pandora_parrot | Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon (Reply)

Our last hike for the trip was Monday's hike down Pine Creek Canyon. This was effectively the "end-level" boss of the entire trip, as it was the most technically challenging route of all of the routes we had done up to this point. And in terms of physical difficulty, it was right up there with The Subway and Angel's Landing.

The entrance to the canyon was right off the freeway, so we suited up and were at our first rappel in no time.

From Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon

It definitely challenged us to do it right. We had to make sure we had the rope in the right place, otherwise it could easily get caught by the rocks on this one. If that happened, we would have to climb back up to dislodge it, WITHOUT a rope to save us!

The water down there was COLD. Even with shortie wetsuits on, some of my friends were still freezing. I was pretty warm in my full-body wetsuit, so I tried helping warm up

auntysarah a bit when she was shivering from the cold.

From Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon

Every single rap challenged the hell out of us. This one was a really rough start, since there was so much room under all the trees to swing. Here's

parmonster struggling with it.

The interaction of the light and rock was very beautiful down there:

From Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon

But along with the challenges, we got to experience some of the most beautiful raps we had had during the trip. This rap is into what they call "The Cathedral"

From Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon

You had to rap down a pretty fair distance into the large pool of water, and then swim over to the shore, which was an appreciable distance away.

From Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon

And me rapping into it

What followed was a very long long way down very dark tunnels in very very cold water.

We didn't take a lot of pictures in this section, because we were in a hurry to get through it and get to warmth. Besides, there wasn't a lot of light down there. The caverns were so deep, and the path back to the surface so twisty, that there really wasn't much in the way of light or warmth filtering down to the bottom. We were swimming through freezing cold, stagnant water with very very little light. By the time we finally emerged into the sun, we were all very cold. I'm really glad we had our wetsuits, or we really would have been screwed.

Once we were out in the sun, it was a very short hike to what would be the last rap of our trip. A 100 ft. free rap down into a "fairy glen" that had had a rock fall. Since it wasn't going to be cold and wet anymore, we took our time at the top of the rap to remove our wetsuits.

From Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon

It was there that I discovered that my dry bag had sprung a leak, destroying

parmonster's camera and my iPhone. It also damaged my new canyoneering book!

However, while this was going on, a HUGE gust of wind came by and stole a bunch of our stuff!

zoeimogen's helmet and gloves went flying, as did my contact lens case and my canyoneering book. Looking around, we were able to identify the location of

zoeimogen's stuff, so I climbed out to retrieve it.

From Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon

Video of the "daring rescue"

Once her equipment was retrieved, it was down we went!

From Zion Day 7 - Pine Creek Canyon

This is me coming down.

Although that was the last rap, we had QUITE a ways to go to get to our exit. It was about 2-3 miles of climbing up, down, and around boulders of varying sizes. It was a grueling journey, to be rivaled only by the exit to The Subway. By the time we reached the end, I was once again getting heat-sick, like I had done at Angel's Landing.

In order to regulate my body temperature, I was continually jumping in the numerous swimming holes that were formed by the creek going around the boulders.