parkkitchings
Adventurer
Fun looking at all the places I've roamed about in from another's perspective. Great photos and thanks for posting.
Photographer & Olympian Chase Adventure From Baja to the Arctic
- Thread starter kins18q
- Start date
Ha- and I'm jealous of your much further-along build/travels. Hopefully my sleeping platform/storage will be done this weekend and I can get out there a bit more.
Cheers :smiley_drive:
Tour of Our Adventure Mobile Hooper
A tour of our adventure mobile Hooper. This tour includes some info on what we had to do to make the burb livable for a year of adventure travel from Baja to the Arctic. Luxurious amenities include: a refrigerator, custom built shelves, ample storage for adventure gear, a sliding lockbox, and a solar system that let's us live off grid for weeks at a time. If you want to know more about something we mentioned in this video, just ask.
A tour of our adventure mobile Hooper. This tour includes some info on what we had to do to make the burb livable for a year of adventure travel from Baja to the Arctic. Luxurious amenities include: a refrigerator, custom built shelves, ample storage for adventure gear, a sliding lockbox, and a solar system that let's us live off grid for weeks at a time. If you want to know more about something we mentioned in this video, just ask.
icedragonmx
Adventurer
Looks like a great trip! Thanks for the story and photo's. Looking forward to more!!! Nice to see the side storage idea in use as I may do the same in a smaller Xterra Pro4x.
Kat and Craig! It's John's friend John. He told me he would send me a link to wherever you were posting but never did, the scoundrel.
Just got through your build thread and video, the Suburban turned out great! Really like how you guys did the low sleeping platform with storage underneath and cooking worktop. It's got me thinking if the 4Runner is too small....
There's a bit of familiar scenery in your photos, looks like the adventure is off to a great start! We also parked at the upper trailhead at American Basin/Handies.
Just got through your build thread and video, the Suburban turned out great! Really like how you guys did the low sleeping platform with storage underneath and cooking worktop. It's got me thinking if the 4Runner is too small....
There's a bit of familiar scenery in your photos, looks like the adventure is off to a great start! We also parked at the upper trailhead at American Basin/Handies.
Leg 4: Lake Powell to San Diego via Zion
We planned on switching back and forth between Kat and myself for the caption writing, but she is so consumed by organizing and editing images, that I have been tasked with the writing. However, she makes a short guest appearance in this section.
The age of Instagram has made Horseshoe Bend a bona fide star (see what I did there?). When we worked on the Lake Powell back in 2008, we visited Horseshoe Bend a few times but the crowds were nothing like they are now. Since 2008 the parking lot has been expanded and every tour bus within 1000 miles is here dropping off tourists from all over the world to look down at the splendor of the Colorado. I don't blame them, this spot is about as good of a view as there is. We try to avoid the throngs by slipping in at night to catch the Instagram star beneath the stars. We had the whole rim to ourselves before a couple french speakers showed up. They must have seen our headlamps from a long way away in the dark. They bee lined it right to the exact ledge that Kat was shooting from, clearly not knowing that there is no official Horseshoe Bend viewing spot. There are countless other places along the rim they could have gone, but there they were literally right next to us. We laughed under our breathe as they snuggled up close to us. So close in fact that they were in her shot. With 50 yards of excellent bend viewing ledges and points stretching out to either side of us, I almost couldn't resist throwing insults at them in the Monty Python French accent, "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries!" But alas, I held myself back.
One look in the parking lot of the Walmart in Page, AZ and you know this is an awesome place. We have not seen a higher density of sweet overland trucks anywhere else. Hell we saw 10 G-Wagons in a row on the highway. These are even cooler than G-Wagons.
Hi it's Kat writing now! This caption is MINE! Sometimes keeping your rafts inflated is more important than being able to access anything in your truck. This is especially true at Lake Powell. Gotta raft to those cliff jumps.
Craig writing again. Lake Powell which covers much of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in up to 700 ft of water, is a boating Mecca. Who needs a houseboat or wakeboat when you have POOL FLOATS!? For the entire week or so we were in Glen Canyon we kept the Explorer 200s blown up. If we weren't out on the Lake in the rafts getting weird stares from people with real boats, the rafts were either on our bed, or tied down to the hood while we slept. Going to Glen Canyon without getting out on the lake is like watching an episode of Dora the Explorer but only the commercials. Well I guess it's not anything like that at all really. Its like travelling to Rome and skipping the Colosseum. That's better. But I digress. Anyway, we paddled the Explorers out to Lone Rock, a Butte whose top couple hundred feet protrude straight out of Wahweap Bay, and did a little deep water soloing (AKA climbing with no ropes with only the water to catch you). There are ledge and crack systems you can climb up to good cliff jumping spots. Kat back-flipped off a low ledge, and on a whim I decided to propose. So now we're engaged.
Wahweap Bay is home to the largest marina on Lake Powell. It has a resort, campsites and is only a few miles from the town of Page, AZ. Needless to say, it is also the most crowded area on the lake. So to get away from the crowds we decided to head out to the next bay to the north. Warm Creek Bay is typically accessed by boat, but there are fun high clearance roads that get out there too. With a visible storm rolling in from the distance, we booked it through the tighter sections of canyon.
We found high ground and parked for the night to watch the storm. Somehow Kat didn't manage to get any shots of the numerous lightning bolts. A strange occurrence, she very rarely misses a shot. However, she did get some pretty good shots of the flashes.
Laying on barefoot-friendly soft sediment near the road, we found some massive boulders that had been cast down from the cliffs above. Good rock! It seems like every time we get on rock, my soft baby hands tear a flap of skin. Kat's hands are just like our truck. Like a rock.
Heading back to civilization from Warm Creek Bay.
In 2008 I worked as a food runner for the breakfast buffet at the resort's restaurant called the Rainbow Room. This week long stint in Glen Canyon treated us to nearly a Rainbow a day.
We invited some canyoneering friends to come out the Glen Canyon to run Waterholes Canyon with us. Waterholes is located a few miles south of Horseshoe bend. It descends west, all the way to the Colorado River ending in a 4 mile raft to Lee's Ferry. A grand adventure. I had done the canyon early in my canyoneering career with a very poorly prepared team. A bad idea from the start. There were enough red flags before we even entered the canyon to warn me not to enter with that group, but enter I did. One in our group hadn't rappelled before. Three of the six had never been down a technical canyon before. There were only three wetsuits between the six of us (two of them were mine). A core-shot (shredded rope sheath), lost rope at the bottom of a canyon pothole, hypothermia, dehydration, and an unplanned night spent shivering around a fire sleeping in our wetsuits using empty rafts for blankets rounded out the adventure. Oh yea, plus one of our three rafts had holes in it beyond repair. By the time we reached the Colorado it was the next morning and we were met with a headwind so strong that it negated the current of the river and pushed us up canyon. It was a long paddle back to Lee's Ferry. I vowed never to do the canyon again. The vow didn't last and I promptly began daydreaming about running the canyon again with a smaller, more competent team. CANYON TEAM ASSEMBLE! Two hardy adventures responded to our call. Kevin, a climbing instructor/canyoneer out of Salt Lake and Jason, a climber/canyoneer out of LA. Kevin came in a day early with his bike to ride the Rim View Trail with us before the canyon the next day.
Kevin, looking tough.
Jason has a podcast called Get Outside (G.O.) and featured us a while back. Here is the link if you're interested. Also check out the link for the Scott Swaney interview. Scott is a 68 year old who is the Death Valley Canyon man. California canyoneers have adapted hundreds of Chuck Norris jokes to Scott Swaney jokes. Quite honestly, Chuck Norris doesn't even hold a candle to Swaney. He has well over 200 first descents of Death Valley canyons under his belt. We have joined him on a few trips. The old saying goes, "There are old canyoneers, and there are bold canyoneers, but there are no old, bold canyoneers." It's bull**** of course, because Scott exists. He's old (but doesn't act or look like it) and he's bold, but he manages to be safe at the same time. An ability very few people have. He's also climbed 7000 meter peaks in the Himalaya, and free-dived through caves all over the world. It doesn't really make any sense how he has managed to do so much in his 68 years so far. If I can do half of what Scott has done in his life, my life would be a great success.
I'm not sure what is happening in this picture, but clearly Jason and I are having a moment, while we should be giving Kevin a hand on that downclimb. It looks like a low jump, but we try our absolute best to control every downclimb to minimize the risk of injury in canyon. Even easy downclimbs can be dangerous when shoes are covered in sopping wet silt that's as slick as can be. I'm not trying to drag an teammate with a broken ankle down a canyon, and I'm sure as hell not trying to pay for a helicopter rescue! Kevin flopped awkwardly into the sand moments after this shot was taken.
This seems to be a theme, Jason and I being entirely unhelpful to Kevin.
Kevin waiting to assist Jason if necessary. Not sure why he's helping after we had been so useless to him!
Flash back to 2013, this swimming hole had a whole lot more water. See the green weeds on the far side? Those were under about 5 feet of water. A near-hypothermic (non wetsuit wearing) team member climbed into the pool and began swimming across when suddenly he became frantic, swimming in circles. I wondered if he knew how to swim. We finally pulled him out of the water, and he whispered through chattering teeth, "I dropped the rope". Without added flotation in the rope bags, most ropes sink. None of us knew. To give some perspective to the gravity of the situation, we were approaching the 400+ foot headwall, the crux of the canyon. Without that rope, we would be unable to complete the multi-stage rappel, leaving us trapped in the canyon. Rain was not forecasted for the day we were in the canyon, or the next day, but the following day rain was in the forecast. Without that rope we would be sitting ducks waiting for either another canyon group, or a flash flood to get us out of the canyon. The flash flood option seemed less enjoyable. The Upper (non-technical) and middle (technical but without the 400+ headwall and raft trip) were accessed often, but the lower...Not so much. My buddy Moose, who had recently began his canyoneering career with me only weeks before, is a very good person to be in a bad situation with. He calmly climbed into the water asking, "Where did you drop it?" "There" Joaquin said pointing into the opaque coffee colored 50 degree water. A big breath in and Moose disappeared. Everyone was silent. My mind was racing, "How deep is this pool? 10 feet? 20 feet? Can we filter this disgusting water? Does anyone even have a filter? How often do people run Lower Waterholes? Did I leave the oven on?! Anyway it was the longest 10 seconds of my life. Moose surfaced, gasping for air. We waited trying to read his face. He raised an arm above his head, orange rope in hand! the silence was broken with cheers, and all manner of war cries. Three hours later and only 200 horizontal feet down canyon we were at the base of the big rappel sequence starting a fire and preparing for an unplanned bivy in the canyon. Two of our three ropes had core-shots, one guy had a harness waistbelt that nearly came undone while getting on rappel high on the wall, and we had some issues with the rope eating crack...eating out ropes. But all of us and our ropes made it to the bottom. We were out of water, but at least we had the rafts to use as blankets! Little sleep was had, as most the night was spent staying warm at the fire, or staying warm gathering wood for the fire. The next day we exited the canyon blew up the rafts only to find one of the three was shredded beyond repair. Jammed into two rafts we shuttled people across the river where it was more hikable. The headwind was so strong on the river, that when we stopped paddling we were pushed back upstream even with the current of the Colorado beneath us.
This time around things went smoother. The big rappel sequence took a shot at us but Kevin and Jason prevailed. The rope eating crack munched on our ropes for a moment, but Jason vanquished the beast. We arrived at the Colorado with plenty of time to spare and no wind!
As we blew up our rafts, we were sure we were out of the woods. And then Kevin's raft didn't hold air. The gorilla tape patches didn't seem to do the trick. Too many tiny holes. He had carried the raft on the outside of his pack, which turned out out to have been a bad idea. The sandstone had abraded the pool float material. No surprise there. Fortunately Kat and Kevin are both lightweights and were able to share Kat's raft. Jason and I took their packs with us to lighten their load.
The Colorado runs clear and cold below the Glen Canyon Dam which holds back the waters of Lake Powell. The water releases from the bottom of the Lake 700 feet down, and boy is it cold.
We were swept along with no need to paddle, except to steer away from the shore from time to time. Despite the zero percent chance of rain, it sprinkled a bit on us. What followed next was the most beautiful, magical moment I have ever experienced in the outdoors. I will let Kat's photos do the talking.
We met a guy at the library in Page who was trying to get permission to run one of the famous, but currently closed canyons on the Navajo Reservation. He invited us to join if he could get permission. It fell through, so we invited him to join us in Rock Canyon the next day. Rock Canyon is located near Kanab and Corral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, and is on the way from Lake Powell to Zion, our next destination.
There is Richie (our new friend) rapping into the Cavern in Rock Canyon. Next time down this canyon I am bringing 3 other people and a volleyball net. The area beneath the guy on rappel is perfectly flat sandy ground.
We planned on switching back and forth between Kat and myself for the caption writing, but she is so consumed by organizing and editing images, that I have been tasked with the writing. However, she makes a short guest appearance in this section.
The age of Instagram has made Horseshoe Bend a bona fide star (see what I did there?). When we worked on the Lake Powell back in 2008, we visited Horseshoe Bend a few times but the crowds were nothing like they are now. Since 2008 the parking lot has been expanded and every tour bus within 1000 miles is here dropping off tourists from all over the world to look down at the splendor of the Colorado. I don't blame them, this spot is about as good of a view as there is. We try to avoid the throngs by slipping in at night to catch the Instagram star beneath the stars. We had the whole rim to ourselves before a couple french speakers showed up. They must have seen our headlamps from a long way away in the dark. They bee lined it right to the exact ledge that Kat was shooting from, clearly not knowing that there is no official Horseshoe Bend viewing spot. There are countless other places along the rim they could have gone, but there they were literally right next to us. We laughed under our breathe as they snuggled up close to us. So close in fact that they were in her shot. With 50 yards of excellent bend viewing ledges and points stretching out to either side of us, I almost couldn't resist throwing insults at them in the Monty Python French accent, "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries!" But alas, I held myself back.
One look in the parking lot of the Walmart in Page, AZ and you know this is an awesome place. We have not seen a higher density of sweet overland trucks anywhere else. Hell we saw 10 G-Wagons in a row on the highway. These are even cooler than G-Wagons.
Hi it's Kat writing now! This caption is MINE! Sometimes keeping your rafts inflated is more important than being able to access anything in your truck. This is especially true at Lake Powell. Gotta raft to those cliff jumps.
Craig writing again. Lake Powell which covers much of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in up to 700 ft of water, is a boating Mecca. Who needs a houseboat or wakeboat when you have POOL FLOATS!? For the entire week or so we were in Glen Canyon we kept the Explorer 200s blown up. If we weren't out on the Lake in the rafts getting weird stares from people with real boats, the rafts were either on our bed, or tied down to the hood while we slept. Going to Glen Canyon without getting out on the lake is like watching an episode of Dora the Explorer but only the commercials. Well I guess it's not anything like that at all really. Its like travelling to Rome and skipping the Colosseum. That's better. But I digress. Anyway, we paddled the Explorers out to Lone Rock, a Butte whose top couple hundred feet protrude straight out of Wahweap Bay, and did a little deep water soloing (AKA climbing with no ropes with only the water to catch you). There are ledge and crack systems you can climb up to good cliff jumping spots. Kat back-flipped off a low ledge, and on a whim I decided to propose. So now we're engaged.
Wahweap Bay is home to the largest marina on Lake Powell. It has a resort, campsites and is only a few miles from the town of Page, AZ. Needless to say, it is also the most crowded area on the lake. So to get away from the crowds we decided to head out to the next bay to the north. Warm Creek Bay is typically accessed by boat, but there are fun high clearance roads that get out there too. With a visible storm rolling in from the distance, we booked it through the tighter sections of canyon.
We found high ground and parked for the night to watch the storm. Somehow Kat didn't manage to get any shots of the numerous lightning bolts. A strange occurrence, she very rarely misses a shot. However, she did get some pretty good shots of the flashes.
Laying on barefoot-friendly soft sediment near the road, we found some massive boulders that had been cast down from the cliffs above. Good rock! It seems like every time we get on rock, my soft baby hands tear a flap of skin. Kat's hands are just like our truck. Like a rock.
Heading back to civilization from Warm Creek Bay.
In 2008 I worked as a food runner for the breakfast buffet at the resort's restaurant called the Rainbow Room. This week long stint in Glen Canyon treated us to nearly a Rainbow a day.
We invited some canyoneering friends to come out the Glen Canyon to run Waterholes Canyon with us. Waterholes is located a few miles south of Horseshoe bend. It descends west, all the way to the Colorado River ending in a 4 mile raft to Lee's Ferry. A grand adventure. I had done the canyon early in my canyoneering career with a very poorly prepared team. A bad idea from the start. There were enough red flags before we even entered the canyon to warn me not to enter with that group, but enter I did. One in our group hadn't rappelled before. Three of the six had never been down a technical canyon before. There were only three wetsuits between the six of us (two of them were mine). A core-shot (shredded rope sheath), lost rope at the bottom of a canyon pothole, hypothermia, dehydration, and an unplanned night spent shivering around a fire sleeping in our wetsuits using empty rafts for blankets rounded out the adventure. Oh yea, plus one of our three rafts had holes in it beyond repair. By the time we reached the Colorado it was the next morning and we were met with a headwind so strong that it negated the current of the river and pushed us up canyon. It was a long paddle back to Lee's Ferry. I vowed never to do the canyon again. The vow didn't last and I promptly began daydreaming about running the canyon again with a smaller, more competent team. CANYON TEAM ASSEMBLE! Two hardy adventures responded to our call. Kevin, a climbing instructor/canyoneer out of Salt Lake and Jason, a climber/canyoneer out of LA. Kevin came in a day early with his bike to ride the Rim View Trail with us before the canyon the next day.
Kevin, looking tough.
Jason has a podcast called Get Outside (G.O.) and featured us a while back. Here is the link if you're interested. Also check out the link for the Scott Swaney interview. Scott is a 68 year old who is the Death Valley Canyon man. California canyoneers have adapted hundreds of Chuck Norris jokes to Scott Swaney jokes. Quite honestly, Chuck Norris doesn't even hold a candle to Swaney. He has well over 200 first descents of Death Valley canyons under his belt. We have joined him on a few trips. The old saying goes, "There are old canyoneers, and there are bold canyoneers, but there are no old, bold canyoneers." It's bull**** of course, because Scott exists. He's old (but doesn't act or look like it) and he's bold, but he manages to be safe at the same time. An ability very few people have. He's also climbed 7000 meter peaks in the Himalaya, and free-dived through caves all over the world. It doesn't really make any sense how he has managed to do so much in his 68 years so far. If I can do half of what Scott has done in his life, my life would be a great success.
I'm not sure what is happening in this picture, but clearly Jason and I are having a moment, while we should be giving Kevin a hand on that downclimb. It looks like a low jump, but we try our absolute best to control every downclimb to minimize the risk of injury in canyon. Even easy downclimbs can be dangerous when shoes are covered in sopping wet silt that's as slick as can be. I'm not trying to drag an teammate with a broken ankle down a canyon, and I'm sure as hell not trying to pay for a helicopter rescue! Kevin flopped awkwardly into the sand moments after this shot was taken.
This seems to be a theme, Jason and I being entirely unhelpful to Kevin.
Kevin waiting to assist Jason if necessary. Not sure why he's helping after we had been so useless to him!
Flash back to 2013, this swimming hole had a whole lot more water. See the green weeds on the far side? Those were under about 5 feet of water. A near-hypothermic (non wetsuit wearing) team member climbed into the pool and began swimming across when suddenly he became frantic, swimming in circles. I wondered if he knew how to swim. We finally pulled him out of the water, and he whispered through chattering teeth, "I dropped the rope". Without added flotation in the rope bags, most ropes sink. None of us knew. To give some perspective to the gravity of the situation, we were approaching the 400+ foot headwall, the crux of the canyon. Without that rope, we would be unable to complete the multi-stage rappel, leaving us trapped in the canyon. Rain was not forecasted for the day we were in the canyon, or the next day, but the following day rain was in the forecast. Without that rope we would be sitting ducks waiting for either another canyon group, or a flash flood to get us out of the canyon. The flash flood option seemed less enjoyable. The Upper (non-technical) and middle (technical but without the 400+ headwall and raft trip) were accessed often, but the lower...Not so much. My buddy Moose, who had recently began his canyoneering career with me only weeks before, is a very good person to be in a bad situation with. He calmly climbed into the water asking, "Where did you drop it?" "There" Joaquin said pointing into the opaque coffee colored 50 degree water. A big breath in and Moose disappeared. Everyone was silent. My mind was racing, "How deep is this pool? 10 feet? 20 feet? Can we filter this disgusting water? Does anyone even have a filter? How often do people run Lower Waterholes? Did I leave the oven on?! Anyway it was the longest 10 seconds of my life. Moose surfaced, gasping for air. We waited trying to read his face. He raised an arm above his head, orange rope in hand! the silence was broken with cheers, and all manner of war cries. Three hours later and only 200 horizontal feet down canyon we were at the base of the big rappel sequence starting a fire and preparing for an unplanned bivy in the canyon. Two of our three ropes had core-shots, one guy had a harness waistbelt that nearly came undone while getting on rappel high on the wall, and we had some issues with the rope eating crack...eating out ropes. But all of us and our ropes made it to the bottom. We were out of water, but at least we had the rafts to use as blankets! Little sleep was had, as most the night was spent staying warm at the fire, or staying warm gathering wood for the fire. The next day we exited the canyon blew up the rafts only to find one of the three was shredded beyond repair. Jammed into two rafts we shuttled people across the river where it was more hikable. The headwind was so strong on the river, that when we stopped paddling we were pushed back upstream even with the current of the Colorado beneath us.
This time around things went smoother. The big rappel sequence took a shot at us but Kevin and Jason prevailed. The rope eating crack munched on our ropes for a moment, but Jason vanquished the beast. We arrived at the Colorado with plenty of time to spare and no wind!
As we blew up our rafts, we were sure we were out of the woods. And then Kevin's raft didn't hold air. The gorilla tape patches didn't seem to do the trick. Too many tiny holes. He had carried the raft on the outside of his pack, which turned out out to have been a bad idea. The sandstone had abraded the pool float material. No surprise there. Fortunately Kat and Kevin are both lightweights and were able to share Kat's raft. Jason and I took their packs with us to lighten their load.
The Colorado runs clear and cold below the Glen Canyon Dam which holds back the waters of Lake Powell. The water releases from the bottom of the Lake 700 feet down, and boy is it cold.
We were swept along with no need to paddle, except to steer away from the shore from time to time. Despite the zero percent chance of rain, it sprinkled a bit on us. What followed next was the most beautiful, magical moment I have ever experienced in the outdoors. I will let Kat's photos do the talking.
We met a guy at the library in Page who was trying to get permission to run one of the famous, but currently closed canyons on the Navajo Reservation. He invited us to join if he could get permission. It fell through, so we invited him to join us in Rock Canyon the next day. Rock Canyon is located near Kanab and Corral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, and is on the way from Lake Powell to Zion, our next destination.
There is Richie (our new friend) rapping into the Cavern in Rock Canyon. Next time down this canyon I am bringing 3 other people and a volleyball net. The area beneath the guy on rappel is perfectly flat sandy ground.
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Leg 4 Continued...
ZION AT LAST! We have managed to make this a yearly tradition. That's the ultra runner-Microbial Biology PhD Mikey on the right, her slower but equally awesome Math PhD husband Jason to her left, and Jason's brother Lucas (en route to nuclear engineering PhD) to his left. And that's me on the far left. Jason and Lucas drove in from Salt Lake in Jason's brand new, white 4x4 F-150. Man, was Jason excited about that truck! Mikey came in from Orange County.
Here we are pouring over an illustrated map of Zion looking at our route for the next day, Fat Man's Misery Canyon. The canyon got it's name from a feature that supposedly used to make for a tight squeeze, rendering passage down canyon misery for a fat man...Who knows.
When I heard Mikey was coming to meet us in Zion, I made sure to remind her to bring her blue paracord. I had an engagement ring to make! We wasted a foot or two trying to figure out the best way make a paracord ring for Kat. Ultimately the two man plier method worked the best. We fused the ends together. Surprisingly rock solid.
Fall colors on the approach to Misery.
When we reached the first narrows of Misery Canyon, we opened up the dry bags to have lunch. Kat and I were stoked that we finally packed a lunch big enough to satisfy us for the long day in the canyon. As she cracked open the first hardboiled egg, it was evident that we had brought the six raw eggs rather than the six hardboiled. DOH! I made it my quest to descend the canyon without breaking any other eggs. The eggs weren't the only strange thing that happened to us at the drop in for Misery. As we were about to rappel in, a large group of people came hiking down the canyon. They had a dog. Definitely not allowed. And what were they doing here? They looked like a group that should be hiking a paved trail next to the river, certainly not on a backcountry canyon approach. Cotton t-shirts, tiny backpacks and the dog made me confused. When they started taking harnesses out of their tiny little packs, I became worried. None of them had wetsuits. With a small competent group it would be pretty easy to get through the canyon without a wetsuit but it would be cold. With a group of 8-10 it would be hypothermic for sure. I was too annoyed with them about the dog to ask any pointed questions about their preparedness for the canyon. Plus, I would hate if someone else questioned my preparedness based on what I looked like. So we went in without asking. When we got back to the road after 10 hour total, there were a couple other cars in the turnout. Clearly the other canyon team. We ate dinner and relaxed by the road for a few hours until around 10:30 pm. It's not surprising that it would take them well over 13 hours with an unprepared group like that. I started feeling bad that I hadn't said anything. I was too pissed at the team leader with the dog to want to help. In hindsight it would have been good to question him, if only for the safety of the others who clearly had no idea what they were getting into. If someone had asked us about our preparedness before we entered Waterholes in 2013, they may have saved us an uncomfortable night in the canyon. We left message at the ranger station to check if the cars were still there in the morning. If they were, they would likely be in need of help.
Kat and I had already been down Misery, and it had proved to be our favorite Zion Canyon. Our second time through did not disappoint.
Lucas in the best wetsuit they could find in Salt Lake...Lesson Learned: If you don't live near the ocean, don't buy wetsuits on craigslist. Then again, his legs look really good...MAYBE I NEED ONE OF THOSE?!
The happy couple handlining into a swimmer. Every time I see Mikey's orange and blue wetsuit I want to yell, "GO BACK TO THE NINETIES WHERE YOU BELONG." I am only now realizing that I am quite wetsuitist.
The beauty in the canyon does not let up.
The grand finale! The double arch room. You may notice that the water color has changed from brown to green. The bottom of the canyon like many others in Zion is spring fed! We spent some time here soaking in the beauty and swimming around for Kat's photos. Hands down my favorite spot in Zion that I have been to. This room is incredibly dark, even in midday. Here we have 4 headlamps shining on the water.
Hooper at Smithsonian Butte BLM land.
When Kat has to decide between playing in the leaves and canyons, its a toss up...See what I did there? But really, we planned on Boundary Canyon, but were sprinkled on during the approach. This seems to be a theme for us; being sprinkled on when the weather report says zero percent chance of rain. We made the cautious decision to hike out and drop the canyon the next day. When the sky is dark and spitting rain, I don't give a care what the weather report says, we are gonna play in the leaves!
With clear skies to match the zero percent chance of rain, we dropping into Boundary the next morning.
Boundary ends at Kolob Creek in the far Northwest of Zion. If you've ever hiked the Narrows, you have a good idea of what Kolob Creek looks like. Just imagine a narrower Narrows with no people. It's pretty nice.
My friend Julia came out to Zion hang with us and go down her first technical canyons. I hadn't seen Julia in five years. We met back in Montana at a geology field course where we ran aimlessly around the mountains making geologic maps. She is just finishing up her Sedimentology PhD at the University of Utah. Jeez, all the damn PhD friends!
We decided to head out of Zion after Julia left and beelined it to San Diego. We were planning on climbing in Las Vegas on our way, but happened to go through on the weekend so we just kept driving. Now we are caught up to today and we are gearing up, switching mountain bikes for surf boards, and getting ready for a month long surf trip through Baja California! Want to see what we are doing day to day? Check out Kat's Instagram Stories, username @katcarney.
ZION AT LAST! We have managed to make this a yearly tradition. That's the ultra runner-Microbial Biology PhD Mikey on the right, her slower but equally awesome Math PhD husband Jason to her left, and Jason's brother Lucas (en route to nuclear engineering PhD) to his left. And that's me on the far left. Jason and Lucas drove in from Salt Lake in Jason's brand new, white 4x4 F-150. Man, was Jason excited about that truck! Mikey came in from Orange County.
Here we are pouring over an illustrated map of Zion looking at our route for the next day, Fat Man's Misery Canyon. The canyon got it's name from a feature that supposedly used to make for a tight squeeze, rendering passage down canyon misery for a fat man...Who knows.
When I heard Mikey was coming to meet us in Zion, I made sure to remind her to bring her blue paracord. I had an engagement ring to make! We wasted a foot or two trying to figure out the best way make a paracord ring for Kat. Ultimately the two man plier method worked the best. We fused the ends together. Surprisingly rock solid.
Fall colors on the approach to Misery.
When we reached the first narrows of Misery Canyon, we opened up the dry bags to have lunch. Kat and I were stoked that we finally packed a lunch big enough to satisfy us for the long day in the canyon. As she cracked open the first hardboiled egg, it was evident that we had brought the six raw eggs rather than the six hardboiled. DOH! I made it my quest to descend the canyon without breaking any other eggs. The eggs weren't the only strange thing that happened to us at the drop in for Misery. As we were about to rappel in, a large group of people came hiking down the canyon. They had a dog. Definitely not allowed. And what were they doing here? They looked like a group that should be hiking a paved trail next to the river, certainly not on a backcountry canyon approach. Cotton t-shirts, tiny backpacks and the dog made me confused. When they started taking harnesses out of their tiny little packs, I became worried. None of them had wetsuits. With a small competent group it would be pretty easy to get through the canyon without a wetsuit but it would be cold. With a group of 8-10 it would be hypothermic for sure. I was too annoyed with them about the dog to ask any pointed questions about their preparedness for the canyon. Plus, I would hate if someone else questioned my preparedness based on what I looked like. So we went in without asking. When we got back to the road after 10 hour total, there were a couple other cars in the turnout. Clearly the other canyon team. We ate dinner and relaxed by the road for a few hours until around 10:30 pm. It's not surprising that it would take them well over 13 hours with an unprepared group like that. I started feeling bad that I hadn't said anything. I was too pissed at the team leader with the dog to want to help. In hindsight it would have been good to question him, if only for the safety of the others who clearly had no idea what they were getting into. If someone had asked us about our preparedness before we entered Waterholes in 2013, they may have saved us an uncomfortable night in the canyon. We left message at the ranger station to check if the cars were still there in the morning. If they were, they would likely be in need of help.
Kat and I had already been down Misery, and it had proved to be our favorite Zion Canyon. Our second time through did not disappoint.
Lucas in the best wetsuit they could find in Salt Lake...Lesson Learned: If you don't live near the ocean, don't buy wetsuits on craigslist. Then again, his legs look really good...MAYBE I NEED ONE OF THOSE?!
The happy couple handlining into a swimmer. Every time I see Mikey's orange and blue wetsuit I want to yell, "GO BACK TO THE NINETIES WHERE YOU BELONG." I am only now realizing that I am quite wetsuitist.
The beauty in the canyon does not let up.
The grand finale! The double arch room. You may notice that the water color has changed from brown to green. The bottom of the canyon like many others in Zion is spring fed! We spent some time here soaking in the beauty and swimming around for Kat's photos. Hands down my favorite spot in Zion that I have been to. This room is incredibly dark, even in midday. Here we have 4 headlamps shining on the water.
Hooper at Smithsonian Butte BLM land.
When Kat has to decide between playing in the leaves and canyons, its a toss up...See what I did there? But really, we planned on Boundary Canyon, but were sprinkled on during the approach. This seems to be a theme for us; being sprinkled on when the weather report says zero percent chance of rain. We made the cautious decision to hike out and drop the canyon the next day. When the sky is dark and spitting rain, I don't give a care what the weather report says, we are gonna play in the leaves!
With clear skies to match the zero percent chance of rain, we dropping into Boundary the next morning.
Boundary ends at Kolob Creek in the far Northwest of Zion. If you've ever hiked the Narrows, you have a good idea of what Kolob Creek looks like. Just imagine a narrower Narrows with no people. It's pretty nice.
My friend Julia came out to Zion hang with us and go down her first technical canyons. I hadn't seen Julia in five years. We met back in Montana at a geology field course where we ran aimlessly around the mountains making geologic maps. She is just finishing up her Sedimentology PhD at the University of Utah. Jeez, all the damn PhD friends!
We decided to head out of Zion after Julia left and beelined it to San Diego. We were planning on climbing in Las Vegas on our way, but happened to go through on the weekend so we just kept driving. Now we are caught up to today and we are gearing up, switching mountain bikes for surf boards, and getting ready for a month long surf trip through Baja California! Want to see what we are doing day to day? Check out Kat's Instagram Stories, username @katcarney.
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unkamonkey
Explorer
Another rock head?
I've been to many of places you have written about in your great report and the photos are excellent.
I'm sure you are home by now but my neighbors were out at Page last weekend so their daughter could run a half marathon then they were up to Bullfrog to winterize the boat.
Other friends were out in San Diego at the same time.
We used to all have rafts like that to do some of the rivers around here. We called them the Sphincter class. I didn't write that to insult you.
I've been to many of places you have written about in your great report and the photos are excellent.
I'm sure you are home by now but my neighbors were out at Page last weekend so their daughter could run a half marathon then they were up to Bullfrog to winterize the boat.
Other friends were out in San Diego at the same time.
We used to all have rafts like that to do some of the rivers around here. We called them the Sphincter class. I didn't write that to insult you.
That is awesome. Yea, the rafts are not the most performance vessel in the water, but they float...unless you pop it, which is pretty easy to do!
