Dark Canyon Wilderness Recreation Area

The United States Congress designated the Dark Canyon Wilderness in 1984 . Great stone arches, old-growth ponderosa pine, aspen groves, meadows, hanging gardens and high country deserts are found at Dark Canyon. The only designated Wilderness in southeastern Utah, the 47,116-acre Dark Canyon Wilderness is located in a beautiful and remote section of the Colorado Plateau.

Visitors are dwarfed by steep, sculpted and terraced sandstone walls that shade the canyon in morning and late afternoon -- hence the name. Ancestral Puebloan structures and rock art are tucked among the cliffs. ) General Trip Planning Information: One of the biggest concerns with backpacking on the Colorado Plateau, including the Dark Canyon Wilderness is the lack of water.

Always treat water by filtering, boiling or chemical treatment before using any water in the backcountry. Below are the general descriptions for water in the Wilderness and the lower canyon. Remember conditions change.

This is wild country so always pack enough water to make it several days in case your next water source turns out to be dry. Woodenshoe Canyon: Four miles down the trail you will run into Cherry Canyon coming in from the right (looking down canyon). In the spring there is usually water coming out of Cherry Canyon and running for a mile or more downstream.

In the fall it stops running down canyon, but I have never seen the spring in Cherry Canyon dry up completley, although I have seen it running pretty low and muddy. The next water source is approximatley 7 miles downstream (although in the spring it is not unusual to find water in other locations as well) at an area known as Wates Pond. There is a large pothole and spring that usually holds water year round.

Approximatley 1 mile below Wates Pond you will come to the Hanging Garden Spring, that flows out of the canyon wall on the right and usually has a pool beneath it.