Brad here. Before I begin, let me start off with this one little nugget of advice: take all guide books with a grain of salt. And here's why: they are written by people better than you.
That may seem harsh but I assure you it's true. Let's face it, nobody wants advice from someone who is dumber and less experienced than they are. If it is a guide book on marriage, you would hope that the couple writing it is not slapping each other around. If it is a guide book on finances, you would hope that the author didn't write it while living in a box behind the Seven Eleven. And, if it is a guide book on hiking, you would hope that it isn't written by some out of shape slob in an arm chair in his Mom's basement.
So it goes to reason, that if your hiking guide book is written by a better hiker in better shape with better hiking equipment, maybe you should remember that. Work in a little fudge factor for your own crappy skills, doughy physique and discount bin camping gear - because they are better than you.
Here is where I am going with this. The guide books described this as a "moderately" challenging hike. Five miles in, five miles out - no worries. A steep descent to start, then just follow the river. A bit of scrambling over boulders and possibly a short swim, but those were right at the end and only if you wanted to see a little further into the canyon. Then back out. Easy right? False. Not easy. Not at all.
The trail (if I can call it that) starts out in a spare forest of juniper and pine and just splits repeatedly going in all directions at once with little to no indication of which fork is the right one. Then the descent. Straight down a steep slope of loose rocks and gravel that would be a easier done with a parachute than a pair of hiking boots. It was sort of like going down stairs - if each of those stairs were two inches wide by three feet tall and made entirely of loosely stacked Skittles.
Then there was the river valley.
Making any headway up the river valley at all included hopping and scrambling over boulders on hands and feet, crossing back and forth through the water, inching along slippery slabs of wet rock and occasionally scrambling up and down the steep slopes on either side when the river itself became entirely impassable. Making it even more difficult were the piles of dead wood - trees uprooted by flash floods and deposited in piles - directly in your way.
Beautiful, yes. Easy, no.
We left the trailhead shortly before 9 AM and got back just after 8 PM that night. Just as it got dark. Take out lunch and that's ten miles in 10 hours. Don't do the math. Please.
Why did we put ourself through it? At the very end of this hike there is a truly brilliant piece of God's artwork called "The Subway". Possibly one of the most photographed spots in Zion, it is wide cascading waterfalls followed by a narrow slot canyon, that at the bottom bulges out into an almost perfectly cylindrical tunnel. Like a subway. The circular walls seep water continually and reflect the limited light. The floor is dotted with deep circular potholes filled with crystal clear water. When you catch the sun and the angles just right the tunnel appears entirely enclosed with light beaming in from one end, reflecting off the walls, and causing the pools of water to glow. Spectacular stuff. Type "Zion Subway" into Google images and just see what can be done with a tripod and enough patience. Or, just look below for what we can do with shaky tired arms, and exhaustion inspired irritability verging on maniacal.
Further up canyon, via waist deep ice cold water, there is the "waterfall room" a 15 ft waterfall dropping into an almost enclosed 5 ft round chamber in the rock.
Oh yeah. See that picture below? Those are dinosaur tracks. Yup. Real dinosaur tracks made by real (and scary big) dinosaurs, preserved for 65 million years or so, then somehow uncovered and dropped here for the sole purpose of completely blowing my mind.
Now for an interesting story with no ending… On our way out along the river we passed a group of two older couples. One of the women in the group had blown out her knee and was hobbling along very (very) slowly. We asked if there was anything we could do to help, wished them the best and carried on. We didn't do the math at the time or we would have realized that if we weren't going to make it out until dark, they were clearly going to have to climb back up the "Hill from Hell" (as I affectionately called it) and find their way back throughout the rat maze of the Juniper forest completely in the dark. Something that would be extraordinarily difficult - even with two good knees, a headlamp, and a homing pigeon. Something that would be virtually impossible in the condition these people were in with the limited gear they were carrying. When we finally got back to the trailhead we called the Park Emergency line and let them know what was going on, but realistically, at that point, what could they do? It wouldn't be the first time hikers had spent a long, cold, unplanned night in Zion National Park.
So what happened to them? No idea. Maybe they made it out. Maybe they're still there. Not a clue. (I told you it had no ending.)
Up next… Honeycomb Rocks! (and not the cereal).
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