Zion Canyoneering

Our vaca­tion for this year was a short but fab­u­lous trip up to Zion National Park with some friends from AJ’s work (Charles and Alli­son). It was yet another new and awe­some expe­ri­ence in the out-of-doors. This trip included two excit­ing days at two very dif­fer­ent canyons.

Birch Hollow

Echo Canyon

On day one we hiked and rap­pelled down Birch Hol­low Canyon, then scram­bled and bushwacked up a clay drainage. Birch Hol­low required nine rap­pels for us, almost none of them were dry. We either rap­pelled down directly in the water­fall or dropped off next to it; regard­less of which type, we got wet! I am glad of my climb­ing expe­ri­ence because rap­pelling is much like low­er­ing off of top rope, except, to my com­plete sat­is­fac­tion, I was in com­plete con­trol of the drop­ping rate. Going over the edge and dan­gling in the air 80 feet above the ground was exhil­a­raing, amaz­ingly I had almost no fear! Even bet­ter was watch­ing water drop­plets soar over the edge of the cliff, sun­light reflect­ing off of each one. This pow­er­ful yet sim­plis­tic beauty warmed my heart. Two of the rap­pels had this char­ac­ter­is­tic. Another, quite dif­fer­ent rap­pel, required us to lower over a few boul­ders that fun­nelled the canyon’s calm stream into a nar­row break between a boul­der and the canyon wall, cre­at­ing a gush­ing water­fall of about 10 feet. When this canyon is dry, I think peo­ple just scram­ble down; but see­ing how it was wet and slick we rap­pelled. Every­one got a decent shower out of the 10 feet! A sec­ond rap­pel that I think every­one on the trip will remem­ber fondly was prob­a­bly our longest. It was at least 100 feet long down a smooth, ver­ti­cal shute. It was a heart stop­per low­er­ing off of the edge and see­ing just how far below the ground was! This drop was also a water­fall how­ever we were able to rap­pel beside it rather than in it. This is one of the two with the water drop­plets. The view up once you began rap­pelling was just as much of a heart stop­per as the view below; the smooth rock with water cas­cad­ing over the edge…

 As I said there were nine rap­pels but I don’t remem­ber every sin­gle one. In the heart of the canyon we would not even walk ten steps before we would be at the next rap­pel. The tem­per­a­ture was cool in the canyon because much of it was in shade (due to the nar­row walls). The water was also pretty cold so when you were wet (which was most of the time) it was a bit chilly. Since we were not sure what to expect in terms of water, we all rented wet suits.  To my dis­may, I dis­cov­ered that wet suits don’t exactly work when you are not con­tin­u­ously in water. I actu­ally thought they kept you dry but quite the con­trary. Wet suits are sup­posed to get wet and stay wet. My under­stand­ing of the idea behind them is that when they get wet they will hold a “layer” of water which your body heat will warm up. When in a body of water, the suit will not con­stantly exchanged the heated water with the cold water you are in. Instead it acts as an insu­lated layer of warm water between you and the cold water. Well, we never stayed in water we just got wet here and there. So I had “clothes” on that stayed wet, per­fect for cool­ing the body in arid con­di­tions. The evap­o­ra­tive cool­ing effect was work­ing great — I was cold!

I was feel­ing pretty ener­gized by the time we came out of the canyon. First rap­pel­ing expe­ri­ence, no major mishaps, not too tired, sun­light shin­ing in the open­ness of Orderville Creek. I was look­ing for­ward to a sec­ond full day of rap­pelling, all we had left for today was get back to the car. Well, unbe­knownst to me, our lit­tle clay drainage expunged any hint of energy I had, leav­ing me ques­tion­ing my phys­i­cal state for tomor­row. The clay drainage had enough clay to sup­ply the entire pot­tery indus­try if you ask me! Before long, not only did we have clay, but we had water mixed with clay. See­ing how this was not a class in pot­tery but a desparate scram­ble to our car, we were not all that excited about the water-clay mix. We aban­donded the drainage for the lesser of two evils and scrambled/bushwacked our way up hill, after hill, after hill. No trails on this trip, just scrap­ing bushes, unfor­giv­ing, back­lash­ing trees and plenty of scree under­foot to keep you on your toes. (I would think that the bushes and trees would make the ground a lit­tle more sta­ble, but what do I know…). We arrived on the road as the sun was set­ting below the hills of Zion. Even after all our strug­gles to make it to the top, I had to stop and smile at the awe­some yet peace­ful beauty of our world.

Okay, I know I like to write a lot, I’ll keep the descrip­tion of the sec­ond day a lit­tle shorter… Day two, we changed plans. It turns out that the scram­ble up the clay drainage wiped out more than me, we were all a bit tired and sore. We decided to try Echo canyon. This is another nar­row slot canyon but one that did not require any rap­pels. This canyon turned out to be more nar­row that Birch Hol­low with swerv­ing, smooth walls that closed in around you, shut­ting out sun­light. Although there were no rap­pels, there was a sig­nif­i­cant amount of wad­ing and a swim. Sounds fun right? Well, not exactly. Water was not flow­ing through this canyon, it was just sit­ting, stag­nant at the bot­tom of the cool, dark canyon. So you look at the water and ask your­self, “there are lit­tle water bugs on top, I hear frogs croak­ing, it smells hor­ri­ble, what else lives in that dark, cold water that I am about to swim in?” Okay so maybe the fact that we swam in it is a bet­ter indi­ca­tor of our stu­pid­ity, but I call it gain­ing expe­ri­ence. Oh and did I men­tion that the water was cold? Our swim only con­sisted of about five strokes, enough to have to float your bag and get com­pletely drenched (minus the head). The water was so cold I began hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing from the extreme, rapid change in tem­per­a­ture. Only five strokes so it didn’t last long but time is rel­a­tive. The rest of the canyon required no more than waist high wad­ing. It was a clas­sic slot canyon, what I had longed to see. The dark­ness, close­ness, and quiet of the canyon gave it a mys­te­ri­ous, erie qual­ity. If given the oppor­tu­nity, I’d do it again. And that was it, our trip to Zion.

The Watch­tower — Zion N.P.

I must thank Charles and Alli­son for invit­ing us, plan­ning it and bring­ing all the gear! I sim­ply love new expe­ri­ences and this was def­i­nitely a worth­while, enjoy­able, and inter­est­ing new experience.