several ankle deep pools and not much else with respect to water. I'm not sure what Chute conditions are below where Baptist enters. Assuming no big rains have passed since then, no wetsuit is needed.

Both rappels in Baptist Draw have ample recent webbing, and somebody left a webbing handline at a short drop between the two rappels.

Good conditions for a fun romp.

Mike Dallin

Posted by pablomoses on 20 Sep 2006:

Baptist Draw to Upper Chute
Trip Date: September 16, 2006

This is a word of caution for anyone wanting to do the Baptist Draw to Upper Chute hike (turning up-canyon at the junction). I have done this hike in the past and loved it, we decided to do it again this trip since we were short on time and I remembered is as fairly quick and fun.

Baptist Draw decent was no problem. Upon turning up-canyon in Chute we quickly came upon a pool that I had waded before, but was now a swimmer in water that was in the 40's. Worse, swimming around a corner, the VW van-sized boulder that we walked under before, was partially under water. Leaving a floating start 15 foot climbing problem - probably was around 5.8, but felt like 5.10+ with the floating start, numb hands, and rapidly decreasing core temperature. I attained the top of the boulder on the 3rd try, got my wife up with the use of our rope.

On the other side, the pool was filled wall to wall and around the corner with juniper branches and trunks and other detrius. Rather than turn back and go down Chute to the Faultline Canyon, and probably end up hiking in the dark, I decided to give this a try. It was somewhere between swimming and crawling with the juniper branches trying to drag you under... but I made progress and was able to stay on top of the mass mostly, so I invited my wife to join me. That 30 yards took us 15 minutes of "swimming". We fortunately had a dry bag with dry thermal clothes and socks in it, and we immediatly changed in an effort to avoid becoming hoplessly hypothermic. Fortune was with us and in a few minutes of hiking we found some sun. We sat in the sun for about 30 minutes until finally the uncontrollable shivering stopped. Then we had waist deep wading for about 50% of the rest of upper Chute narrows.

Bottom line, this is a canyon I had done twice before. I am not sure if the water up to the height of the boulder causing the climb and swim is a function of "normal" flood cycle and will quickly recede, or if this represents a major change in the character of this canyon. If we did not have the dry bag with dry clothes and found the sunny spot, things might have gotten uglier... we were lucky. Go prepared.

Footnote: There were footprints in Baptist Draw before us, and into the pool with the boulder, but none on the other side of the boulder pool - I assume that group had to turn back and go down Chute.

Posted by 2fasteddie on 22 Nov 2006:

Baptist Draw / Chute Canyon / Faultline Canyon
Memorial Day weekend 9-3-06

After reading pablomoses comments I thought I should add a bit more info. He may have seen our footprints from the previous week.

We found the same conditions in Chute Canyon above and below the junction with Baptist Draw. There are a couple giant boulders that have blocked the canyon. While they are easily climbed, they have created waist deep wading to swim only holes depending on the recent rainfall. The water temperature was probably close to 50 degrees in the bottom of the canyon and we had left our dry bags back at camp.

We chose to go down Chute Canyon rather than up. We found that climbing over the giant boulder we could belay one climber into waist deep scum (left side descending) and he was able to climb up a mass of mud and juniper needles and make his way over the next large boulder.

We set up an anchor above and had the person below rappel almost to the bottom to create tension on the rope. Then we did a tyrolean belay above the scum to keep the rest of our party dry and clean.

We all fell in love with the beauty of Chute Canyon. We initially missed the junction at Fault Line Canyon and continued down Chute for another mile or so before backtracking.

Next trip we plan to set up a car shuttle so that we
can complete Chute Canyon.

[JDClery]

Baptist Draw/Upper Chute/Faultline canyon
August 20th, 2008

This was my first descent of Baptist Draw/upper chute and there was a good bit of water in it. In most spots, the water levels were about 4 feet from the high water mark and we had several swims and deep wading along with a lot of muddy hiking. The water was relatively clean, at least it didn't stink, and we found the pools pretty refreshing on a hot day.

There were 3 rappels, the first in Baptist Draw off a chockstone, about 20' in a narrow slot, it looked downclimbable. The second had a big chockstone that could be used instead of a bolt on the right. The chockstone had an awkward start and it was only about 60', a little shorter than using the bolts. The third rappel had a fixed line on a piton and was about 20'.

[damngreg1]

Quick conditions report: Did Baptist Draw and up Chute as a quick trip on Sunday 5/24/09. It had rained all Friday night and Saturday and we knew that there would be some wading and swimming. We could see puddles from the overlook and hit the trail. There was wading waist high in Baptist in a few places. Once we hit Chute and headed up canyon, we discovered a few wades and then a swim through a thick layer of branches, pine needles, pine cones and whatever else. We were able to duck under the boulder. Once we exited the canyon, we saw the afternoon storm start to build.
Later that afternoon the thunderstorm was unleashed. It was very impressive to watch with 3/4 inch hail and the road turned into a river. It was all we could do to leave the area. All of the washes were flowing and I'm sure that Chute was flowing again.

[robjenson]

Injury - 20' fall...probably at the first rappel is my guess...

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13135125

[Roxy]

Posted by charlybldr on 13 May 2004:

As of 5/9/04:
Baptist Draw has 2 or 3 pools that you have to
wade, up to waist deep, and several shallow pools
(ankle deep).

Upper Chute (that is, Chute Canyon above where Baptist Draw enters) has several ankle deep pools and not much else with respect to water. I'm not sure what Chute conditions are below where Baptist enters. Assuming no big rains have passed since then, no wetsuit is needed.

Both rappels in Baptist Draw have ample recent webbing, and somebody left a webbing handline at a short drop between the two rappels.

Good conditions for a fun romp.

Mike Dallin

Posted by pablomoses on 20 Sep 2006:

Baptist Draw to Upper Chute
Trip Date: September 16, 2006

This is a word of caution for anyone wanting to do the Baptist Draw to Upper Chute hike (turning up-canyon at the junction). I have done this hike in the past and loved it, we decided to do it again this trip since we were short on time and I remembered is as fairly quick and fun.

Baptist Draw decent was no problem. Upon turning up-canyon in Chute we quickly came upon a pool that I had waded before, but was now a swimmer in water that was in the 40's. Worse, swimming around a corner, the VW van-sized boulder that we walked under before, was partially under water. Leaving a floating start 15 foot climbing problem - probably was around 5.8, but felt like 5.10+ with the floating start, numb hands, and rapidly decreasing core temperature. I attained the top of the boulder on the 3rd try, got my wife up with the use of our rope.

On the other side, the pool was filled wall to wall and around the corner with juniper branches and trunks and other detrius. Rather than turn back and go down Chute to the Faultline Canyon, and probably end up hiking in the dark, I decided to give this a try. It was somewhere between swimming and crawling with the juniper branches trying to drag you under... but I made progress and was able to stay on top of the mass mostly, so I invited my wife to join me. That 30 yards took us 15 minutes of "swimming". We fortunately had a dry bag with dry thermal clothes and socks in it, and we immediatly changed in an effort to avoid becoming hoplessly hypothermic. Fortune was with us and in a few minutes of hiking we found some sun. We sat in the sun for about 30 minutes until finally the uncontrollable shivering stopped. Then we had waist deep wading for about 50% of the rest of upper Chute narrows.

Bottom line, this is a canyon I had done twice before. I am not sure if the water up to the height of the boulder causing the climb and swim is a function of "normal" flood cycle and will quickly recede, or if this represents a major change in the character of this canyon. If we did not have the dry bag with dry clothes and found the sunny spot, things might have gotten uglier... we were lucky. Go prepared.

Footnote: There were footprints in Baptist Draw before us, and into the pool with the boulder, but none on the other side of the boulder pool - I assume that group had to turn back and go down Chute.

Posted by 2fasteddie on 22 Nov 2006:

Baptist Draw / Chute Canyon / Faultline Canyon
Memorial Day weekend 9-3-06

After reading pablomoses comments I thought I should add a bit more info. He may have seen our footprints from the previous week.

We found the same conditions in Chute Canyon above and below the junction with Baptist Draw. There are a couple giant boulders that have blocked the canyon. While they are easily climbed, they have created waist deep wading to swim only holes depending on the recent rainfall. The water temperature was probably close to 50 degrees in the bottom of the canyon and we had left our dry bags back at camp.

We chose to go down Chute Canyon rather than up. We found that climbing over the giant boulder we could belay one climber into waist deep scum (left side descending) and he was able to climb up a mass of mud and juniper needles and make his way over the next large boulder.

We set up an anchor above and had the person below rappel almost to the bottom to create tension on the rope. Then we did a tyrolean belay above the scum to keep the rest of our party dry and clean.

We all fell in love with the beauty of Chute Canyon. We initially missed the junction at Fault Line Canyon and continued down Chute for another mile or so before backtracking.

Next trip we plan to set up a car shuttle so that we
can complete Chute Canyon.


On Sunday November 14, 2010, I did Baptist Draw with my partner Norman. Everything we read suggested that going up Chute Canyon from Baptist Draw would be quite simple. The hike was supposed to take around 3-4 hours for someone in good shape. Norm and I were a little out of shape, so we allowed ourselves 6 hours to be on the safe side. It was also our first technical slot canyon, though Norman has been a climber since his 20's. (He was 63 at the time of this incident, I'm 49). We got a bit of a late start, because we wanted to be sure the weather stayed good. The week prior had been snow, rain, and we had delayed this trip for a week.
Anyhow, we got a later start than planned, around 10:30 AM. We did two rappels in Baptist Draw and then the 75ft rap into Chute Canyon. After we pulled our rope we saw that someone had written a warning on the wall in charcoal (from a fire someone had had recently. Possibly someone else spent the night before here also). The warning read "No Way Out! Turn Back! We hoped it was a sick joke, but we ran into the same conditions as Pablomoses did in 2006. The water was past waist deep, and the mud sucked Norman down. He had a hard time getting back out again after only going a couple of feet into the pool. The water was high up on the boulder blocking the slot at the far end, up Canyon.
It was quite late in the afternoon by now, as we hadn't rushed, and it was getting cold in the canyon. We checked out down canyon, and came to the first rap into a deep pool. I'm fairly new to rapelling, and this one seemed tricky, and was also afraid that I'd drown in the pool with my pack on. (Lots of nightmares about drowning), and it was too difficult to get around with our current canyoneering skills.
In the end we decided it was too late in the day to risk going in either direction, getting wet, and possibly hypothermic. We decided to spend the night in the canyon, and hope for the best. We had to deal with a mouse trying to get our food and water (which we were now rationing), and my emergency bivy tore in three places. It was a long night.
The next day we looked at the mud pool up canyon again, and decided to go south, or down canyon instead. We set up a zip line to get the packs over the deep pool, so I didn't have to worry about drowning. We got wet many times, but luckily temps wern't as bad as they could have been. It snowed a bit. We ran out of water and managed to squeeze a liter from a frozen pool we found on a high ledge. As I mentioned, we wern't in tip-top shape after working all summer, so it was late in the day by the time we got to Fault Line Canyon.
At the top of that we struck north to get back to our camp and vehicle, but there was another canyon in our way. Because we hadn't planned to do this route, we didn't know much about it. We also only had a NatGeo Topo road map of the area, so it was difficult to figure out the best route. In the end we took a compass bearing directly west, until we hit a road, then we had another 4.5 miles of road to walk back to camp. It was smarter than wondering around on the plateau trying to miss the big canyon. In the dark it looked impossible to cross, but I'm sure we could have done it in the day light.
That road went on forever. I was so dehydrated that I couldn't stand upright, I'd just topple, so I just kept on walking. We both got into one of those hikers trances, kind of like a meditation. Then finally we were in the area we camped, but we couldn't find the vehicle. Everything was so different in the dark and moonlight, and there were no other people up there. (And hadn't been since Saturday). We spent another hour trying to find the Land Cruiser. Turns our we'd stopped short of it by about 75 ft. We finally found it, and boy did that electrolyte enhanced water taste good.
When we looked at the time we were amazed to see it was 12:30 AM on Tuesday morning. Our little 4-6 hour jaunt had turned into a 38-hour ordeal.
Needless to say we have gone over, and over, this incident. We had everything we needed to survive. The one thing we would have done differently is have a water filter with us, instead of iodine tablets, which needed four hours to work (NOT!). Otherwise I think we made all the right decisions. After reading pablomoses's account of the pool, we're so glad we didn't go north. In future we will also have extra climbing gear, because we may have been able to climb out, and will also research A LOT more. When we got back to Colorado I searched online for two weeks before I found anything about the section of Chute Canyon north of Baptist Draw. Everything else I read made it sound like a walk in the park, with no warnings. (Other than the one stressed in Kelsey's book, about how conditions can change with every flash flood).
All-in-all Baptist Draw is a beautiful slot, and Chute is impressive. The last flash flood had left mud marks above my head. We estimated about a week before. (I'm 5' 1"). We may go back and do the lower sections of Chute some time. But not too soon....

[kuper]

This canyon has biten several canyoneers due to its easy rating, I have a friend that did it with his wife in October and he said it was bone dry and easy. Goes to show that you can never be too prepared the dynamics of a canyon can change with every rain. Glad you guys made it out okay, looks to me like you made appropriate decisions given the circumstances

[BackofBeyond]

38°42'26"N, 110°46'26"W
GPS Park:
38°41'50"N, 110°48'21"W BD07
38°41'46"N, 110°49'05"W BD01 Alternate Parking
GPS Trailhead:
38°42'26"N, 110°46'26"W BD06 Upper Chute Exit
GPS Canyon Head:
38°41'59"N, 110°47'32"W BD04
GPS Canyon Mouth:
38°42'07"N, 110°47'12"W BD05 Junction w/ Chute
38°40'55"N, 110°46'35"W BD03 canyon exit to Cowboy Camp
GPS Shuttle:

38°40'59"N, 110°48'58"W BD02 fork to Cowboy Camp or Main Parking
38°41'07"N, 110°49'39"W BD09 Cowboy Camp - you can start here as wel

[Levi Fackrell]

Make sure you get in the canyon before 12ish or you get out really late. my group had to spend the night because we could not find are way around in the dark. No one got hurt but spending the night with supplies for a day hike is not fun