Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 7818 | TRs | Pics Location: as far away from you as i can be...
Sat Apr 07, 2007 7:44 am "Barefootin In The Desert SW" Part I Zion/ The Subway
Sorry for the delay folks but between the 2 of us we have 1000s of images to sort through
First off I must thank Karen and David for the work they put into the trip! They did all the research. I had so much going on there was no way i could have focussed enough to even help out in the planning. I knew Karen had ideas of exactly where she wanted to go. I also knew of all the places she planned on. There where only a couple I have done before. In the SW I don’t mind repeat at all!! So many of the spots and hikes she picked I had not been to yet and always wanted to go. It worked perfect! Again thank-you to the two of you!!!!!!! I had an incredible experience and a special thank-you to Karen for putting up with me for 9 days!
This trip report is the first leg of our trip. Stay tuned for more reports to follow. (there will be lots of barefoot shots for silly! )
We left Thursday night after the TNAB hike to Si (BTW Fun stuff Mark and folks I hope to join another sometime.) After 20 hrs with some stops we arrived at Zion for sunset. We drove up into the valley. A storm was in the area so the sunset was not good. We where hoping to hit it again later in the trip if it worked out.
The next morning we hit the Subway!. This hike is harder than one would think. It is up a wash filled with hours of rock-hopping and boulder scrambling. Also, as easy as it is there is also a bit of route finding to find the best route through the wash. We took our shoes off and waded a spot but did not have to on the way down .
The subway ROCKED!!! The canyon walls start to rise and get more narrow the closer you get. The falls and cascades along the way are beautiful. We stopped at a large old boulder and checked out huge dinosaur tracks!!
As we are there a young couple fro PDX comes hiking by. I stopped them and asked if they are going to stop and look at the tracks. They didn’t even know they were there! They hung with us for a bit of the next part of the trail. We could not stop stopping for images so they continued on ahead of us. Good folks! As the canyon narrows the wash becomes red slab rock. The water flows over the red rock and creates some beautiful falls and cascades. Once we arrived at our destination I was in heaven.
The canyon narrows into a slot canyon. There is a really long day conyoneering route from the other end. Many rappells. FUN!! We took our boot off and hiked in barefoot!!!
The water was cold but doable. You walk up the slab into the slot. We had to wade through one deep spot but was only around or above our knees. Then there is a really nice falls. That is our spot to turn around. The water and rock are just spectacular. So hard to described I will now leave it to the images. It was so dark in there it was hard fro me to get shots with my little coolpix. I know Karen will knock our socks off with hers!!
We finished the hike with n awful hot climb out of the canyon. We saw just the young couple, no one else the whole day! After a cold Joose
(BTW Dicey and Jeff it is really goos after a hot hike!! ) and some planning Then we headed toward our next destination.
We found a camp on BLM with some good views for the evening. (I think the BLM land are the BEST place to camp in the SW!!!! I have never been disappointed in the places I have found to camp on BLM lands. It was a nice sunset.
9 Miles RT
Stay tuned for the next leg of our adventure...Wire Pass/Buckskin gulch, and Horseshoe Bend!!
Thanks to Tazz for tagging along on my last minute adventure and making it possible, and of course for putting up with some very long and insane driving days! Last of all thanks for patiently waiting for me to set up and take down all my camera gear for 9 days straight!
The Subway was a last minute addition to our itinerary and I’m glad we did it. I originally never even thought of it because I thought it was the wrong time of year for this hike. However as I was once again going over Joe’s site, an awesome resource for Zion hiking, I clicked on the link for permits and noticed that indeed the park was dolling out permits for the dates we were there! They are hard to come by later in the year and usually involve a lottery system, but I had no problem booking a pair 2 days in advance on the park’s website.
Now the odd thing is once we arrived to pick up our permits and inquired about trail conditions, the Zion ranger told us there would be many icy cold pools that we would need to swim through. Wet or dry suits would be needed and winter conditions were present. We were really disappointed we wouldn't be able to get to the Subway, but we shrugged our shoulders and said we’d just wander as far as we could.
From the pictures you’ll see we did the whole length of the hike. There was one small pool in the actual subway that was thigh deep that we waded through to get to the waterfall room (which I’ve read usually entails swimming) and other than that the water was only ever ankle deep. We spoke with the other couple and they also said the ranger did everything in his power to deter them from doing the trail as well. I’m not sure if it was a liability thing, but I wondered why they would go to such lengths as to lie about conditions. It wouldn’t be lack of current conditions because they had been giving out permits consistently every day. I would have been pretty ticked if I had packed a dry suit all the way in and didn’t need it!
Sorry for the trip report verbage….and now back to our regularly scheduled photo essay…
Kolob Canyon
The Subway
I wish I had put something for scale in the first shot, but if I remember correctly these were about a foot and a half long. I read they are from the early Jurassic period, a bipedal carnivore.
-------------- Warning! Posts may contain traces of sarcasm.
Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 7818 | TRs | Pics Location: as far away from you as i can be...
Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:05 am
Ok WARNING... I am going to be sappy here....
Karen your images portray what it was like. It brought tears to my eyes. It was such a great day and place I miss it already. Good times!!
It is so hard to portray what it was really like in an image and you did it girl. WOW!! I will sit anywhere for any length of time while you shoot just to see art like this.
It's been many years since I have been to Zion and I was there when there was hardly any water in the slot canyons. Any concerns about flash flooding at this time of year?
-------------- Keep your face to the sunshine and you will not see the shadows.
-------------- ♫ You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. And you're the one who will decide where you'll go. Oh the places you'll go. - Dr. Seuss
that looks like it was an amazing trip, and that's great that you got to do the subway. the pictures... are all amazing. you've inspired someone else to go there at some point.
Mcaver, we didn't really spend anytime at Kolob Canyons, we just quickly swung by it the first night we were there, Friday. We had planned on sunset at Bryce but the weather forecast and looming clouds over the area kept us driving farther south. We vowed to return for another sunset, but couldn't fit it in thanks to the storm that hit in the middle of our trip that sent us running down to Sedona to escape it.
HB - Don't they say there is always a danger of flash flooding? I had to sign all the paperwork to obtain my permit saying I was aware of the danger. Generally flash floods are summer season. It was pretty dry when we were there, they had a two week period of really dry/warm weather before we got there.
Thanks for the kind words everyone, I'm still stunned Tazz posted a picture of herself! That's a first!
Karen
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Beautiful 
