How to Hike Wire Pass Trail to Buckskin Gulch in Utah

The Wirepass Trailhead to Buckskin Gulch Hike is a very unique trail because it gives you a chance to hike through the longest slot canyon in the world. To get to the trailhead, you're going to take Utah's Highway 89 and exit on House Rock Valley Road. This road can be a little bit bumpy in certain spots and it can be a little bit difficult for low clearance vehicles. You're going to be on this dirt road for just under 9 miles. You're going to pass the Buckskin Trailhead, but the Wirepass Trailhead is a shorter way to the slot and it is prettier. We wanted to give you a very important word of warning. This hike does require a Buckskin Gulch Day Use Permit. There is a kiosk in the parking lot where you used to be able to just pay and get your permit, but now they want you to do it on the internet. The kiosk now serves as a bit of a wifi hot spot, but the internet service here is spotty at best. There are also several hoops that you have to jump through to buy the permit, so we highly recommend doing it at the hotel or in town when your signal strength is much better. After what seemed like a small eternity of fighting the poor wifi signal, we finally got our permit and it was time to hit the trail. One thing that we found interesting about this hike is that it is not one of those ones where you just hike to a known spot and then head back. This slot canyon is over 12.5 miles long and there are plenty of sections where it is really hard to move fast, so I think it would be nearly impossible for even the fastest of hikers to do this entire canyon in one day. There is an option to camp out and do this hike over the course of a couple of days, but it is a much harder to get permit. Another thing that you need to take into account before attempting this hike is the weather. Flash floods are a serious risk when attempting to go into any canyon. But if you encounter a flash flood in this canyon, you could be in serious trouble. There's a chance that you could be miles into it, and as you'll see in a little bit with the boulders on the floor, it would be pretty much impossible to run to try and get out. So be sure to check the weather not only where the hike takes place, but for miles around, because sometimes the flash floods can travel from quite a distance away. After working your way down the sandy wash for about 1.3 miles, you should find yourself at the beginning of the first miniature slot canyon. We were already loving our surroundings, and little did we know that these shorter walls were nothing in comparison to the walls in the main canyon that can be up to 200 feet tall. Partway through the first slot canyon, you will hopefully be coming up on a ladder that will drop you down about 8 feet. I say hopefully because on occasion, the flash floods that come through the canyon will take this ladder away. In fact, in August of this year, it was washed away, but it was soon replaced. If the ladder is missing when you visit, you will have to head back out the slot canyon the way that you came in and climb up the hillside and around this first slot. Flash flood season here is typically from July to mid-September, so if you visit outside of those months, you should hopefully be fine. After you leave the first slot canyon, you are a short walk down the wash till you reach the second slot canyon, which is equally as beautiful. This one is even a little bit shorter than the first slot canyon, but the walls are going to start getting a bit higher at this point. Once you reach the end of this slot, you will find yourself standing at the base of a gigantic blind arch. It was definitely not something we were expecting to see on this hike, and the cool thing is it wasn't the only one. After passing the blind arch, you're going to come to a fork in the trail. Turning left takes you to the upper buckskin gulch, and turning right takes you to the real buckskin gulch trail, as well as some petroglyphs. After checking out the petroglyphs, we made the choice to take the trail on the right, which is the actual buckskin gulch trail. Things are going to get a whole lot rockier here, and you're going to see why I said However, all the rocks didn't seem to bother this guy one bit. You are now in the main canyon, and the towering walls are sure to make you feel really tiny. Depending on what season you go, you may encounter water over the course of this hike. Luckily, this was pretty much the extent of it when we were there, but we have heard reports of it being up to waist deep. V was obviously happy that she got to stay dry. We love sandstone, because it seems like there's an endless amount of possibilities of weird, weird formations that it can make, and it's also of course the reason that this beautiful slot canyon was able to be carved out by the water over time. It's at this point that you just kind of keep hiking in until you feel like you've had enough and you turn and head back. The only problem with that is that V and I are both a little bit stubborn, and we don't want to miss anything cool, so we kept being like, okay, we'll hike to that next corner and then we'll turn back, and then we get to that and it's, okay, the next corner down. Even though it may seem like it's just more and more deep slot canyons, there's just enough that is different about it to make you want to keep pushing on and seeing more. And I'm glad we did keep pushing on, because we eventually found ourselves at yet another blind arch. But eventually we did reach a spot and decide that it might be a good time to turn back. Stepping over all of the boulders is tiring, and it does take a toll on your legs. V and I had both had several pretty good trips along the way, and here's a good reenactment of one of them. There are some rumors that she is being nominated for an Academy Award for that performance, but we will have to wait and see. As we made our way back towards the fork in the trail, we couldn't help but wonder what it would have looked like if we would have made the left instead of the right, so we decided to hit that side of the trail as well. The Upper Buckskin Gulch Trail is far less popular, and on the day we went, way less crowded. The walls in this portion of the canyon are shorter and slightly less dramatic, but the ground is a lot smoother and doesn't have any boulders, so if you don't feel like scrambling around and rock hopping, this might actually be the way for you. If you stay on this trail long enough, it will take you to the other parking lot, so unless you left another car there, I don't think you want to go that far. Along the way, we saw several sets of horse prints in the sand, and we didn't know where they came from. That is until we got back to the fork and saw these guys. I think V and the little baby horse were pretty much best friends at first sight. One thing that I found really interesting about this hike is that while we were on it, it felt like we were pretty much on a flat trail. But when I checked the Strava at the end, it said that the hike that we did had an elevation change of 840 feet. I thought that sounded crazy, so I went and checked all trails, and it had similar trails with an elevation change of 600 feet. I'm not sure if either is true, or if it's just a case of bad GPS signal down in the slot canyons. If you have more accurate data, please feel free to let me know in the comments below. After you leave the last slot, it is just another simple walk through the wash back to the parking lot, but you're going to be in pretty much full sun the entire time. We did this hike in March, and this section of the trail was still pretty toasty. And that's going to do it for our video about the Wire Pass Trailhead to Buckskin Gulch. If you enjoy our videos, be sure to subscribe and hit that bell icon so you get notified when we make new videos. Check us out on Instagram at thatadventurelife underscore official, and for more information about other awesome things to do in Utah, head on over to thatadventurelife.com.