Canyoneering in the Subway

John got up early the next morning to return to the permit office and was successful in acquiring 2 permits for the following day - and that will be my next post :)

I slept in (yay!) and then we drove up Kolob Terrace Road, dropped off our bikes at the lower trailhead, and continued up to Wildcat Canyon trailhead to start our hike. We expected to see more people heading for The Subway because they "sold out" of the 80 available permits, but either most people were coming from the bottom - hiking only - or they started from the top at a different time of day.

Coming from the top required ropes for a couple rappels, plus we would be traversing some pools. Someone in line the day before had suggested the water would be only waist-deep. My book suggested we would be swimming. So we were ready for either, hoping for the former.

Heading into the woods at a higher/cooler elevation, a nice start to the day:


The view toward the Left Fork canyon of North Creek, which we're heading down to:


Interesting sandstone on the way down:


It was a steep drop down to the canyon floor, but nothing I wouldn't choose to do on my own during a rogaine (that is now my frame of reference).

Our first water crossing of the day, with John "feeling out" where might be the best way. Turns out there was no quicksand, so that was a plus, and it was only shin deep:


A feature similar to The Subway section:


We could only guess how this tree got here (and that's one of the reasons people take flash flood watches very seriously in these parts):


After a short rappel, John found a new way to carry the rope:


Ride em, Cowboy John!


Here's where the pools of water started. I'm so lucky to have a man who doesn't mind going first to see how deep (and cold!) it is:


A little over waist deep - somewhat "brrr" but no problem. John came back to me, I slid down into the pool and we carried our packs over our heads.


And here is where I put the camera away in a waterproof Aloksak bag. I had planned to take it out and get more photos, but that plan disappeared when we hit the next pool and it was more than waist deep. And more "BRRR!"

I got some good down-climbing practice, we floated our packs inside trash compactor bags, and eventually had to swim a few feet. We started making faster decisions instead of standing around getting colder (no time for photos!). John would explain something and I'd say "OK!" without trying to get out of it or make it easier. Just do it!

The last pool required some real swimming, and it was neat - deep pools were connected by shallow rocks so you could catch your breath for a second before plunging in again. If we hadn't been so cold and trying to keep packs dry we might have actually thought it was fun!

Finally we made it out of the deep water and found a wonderful sunny spot on the bank for some food and warming up. Ahhh...

A couple of guys popped up from the next drop, surprising us. We had not reached the main rappel section, but they had come up from the bottom and climbed up without a rope. Nice! They went up further to look at the pools and decided they had seen enough. It was fun talking to them for a minute. We met another couple from France doing the same thing. I was impressed.

The next rappel was a short, fun drop over a tiny waterfall. I'm slowly getting better at interesting entries into raps - I'm more used to the straightforward "adventure race" rappels but the different types of rocks and rope tie-ins require a bit more maneuvering. I'm slowly starting to think that it's fun :)

The final rappel down a nice smooth rock:


Looking upstream at the pools that the other folks had to go through to get to a clamber up a long tree - we were glad to have a rope to miss that water, at least! These pools are similar to the ones we did swim through:


And here's the famous Subway!


A unique section with overhangs on both side and pretty colors - I'm glad we got here:


Below The Subway it was a long hike down the creek. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe because we were warm again (but not hot) and it was great fun splashing around in the creek now that we were already wet.

Almost a naked man carrying a pack?


The creek starting to carve a new pathway - erosion in action:


John doesn't always opt immediately for the easy way:


Yoga on the cascade:


Taking a break:


An upstream V?


Enjoying our walk:


The last bit involved a climb out of the canyon and back to the bikes, no problem. Biking uphill back to the truck was more of an effort, but we got there eventually.

On the way we noticed smoke coming from that direction. Hmm...

Turns out there was a forest fire burning not far away. It had started from a lightning strike two weeks prior but billowed pretty big in the windy day:


We could even see some flames in the trees (barely visible on the right side):

At least our truck was fine :) We watched a plane circle the fire for a while, went up to Lava Point to see it from a different angle, and then headed home to rest and prepare for a big day in another canyon - which one? It's a Mystery...

Zion National Park

Welcome to Zion! It's an interesting national park, kind of hard to describe or show an iconic photo. The scenery is amazing - high cliffs and deep canyons. They have a great shuttle bus system to see the main gorge without driving/parking, and several fun hikes are accessible to a lot of people. However, I think a large part of the park is hard to get to, and it's kind of difficult to nail down the flavor or character of it without exploring in the backcountry for awhile. We did the most we could with the three days we had, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

We spent the first day between the Visitor's Center and most of the way up the shuttle route.

The shuttles near the entrance to the main canyon:


Pretty desert/mountain scenery:


Even though it was hot while we were there, the Visitor Center was nice and cool - without AC. Here are diagrams of the natural heating/cooling system:


We started the morning waiting in line for a canyoneering permit. Unfortunately there was a flash flood watch, so they couldn't issue permits yet - we had to come back at 2:45 pm for that. OK, let's go see some things in the meantime.

We began with a hike up to Angel's Landing. It seemed like a good distance and plenty of elevation gain, so we started up the nice trail:


The section called Walter's Wiggles, a bunch of short switchbacks up the side of a cliff - fun!


John playing around and pretending to be "tired":


John NOT playing around - he really is excited about something. Uh oh, that's never a good sign from my perspective:


And here's why - there's a TRAIL up this ridge - no way!


The views from both sides of the ridge were great - whenever I had ahold of something solid and could actually look:


I clung to many cables (placed there for safety) and didn't take a single photo for the next 45 minutes. John even had to use his hands a couple of times, that's how bad it was :)

We eventually made it to the top:


Clinging to my granola bar:


Mr Mountain Goat:


I attempted a couple of shots on the way back (this really needed to be documented!) but finally handed the camera over to John:


And here's my not-so-graceful descent:


Yeah, this sure is "fun" - with emphasis on the quotes:


Look Ma, only one hand:


It looks like I'm positively running (maybe to get off this rock), but I know better:


Hi shadows!


Doing MUCH better after getting back to the Wiggles:


Back on flat ground, we came back to town to check out the Farmer's Market (small but excellent) and have some lunch. John found this solar installation at the park museum:


We got back in line for another shot at a permit, and just squeaked in for 2 permits to travel to "The Subway" the following day - sweet! It's popular among tourists, and many people trek up from the bottom to see it. We had ropes and the desire to do some canyoneering, so we planned to approach from the top. More on that in the next post.

Heading back into the park, we stopped at the lodge to look around. A beautiful large tree graces the front lawn:


Admiring the adorable little dump trucks (and of course the Bobcat in the background!):


We hiked up to the Emerald Pools and found an amazing waterfull at the upper pool. The wind was blowing pretty hard, sending water in all directions:


You could almost put this photo directly under the one above:


John found a good way to stare up at the high cliffs:


That was very cool - and, as we found out later, people RAPPEL down that! Almost 300 feet, wow. We don't have quite enough rope, or at least I hope we don't...:


At the lower pool, we were rooting for the wind to shift just as this guy walked under the waterfull, and IT DID, and I even got it on film! Is that bad for our karma? It still makes me laugh though :)


We made it to a ranger talk about geology (one of our first ranger talks of the summer - how did that happen?). It was an excellent talk, including a comparison of the rate of fall of various rivers. The Mississippi is very flat, obviously, but even the Colorado River isn't all that steep compared to the Virgin River that created the main Zion canyon. The ranger with her tape measure prop to make the point:


She got an assist when the wind threatened to blow her hat away:


We finished the evening with a quick hike up to the Weeping Rock, and got back to Howie quite late. A long day of fun sightseeing!

A couple of photos of the high cliffs to end the day:



Back to Howie - and primitive camping again! This time in the "Coal Pits Wash" area. It was close to the road but not too loud, and still with nice scenery around us. And free :)