So stuff I SHOULD have posted about that long ago... Zion report. Hopefully I still remember it well enough :) Here goes...
So our trip was from June 14th to he 18th - 4 nights spent there. My grandfather drove Zack and myself out near the border, right in Baker, where we met Josh and went from there. This was Sunday, and for lack of proper planning and things coming up for Josh, we left around noon and didn't manage to get a canyon done that first day, as we got to Zion around 7pm I think it was. We took some time to stop along the way, get some food & supplies. We found one site in the campground but luckily the people right next to it, just a man and his wife, offered to let us pitch our tent next to theirs on their site, so we had our first night of camping free!
This first night I think I got 20min of sleep. For some reason I honestly could not fall asleep at all. Whether it was everyone else snoring or some subtle yet uncontrollable excitement for the next day... I simply couldn't. I even went out for an hour long walk at like 4am just because I was getting bored haha.
Monday morning, waking up, we go to and hit up the backcountry desk to grab us some permits. We manage to get both Keyhole and Pine Creek for that day, as well as a camping permit for that night and Behunin one for the next day - pretty ambitious!
Keyhole was very cold as usual though not so much as I remembered. It was actually really fun watching Zack and Josh, and their reactions to it. After the nice long freezing 60 foot swim at the end, we stripped our gear and wet clothes off and let them dry on the road for a short time - while we enjoyed some Monster and Red Vines barefoot across the road on a rocky hill.
Immediately after, we just hop back in Josh's care and head a short way down the road to the Pine Creek trailhead. I love Pine Creek. I think I like Spry more... especially now that the last rap in Pine Creek is ultra-lamo compared to how it used to be - there used to be a nice little pond with a dirt-island in the middle you land on... now the whole ceiling gave way and it's just a huge jumble of boulders. However the approach is still nice, which consists entirely of "get out of your car" haha. We parked there in the parking lot, got out, started heading downhill under the bridge, and were at the first rap in 2 minutes I think.
I was surprised at how little of Pine Creek I remembered. I mean once I got to each rappel I normally remembered it, I just hadn't thought so much of it was umm... "in a cavernous environment." Thought a lot more of it was out in the sun, like Spry. The Great Cathedral rap, the third one, was not as awesome as I remembered either. Maybe I just thought *everything* was awesome last time because it was still the start of my canyoneering experiences, I hadn't done a 400 foot waterfall and other awesome ones already last time. That third rap was also real mucky at the bottom, like most pools in Zion canyons. Something I do remember about this... I had gone first, Zack behind me. After helping pull him up and out of the swim, I saw some smoke coming off his shoulder, some steam, and then mine. He couldn't see it and I thought I was going crazy, but then Josh saw it too. At first I thought it might have been the heaters from our MREs getting activated in our packs haha but I guess it was just heat coming off our bodies... that was some cold water!
Anyway... the hike out was a nice one, kinda long one too. Josh, as usual, went on ahead out of sight and blazed his own way, so Josh and I just took our time and enjoyed it. We sat down for a minute for a quick snack, and I had to give Zack his afternoon meds anyway. Somehow and somewhere along the way, Zack lost the helmet he was using which kinda sucked. Eventually we caught up to Josh - who had been waiting for us back on the road for who knows how long. We needed to hitchhike someone back up through the tunnel to get our car but he didn't wanna go alone for fear of... stuff. Yea. So Zack and I get there and he ends up hitchiking alone anyway...
After two canyons in one day, we head out to Blondie's, which I fondly remember, and have some filling dinner. By the time we get done, Josh starts talking about how it's too late to go to the campsite on the west rim trail we had planned on doing, and that we'd be hiking through the night some - which I was cool with, Zack was cool with it too but I don't think he knew what he was talking about and he would've gotten tired haha. So we decide to just not hike-camp that night, and find out that the campgrounds are full. It still wasn't very late, and I was offering to run around the campsite and ask small groups if we could pitch our tent next to theirs and even pay half the camp registration fee... Zack was up for doing that too. Josh was pretty set on just finding a motel though... so we ended up paying a lot more than we might have had to... though I did enjoy the hot tub for an hour the next morning!
I'll make another post soon on the rest of the trip, to break it up a bit :)
CLICK HERE TO VIEW ALL THE PICTURES FROM THIS CANYONEERING TRIP!
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