Backpacking the Grand Canyon's Kanab Creek Wilderness: 6 Day Jumpup Esplanade Loop Hike

Wow. I knew this place was remote, vast, diverse, scenic... did I say remote? Not just one of the longer sections of canyon narrows around, but multiple walkable canyon bottoms full of hidden gems like frog filled streams, cowboy glyphs, pictographs of the ancients, remote slots, water that gushes right from canyon walls and two of the best 5-star campsites I've ever come across!

We descended from the forested Kaibab Plateau at 6000ft into the white & pink Kaibab Limestone cliffs & Coconino Sandstone, eventually onto walkable red Esplanade slick rock benches full of hoodoos and spires. And even further down into narrows composed of Redwall, Muav and other limestone layers more reminiscent of the Grand Canyon down below 2000ft. These lower limestone layers house springs that literally gush out of canyon walls - where we encountered the unbelievable desert oasis that is Showerbath Spring. When describing this place I can only think of if the Canyonlands of Utah and the Grand Canyon slammed into each other.

We spent 6 days out there traveling from the upper reaches of Jumpup Canyon and the Esplanade down to the lower reaches of Kanab Creek and Showerbath Spring, before eventually heading back up Kanab Creek to loop around and climb back to the Esplanade where we would spend an entire day surrounded by red sand hills and epic slick rock benches that drop precipitously into vertical canyons.

6 days / April, 2021

CalTopo Link (use at your own risk, I am not a guide!):
https://caltopo.com/m/F94J

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Video Timestamps:
Intro: (0:00)
Day 1 Upper Jumpup Canyon & Sowats Canyon to Mountain Sheep Spring (2:20)
Day 2 Sowats Canyon to Jumpup Narrows (20:57)
Day 2 Jumpup Narrows to Kanab Creek (27:14)
Day 3 Lower Kanab Creek (41:13)
Day 3 Showerbath Spring (49:27)
Day 4 Upper Kanab Creek to Hack/Lawson Canyons (57:38)
Day 5 The Esplanade to Upper Jumpup (1:16:00)
Day 6 Upper Jumpup back to Trailhead (1:43:59)
Ending Thoughts (1:48:20)

Music by Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/