Yankee Doodle Went to a Sunset

April 17th, 2016

I’m not a morning person, never have been, as much as I try. The couch I’ve been sleeping on for the past 4 nights likes to split the cushions throughout the night. I fall asleep on a bed, and wake up in a blanket cocoon wedged in a fleece trough just wide enough for my shoulders.

Max is a morning person. Every morning he’s always up before my eyes even open, making breakfast, coffee and getting ready. Today its bacon and eggs. Max also loves warm protein rich breakfasts, a far cry from the oatmeal or cereal that I usually make.

We pack up and are out the door by 7:30, right on time. The shop Abby works at, Zion Adventure Company, is just a few minutes’ walk up the road. There Max and I are sized up with neoprene socks, canyoneering shoes, dry suits, coveralls, and backpacks. I also take a special dry bag for my camera. This is in addition to our own helmets, food/water, and harnesses that our guide, Bailey, has lent us. It all happens in a mad frenzy, I think I blinked 4 times and the pile of gear had appeared.

Q quick check that we all have everything, and we load up the car to head out. No official guided trips are allowed within Zion itself, so the canyon we’re going to today is about an hour drive away, most of it down a long dirt road which happens to be in much better condition than I expected. We stop at a random pull off deep into the dirt road. I hadn’t noticed anything special, but I didn’t know what to look for either.

We get out and gear up. The bulky dry suits with the coveralls make for pants like the fat pants of the 90’s. We don’t fully put on the top half of the suits as it’s too hot, and we don’t know if we’ll need the water proofing yet. As ready as we’ll ever be, we begin walking further down the dirt road until we come to a washout. Turning left down the wash, we quickly come to the canyon start, and spot a bit of webbing with a quicklink attached around a tree.

Bailey goes through basic rappelling with canyoneering ropes and hardware, very similar to climbing with a few tweaks. One by one we make the small 30ft rap into the canyon, pull the rope, and just as we’re ready to continue on, Max speaks up, “I forgot my backpack at the top.” Thankfully there’s a quick exit not 20 yards down, otherwise he would have been s.o.l. We scramble up and out, Max retrieves his pack, and we find another rappel further down canyon that’s a bit longer, around 120 feet. We go through how to be safe once more, and one by one make the decent.

All safe at the bottom we go to pull the rope, and it pulls back. We pull harder, it too pulls back harder. We walk down canyon for a better angle at the pull, and once again it doesn’t budge. I attach myself to the rope and try to bouce on it, though it didn’t work, the impromptu rope swing was fun. Max and I decided to combine forces, hug and bounce on the rope. Nothing.

Thankfully Bailey knows the canyon well, and that the short rope will work for the rest of the trip, and we can come back when we’re done to retrieve it. Better than the alternative of ascending the rope, and option none of us want to do.

We wander down canyon, and come upon the next obstacle, a constriction that we need to rappel into to be safe. But with no anchors, we do what is only acceptable in canyoneering, make a meat anchor, aka, a person. Abby volunteers, and braces behind a rock to slowly lower Max into the slot. I go next, followed by Abby and Bailey who don’t need the rappel assist and just stem into the slot on their own, trying their hardest not to get wet. An effort that for now was successful, but turned out to be futile not 30 yards further down canyon.

Max and I are slowly becoming more comfortable with what our shoes can grip, and the limits of our mobility with the bulky suits on. I’m trying to run around and get photos but the light is a nightmare to deal with. Stark shadows in half the canyon and bright blinding light all within the same frame not only confuse the eye, but the camera too. Plus being paranoid about keeping it dry, though “weather proof” I’m still worried.

We continue on, with Abby pushing in the lead, Max behind her, while Bailey and I take turns in last place. Some of the water obstacles get too wide to stem and we must eventually slowly lower ourselves into the dark murky water. Never knowing if it will only be 6 inches, or 6 feet deep. Slowly lowering in, water creeping higher and higher until just our tip toes brush the bottom. Our heads turned as if balancing a ball on our noses, and hands up like we’re under arrest, we slowly wade through the water until finally ground appears beneath our feet and we walk, or crawl, out.

Then, just as I’m starting to get my bearings and fully confident, it’s all over. WHAT? Though the canyon does go on, its goes much further than we have time, or rope for. To get out, we scramble up a low angle slab and hike out into the bushes of the desert, eventually being spit out again into the road.

Back at the car we being the arduous task of removing all the gear, now thoroughly soaked in canyon water, and coated with a fine layer of sand. Bailey runs off to retrieve the lost rope, it had been stuck in a crack in the rock. Thankful to be back at the car, and smiling from how much fun we just had. We make the long drive back to the store to wash off our gear and get food at the house. Completely exhausted, we rest for the afternoon before waking up to get out and catch the sunset.

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Packed up, we drive to Anasazi Plateau. An urban community just outside of town with brand new houses that look devoid of a single occupant. The lone porch light or trashcan in the drive way are the only signs that people live here. We pull into a cul-de-sac to park, and start wandering up to the top of a hill to have good visibility for the setting sun, as well as its reflection off the canyon walls and a few scattered clouds.

But we had planned on being much more lost, and arrived 2 hours early for the sunset. Max and I set up our cameras, and began the long wait for the shot we each wanted. We chatted the evening away, as the sun slowly descended down on us. It was a beautifully clear day, but not many colors came.

With a quick hike back and a short jaunt to the house, we retire from the long day, prepared to do it all over again tomorrow.