Sketchy Descent

We've traveled into Nine Mile Canyon from several directions, but this time we wanted to approach the roadless part of this canyon, in the last five miles before Nine Mile Creek reaches its confluence with Green River.  We began our hike from a mesa top on the north (Bad Land Cliffs) side.
On the left and right of the photo above, you can see a 50-100 foot cliff.   That same cliff extends all along the rim, seriously limiting access. 

We found one slight break in the cliff, enough to provide a way down. I've marked our starting point with a green V in the photo above. 
The broken rocks were almost like stair steps down the cliffy area.

(Why am I looking so bulky, you ask?  Well, it was about 20 degree F with a 15mph breeze on the mesa top.  I needed my down vest under that windbreaker!)
We picked our way down over the scree:

and continued through a slot canyon: 

A few places were challenging.  Daisy didn't want to go down this 50 degree slick rock path:

But she did, once she saw she had no other choice.
Later, we reached a 15 foot drop off at the end the slot canyon.  None of us were willing to attempt that:

So we had to re-route:

Do I look shell-shocked as I negotiate a tiny path above a 100 foot cliff? 
Finally, we reached the lower end of Nine Mile Canyon:

We ran short on daylight and didn't have much time to explore, but we did see some interesting rock formations.  I'll show some of those next time.