McInnis Canyons - Knowles Canyon

Author's Comments

Some places guard themselves. Knowles is one of them. There is no marked trail, no kiosk, no helpful arrow pointing toward the slot, and the road in is the kind that asks a real question of your vehicle. I have come to think of all of this as the canyon's way of choosing its visitors. What you find, if you find it, is Wingate sandstone rising on either side of you in walls that seem to lean inward as the canyon narrows. The color is a deep, oxidized red, almost bruised in places, and in the tightest sections the walls come close enough that the sky becomes a ribbon overhead. Spring and fall are the seasons. Afternoon is the hour. When the sun is high enough and angled right, light spills down in soft columns that move across the canyon floor and disappear within minutes. You wait for them. You watch them arrive. You make the photograph and then you stand there a while longer because the light is doing something you did not expect. I will be honest about what this place asks. You need to know how to read a desert. You need to be comfortable being somewhere with no signal and no one around. The seasonal pools can be passable or they can stop you, and the route-finding is its own quiet skill. None of this is a warning so much as a description. The reward for the work is a canyon almost entirely to yourself, and a kind of intimacy with stone that the more famous slots in southern Utah no longer offer. Knowles is not hidden because anyone is keeping a secret. It is hidden because it requires you to go and find it.

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