SLOT CANYON

A slot canyon is a long, narrow, deep and tortuous channel or drainageway with sheer rock walls that are typically eroded into either sandstone or other sedimentary rock. A slot canyon has depth-to-width ratios that typically exceed 10:1 over most of its length and can approach 100:1. The term is especially used in the semiarid southwestern United States and particularly the Colorado Plateau. Slot canyons are subject to flash flooding and commonly contain unique ecological communities that are distinct from the adjacent, drier uplands.[1] Some slot canyons can measure less than 1 metre (3 ft) across at the top but drop more than 30 metres (100 ft) to the floor of the canyon.

Many slot canyons are formed in sandstone and limestone rock, although slot canyons in other rock types such as granite and basalt are possible. Even in sandstone and limestone, only a very small number of streams will form slot canyons due to a combination of the particular characteristics of the rock and regional rainfall.

Southern Utah has the densest population of slot canyons in the world with over one thousand slot canyons in the desert lands south of Interstate 70.[2] Utah's slot canyons are found in Zion National Park at The Narrows, along Canyonlands National Park's Joint Trail, throughout Capitol Reef National Park, within the San Rafael Swell and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, especially along the Escalante River drainage including Coyote Gulch. Many more slot canyons are located on public Bureau of Land Management and state-owned lands in southern Utah, in areas surrounding the aforementioned parks and monuments. Buckskin Gulch—one of the longest slot canyons in the world—begins in southern Utah and continues into northern Arizona within the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness.-Wikipedia