We decided to go hiking in the Little Wild Horse Canyon and Bell Canyon in Utah and got caught in a flash flood. It came out of nowhere. Luckily we are all okay. When we started the trail, the ground way dry and the sun was out. But within about 30 minutes, water came flowing down the slot canyon. We were fortunate that no one was hurt.
Little Wild Horse Canyon and Bell Canyon Trail
Little Wild Horse Canyon, located near Goblin Valley State Park in Utah, is a popular slot canyon hiking trail. It is considered to be one of the most popular slot canyons in Utah.
The canyon is easy to get to, considered to be an easy hike, and the narrow canyon walls provide a memorable hike and sometimes shade from the hot Utah sun.
Little Wild Horse Canyon is on BLM land in the Muddy Creek Wilderness in Emery County, Utah.
Google Map
The location of Little Wild Horse Canyon and Bell Canyon in Utah is below.
It’s not too far as the crow flies from Canyonlands National Park where we drove Shafer Trail in Moab from the top of a mesa down to the bottom of the canyon floor.
The trail is typically hiked as an 8-mile loop, which also includes the adjacent Bell Canyon. That was our original plan.
However, we didn’t make it through the first part of the trail through Little Wild Horse Canyon, which is about 3 miles long.
Weather
It was a sunny day in September when we started hiking. You can see the sun and barely any clouds in the first photos.
The trail was dry.
There also wasn’t rain forecast anywhere near us, so we felt fine doing the hike.
It slowly got more cloudy, but rain wasn’t forecast, so we were not too concerned.
Flash Flood in Little Wild Horse Canyon
We were just about to scramble up some rocks along the trail, when all of a sudden we heard water coming down the path.
There was never any warning… no trickle of water, thunder, or anything like that.
The water came at full force, as shown in the photo below. What was really surprising was how it didn’t start with any sort of trickle; it just came all at once.
We were lucky to be in an area of Little Wild Horse Canyon where it was easy to climb up to rocks higher up along the trail.
The video below show the force of the water during its peak.
It wasn’t raining near us, but apparently was somewhere else!
The sun is even shining in the photo below.
We know the risks, and were careful to check the forecast. But this experience definitely shows how you never know what is going to happen.
Thankfully the water didn’t get any higher and we were in a wide area of the canyon where we could climb up easily.
The skies were blue again as the water level started to go down a little.
We ended up climbing up and out of the canyon, rather than risking walking down through narrower sections of Little Wild Horse Canyon.
(See other canyons we’ve visited in Utah and elsewhere.)
Final Thoughts
Flash floods in slot canyons are no joke.
We were lucky that this one wasn’t too bad. Others have not been so lucky in Little Wild Horse Canyon and others in Utah and other areas. In fact, there have been several deaths in this exact canyon in the recent past.
Be sure to stay informed about the weather and have a plan in case this happens to you!
