Middle Pass

Dogs Off-leash

This is the only viable place to scramble out of Buckskin Gulch once you're deep in the narrows. The 100 to 200-foot walls run nearly uninterrupted for a dozen miles, except for at this one spot. Here, the canyon makes a 90-degree turn and on the outside wall there is a low-angle gully leading to the rim. It requires some scrambling, but is doable even with a heavy pack on. The passage is about 6.5 miles below the Wire Pass/Buckskin confluence, and 5.3 miles above the Buckskin/Paria confluence.

People have used this passage to escape floodwaters in the canyon, but there's no guarantee you'll be able to reach this spot once water starts flowing. It's good to know about, not to rely on.

You could also use Middle Pass if something else goes wrong on your trip, like an injury or hypothermia. The caveat is that once you get up the gully and onto the rim, you're pretty much in the middle of nowhere. You'll have to hike through open desert -- following a wash and scrambling through a slabby cliffband -- for more than a mile northward to reach a primitive dirt road.

Don't expect any cars to come by once you're there. It is possible to walk to either White House Trail or House Rock Valley Road in a few more hours using two-tracks and washes, but you'll need to navigate miles of rather featureless desert to be successful.