Heaps Canyon, Zion National Park

 Back in June I had an invitation to go to Heaps Canyon, one of the longest and most difficult canyons in Zion National Park. I happily accepted, not quite sure what the trip would entail. I knew it would be long. We started hiking about 4:20 am (MDT) from the Grotto parking lot, switchbacking our way up towards Angel's Landing. We went around the corner and continued on the West Rim Trail as the sky gradually lightened, and then we were treated to a marvelous sunrise.

The West Rim Trail is pretty amazing, with rock blasted off to make room to walk in places.

We kept up a good pace, although I couldn't help pausing to take photos along the way.

We reached campsite #4 in about three hours, and then it was time to descend into the canyon. We left the well-maintained trail for scanty social and animal trails, and in just a few minutes reached our first rappel.

It was a bit scary looking down into the trail-less canyon world below. It was a bit of a desert survivor's conundrum. How could we survive this canyon country? Fortunately we had plenty of gear and good information about the route. But once we did the first rappel and pulled the rope, we were committed to about 24 more rappels and 10+ more hours before we would end up at the Emerald Pools.

 Another rappel later and quite a bit of hiking, we finally reached the first set of narrows. We donned our wetsuits and jumped in the water. It felt really good. The low the night before had been about 89 degrees, and the high was expected at well over 100 degrees. A cool canyon was the perfect place to be.

Many of the rappels looked something like this, a smallish drop ending in water. Sometimes the water was over our head and we swam after we got off rope. Fortunately wetsuits are somewhat buoyant, so it was easy to stay on top of the water.

After the first set of narrows, we walked through this massive corridor. Apparently sometimes it is wet and the sand is like quicksand. This time it was super easy to navigate.

Then we entered a second set of narrows. It was difficult to dry the viewfinder of my waterproof camera, so most of my shots have water spots. You get the idea, though, of the narrow canyons.

At the end we found frogs!

We still had another set of narrows to negotiate, and they were the coldest and darkest yet. Here's a spot with some sunlight where folks warmed up a bit. The third set of narrows was where I finally felt a little bit cold, but not uncomfortably so. I was in a 4/3/2 mm wetsuit, and I think part of the reason I stayed so warm was that I was really hot when I put it on.

After the narrows we had two dry longer rappels.

Then we changed out of our wetsuits, climbed up a slot to the little tree below where our fearless leader Bryan was standing, scooted down a little slot, and got ready for three rappels in a row that totaled over 500 feet and that would get us out of the canyon.

On the first rappel we couldn't even see the bottom, we were just rappelling to the tree below.

From that tree, we could see the tiny pool below. I rappelled with my normal cave gear, so that if I had any problem I could switch over to ascent in about three seconds. That's one of the biggest differences to me between canyoneering and caving--canyoneering is usually all down, no climbing rope to get back out. And you often don't need a headlamp (although I certainly took one!).

Here's Jenny, who was stationed at the tree to make sure we made the transition to the next rope correctly.

At the next transition, the bird perch, the pool looked slightly bigger. Can you see the people on the sandy beach? I think they thought we were crazy, appearing as little dots dangling from a rope.

I spun and spun on the way down, which made me slightly dizzy. It was a 270 foot rappel, mostly free hang, and quite beautiful. We had each person except the first bottom-belayed for extra safety.

It took awhile to get everyone down, but we did it in daylight, something I didn't expect. From vehicle to vehicle it took 15 hours, and was an amazing experience. I especially liked swimming in the pools in the narrow canyons. Although we were really tired, we managed some smiles on the hike back to the road. What a great day! Thank you to those who made it possible!

Memorial Day Weekend Trip Day #2: Canyoneering, Tadpoles, and Flash Flood

 This is a long post. But it was a long day, full of good memories, and something I want to preserve when I print out my blog (blogging is a wonderful way for me to keep my photos and thoughts organized!).

So the day started with hopping into a vehicle and driving an hour and a half to Capitol Reef National Park. We hiked up a beautiful trail and I kept stopping to take photos.

Within an hour, we reached this gorgeous arch. Lots of other hikers were around, too. But they planned to go back to the parking area the same way they came. We planned to go down the canyon via seven rappels and get back to the parking area in about five hours. We could see some big puffy clouds forming, but the sun was shining and this canyon had a very small drainage area, so we felt like we weren't taking on too much risk.

We rigged to a small tree and took turns going down the 130 ft drop. I watched. (This photo and the next are Randi's--thanks for getting such awesome photos!)


Here's Jeff starting down. It was an awesome rappel.

From the bottom, this is what it looked like.

Here's my friend Randi. She's the one who was responsible for me being there, and I am so grateful! What a terrific experience.

The second rappel was just a short distance away. It was 140 ft, but didn't seem so long as it was split into two parts, the first along this cliff...

…and the second part dropping into this sweet alcove. One thing I like about canyoneering is that everyone gets a bottom belay on the longer drops (and on shorter drops if they want). That's a nice added safety measure that hardly takes any extra time and no extra gear.

Then it was time to pull the rope and bag it, along with the pull cords. We ladies had it under control.

We progressed a bit farther and rappelled through this arch.

And soon after we had to squeeze through this slot to finish the rappel.

A short downclimb followed, where I fell off the slippery branch but managed to land on my feet. Whew. Sometimes a small mistake can lead to big consequences, so I was grateful that I didn't even get a bruise from that incident and vowed to be more careful watching my footing.

Around a couple more corners we had another rappel, where our leader Lisa posed for a photo.

This was one of the most beautiful rappels (this photo and next are Randi's).

There was a fun little swing at the bottom that I just had to do a couple times.

We rounded a corner and had a short traverse.

This led to a nice rappel over water. I was actually surprised how little water we were seeing in the canyon as it had rained the entire previous day.

This little puddle of water did a nice job reflecting the rappeler.

We had one more rappel, and we weren't in a big hurry to do it, as we were having so much fun. After we were all down, we paused for a photo, which was a great idea. (This is Lisa's photo.)

But fortunately the fun wasn't quite over. Around another corner we found this cool little cave.

We started playing around with silhouettes, and then Randi told me I should go do a headstand. I accepted the challenge (and ended up with sand in my hair for days!). Ah, the goofiness. (Randi's photo)

From there we just had a short hike back out to the road and our vehicles. What a lovely canyoneering trip! The raindrops started falling as we walked back.

They stopped as we popped into the little store to get pickled asparagus and observe the gorgeous scenery.

The drive home was pleasant, and we all had a glow from a beautiful canyon trip.

When I got back, the kids and my husband had returned from a trip to playgrounds in Escalante and a drive along the Box-Death Hollow Road. We got out the bikes and biked down to some pools we had seen, where we discovered tadpoles.

We started wandering from pool to pool, following the channel.

In one we found mating frogs, and in another, frog eggs on a tumbleweed.

The kids couldn't resist burying themselves in the sand.

The storm clouds were gathering, but there was still a little bit of sunlight.

We trudged up the hill (Desert Girl insisting on pushing her own bike the entire way), and went to the delicious dinner. Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling was the theme, and the kids got into the spirit of things. Thanks so much to our wonderful hosts, Gary and Mike, for sharing their house, plus everyone who made the tasty food. Yum!

After dinner a brief hailstorm ensued. Then someone called out, "Look at all the waterfalls!" Sure enough, the previously dry rock now sported torrents of water. We watched as the streams joined and made boiling currents of water. Places we had hiked the day before were now a river. We could only imagine what was happening to all the tadpoles and frogs.

We were all in a safe place, so we could enjoy the view of this marvelous flash flood. And Desert Girl couldn't resist walking barefoot on the hail.

The night ended with some thumb wrestling.

What a day! But we still had one day left of our vacation...