Other – CO: “Ribbon Canyon”

“Ribbon Canyon”

This trip started with a simple Facebook post. @Scott Patterson had posted in the Colorado canyoning group, and after a few back and forths and some checking with spouses and schedules, we set down a plan to do a little winter canyoning. The goal for the day was a small canyon we had both looked at on the map a couple of times, a shallow but narrow looking canyon that drops out of Little Park, wanders through some slickrock, and eventually becomes Echo Canyon by the southern entrance to Colorado National Monument.

Scott dropping in at the southern Ribbon TH

Up there somewhere are a handful of shallow slots and narrows

Scott and I met in GJ around 8:30 at his house, and after a remarkably quick drive, we were hiking by 9. A quick jaunt down The Ribbon trail had us in the canyon bottom. Following a smaller tributary up, we quickly gained a ridge which we followed for a long time. When we finally dropped off the side of this, we were at the very bottom of the canyon we wanted to explore. There are actually a couple of canyons in this complex that are intriguing, and they both come together right where the trail comes down.

Views of the Grand Valley

From here, we climbed out of our target canyon, and started climbing the slope of the monocline beside the canyon. After a while we ended up on an interesting slab of slickrock that climbed steadily for a long ways. The views behind us of the Grand Valley unfolded dramatically. After perhaps an hour of uphill, and some scrambling down and back out of a couple smaller side canyons, we found ourselves overlooking the main canyon itself. A five minute scramble had us in the bottom.

Entrada at the top of the canyon

The first part of the canyon was wide and open, bounded by beautiful walls of Entrada between 40 and 60 feet high on either side. We made decent progress here, encountering our only real bushwhacking of the whole route. Several easy downclimbs were made before the walls narrowed and the first rappel came into view.

Heading down “Ribbon Canyon”

Scott as it starts to drop and narrow

A small drop typical of the pre-rappel section

This drop, which would end up being our only rappel, had a few different options. The drop itself was a rounded, slightly overhung alcove about 60 to 70 feet in height. There is a tree just above the lip on the right, or you can traverse left about 50 feet and use a small tree that enables a good starting position. We opted for the latter, and although we did have to rappel down through some minor tree branches, it was pretty inconsequential and we were down in no time. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of Scott on rappel.

At the top of the dryfall. We rapped from a small tree in center left of this photo, down the left canyon wall

At the bottom, looking at the dryfall. We rapped out of frame right

One more down the dryfall

After coiling the rope, we headed downstream. The canyon was fairly deep, maybe 80 to 100 feet most of the ways, but was also fairly flat bottomed and dropped without serious loss of elevation. We passed a couple of nice alcoves on the right canyon wall, and the canyon began narrowing into the tightest spot. Although it cannot be called a “slot”, as it is just about as wide as my arms held out, it is still a pretty, if short, narrows. Below this narrows, one of the side canyons that we passed on the hike up joins the main canyon. There is a neat alcove under this drop.

Alcove larger than it appears in photo

Headed into the tightest part

The tightest spot, looking downcanyon

Same, looking upcanyon

Side canyon alcove

The canyon stayed vertical as we proceeded down, but the narrows soon gave way to a more wide bottom. After a couple of neat flat slabs of slickrock on the bottom, we soon got to the pothole section. Here, a chain of about seven or eight interestingly shaped potholes line the bottom of the canyon. Most of these are shallow, and there are wide sidewalks on either side so they are definitely not mandatory. They are interestingly shaped, however, and in the spring or after a late summer rainstorm these might actually make some nice bathtubs to cool off in. A couple of them look like they could be keeper status, if they were deep enough, with overhung rims.

Headed down

Pothole corridor

Pothole in the snow

Below the pothole section, the canyon opened briefly, meeting the Ribbon Trail, and then dropped into one more small mini-slot for about 100 yards. Never more than about 15 feet deep, this mini-slot is fun to follow, although committing to it means committing to following the drainage, and not the trail, back down to the exit. But this is not difficult and only takes perhaps 20 to 30 minutes. From here it was just 20 minutes up the hill (and through the tunnel) back to our car.

On the way to the exit trail

And finished for the day

The canyon itself isn’t the greatest, but the ability to do a car to car shuttle here makes this another simple canyon for the Grand Junction area. But, one reason I would come back is……..

Optional Combo Route: If you have set up a vehicle shuttle with one at the upper Ribbon TH and one at the Echo Canyon TH at the East Entrance to CoNatMon, you could very easily do the single rappel that divides this upper “Ribbon Canyon” complex and the lower Echo Canyon area, and then walk out Echo to your car. Doing this route would give you at least two raps of 70+ feet, and around 2,000’ of elevation loss. I suspect it wont be long until Scott does this combo and reports back.

Looking down into Echo Canyon