We went to Utah in search of adventure and certainly found it at the Zebra Slot Canyon in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. It was a tight slot canyon with beautiful rock formations, deep water and not another person in sight! Utah is a great state to get outdoors and have a fun adventure.
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My name is Jesse St Louis (AKA Infamous JSL) and I'm an actor that likes to go on awesome adventures between gigs. I've been called a "no frills Bear Grylls" and the bald Bourdain. But mostly I've been called an Actor. Traveler. Smart-ass.
This is some 127 hours type ---- right here.
I'm at the top of this plateau in southern Utah.
We're about to dive into one of the best slot canyons in Utah, Zebra Canyon.
Trails like this are real easy to lose the pathway,
so you want to make sure you have a map, bring a map with you.
I downloaded an offline map in an app called AllTrails,
which I recommend if you're going to do a lot of hikes like this,
or even just to discover hikes in your area.
AllTrails is a great app.
You can download different topographical maps,
and road maps, trail maps, all sorts of maps.
You can download those for offline use, which is where we're going by now.
Read that this trail, it's easy to lose the trail
because the winds out here kick up on the plateau,
and it'll blow sand, it'll cover up your tracks and stuff like that.
So far, it hasn't been too difficult.
Seems to be a pretty worn path where we're going,
but just to keep that in mind, you know,
you want to either leave some sort of marker behind, definitely have a map.
Ideally, you want to have a GPS and a paper map as a backup, hard copy map.
Part of this trail, it's not steep, but deep sand.
Definitely feel like we're in like a Sahara desert or something now,
trudging through this deep sand.
It's not a long hike, but when you're hiking through sand, it's taxing for sure.
Well, we made it to Zebra Canyon, finally.
As you can see, there's water in the canyon.
We don't know how deep it is.
We're not really prepared for this, but we just took our shoes and socks off.
I'm going to see how deep it is.
Zebra Canyon.
Here we are, about to dive into this muddy water in the Zebra Canyon,
and we're going to go check it out.
It's cold.
Feels good.
Not too deep.
It's about waist high, so it's not too bad yet,
but if it gets any deeper than that, I don't know how much further we're going to go.
If you've watched my channel for a while,
you know I always advise that you should check a weather report
before you get into a slot canyon.
Always want to double check the weather
and make sure there's no rain in the forecast,
because a slot canyon, depending on how tight it is and how far down it is,
you can drown really quick in a flash flood.
There's no rain projected in the forecast today.
The skies are blue, and this type of slot canyon where you're walking in,
it's not as dangerous than if you're like repelling in
or if you've cliff jumped into a lower elevation slot canyon.
Still, even if you're walking in, you still want to check the weather forecast.
Oh, it's getting deep.
What's up, buddy?
Gonna make a run for it?
No, you chilling?
Okay, we're getting deeper.
Oh, it's getting deeper.
All right, we're rapidly approaching head high depth here,
but if it stays like this, I think we're okay.
May stay like this.
Okay, yeah, not too bad.
Oh, oh, we're getting...
Yeah, there we go.
Getting up.
There we go.
Stuff like this is the reason why you want to check the weather forecast.
If you get wedged in here, can't climb out in a flash flood,
you're gone.
It happens quick.
You might hit your head, knock yourself unconscious,
but I love this ---- in slot canyons.
Doing it safely, it's fun.
I wasn't expecting the water, to be honest.
Everything was bone dry getting out here, but it's totally worth it.
This one right here is a little bit of a tight squeeze.
I got to go back to my ballerina training and get into first position.
I may not be able to make it through.
Man, I got to go on a diet.
That's what this tells me.
This is some 127 hours type ---- right here.
Oh ----, I forgot my pocket knife in case I have to hack my arm.
Well, Zebra Canyon is pretty cool.
Tight spots you can climb, you can kind of shimmy up and over
if I have my water shoes, which I don't own anymore
because I had a blowout in Spain from cliff jumping.
If I had wet water shoes that had good traction,
shimmying over the tight spots wouldn't be that difficult,
but I'm going to make a promise to you guys.
Next year, I'm coming back here.
I'm getting shredded.
I'm getting lean.
I'm getting some water shoes also.
After a diet and getting some proper gear, we'll come back here.
We're going to do this again, maybe with a higher flow.
We're going to take it to the next level.
Well, that was a great day.
Zebra Canyon.
We're not going to go to Tunnel Canyon.
We've only got a little bit of daylight left,
so we're going to head back,
but I wanted to point out this field of these little iron BBs.
They look like little cannonballs,
and they sound like cannonballs when you clang them together
and stuff like that.
Stark landscape with these random iron BBs everywhere.
I have no idea how these were formed,
but they're pretty cool.
Hope you enjoyed this adventure today.
I hope it encourages you to get out there,
find your own adventure.
Don't be scared.
Go bravely into the deep unknown,
and always be infamous.
I'll see you next time.
What's my name?
Jesse St. Louis.
Say my name, bitch!
Jesse St. Louis.
Infamous.
