FOUND: One magical mystery slot canyon at Golden Open Space

This place showed me how many ways rock can be.

Wavy off-white shelves underfoot, a sloping funhouse floor.

Crumbly tan, stacked in blocks, weathered into small caves.

Swirled, like an ice cream cone, with dusty pink.

Tan and rust gnarled together, high into the sky.

Maroon-purple, sprinkled with white spots, making hollow sounds beneath my feet.

Branches and grass choked a bend in the canyon: a sign of the power that shaped this rock, and still does.

***

This canyon tempted us at the end of another arroyo hike here at Golden Open Space, a city-owned tangle of juniper hills and deep red drainages.

The day we spotted the magical mystery slot canyon, I was too worn out to explore it, but I knew we had to come back. We tried to find it another time, but failed.

This time I remembered the arroyo that led us there. The trail crossed it not long after dropping down from the juniper hills. The arroyo’s red dirt and pale blue stone guided us. In no time, it seemed, we were there.

The magical mystery canyon continued for more than half a mile, a feast for the eyes and the feet at every turn.

It ended at a junction with the big arroyo we’d wandered aimlessly on our last visit. From this end, the canyon had appeared so small, we never guessed it was the one. But today we identified landmarks at that junction that will help us find it from either direction.

Coming back through the canyon, we lay on a cool, sloping, sunwashed rock field. When the breeze blew down the canyon, it brought a chill. When the breeze stilled, it was completely quiet, warm as April. But the best feeling was when the sun warmed the canyon floor and the breeze moved just above us.

The spot where you leave the trail for the arroyo network is so subtle that we missed it on the way back, going half a mile past it before we realized our mistake.

Or maybe the rock garden was just too hard to leave.

Hike length: 7.3 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: none

Wildlife spotted: Western bluebird, bluejay, crows, butterflies