box canyon

plural box canyons · alternative box-canyon

1. A canyon which has a single access for entrance and exit, being otherwise enclosed on all sides by steep walls.

   The Box Canyon was adequately named. It was a box, a trap.

   1912, Jack London, chapter 2, in Smoke Bellew

   2 more examples

   For days he camped on Wildfire's trail, always relentlessly driving him, always watching for the trap he hoped to find. . . . Sooner or later Wildfire would go down into a high-walled wash, from which there would be no outlet; or he would wander into a box-canyon.

   1917, Zane Grey, chapter 6, in Wildfire

   Highway 145 dead-ends on the east end of Telluride, where a box canyon affords no further passage.

   2005 July 3, Alison Berkley, “In Telluride, the Skis Are Stowed, but Good Times Aren't”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Jan 2014