This is the place. Deep, spectacular canyons with lots of water make Zion the ONLY place for canyoneering at the height of summer. A few dramatic, technical routes challenge the veteran canyoneer, but most routes in Zion offer more beauty than challenge, with well-established anchors that make them a good place for folks to start their canyoneering careers. Local guide Jerel (Supe) Lillywhite gives his advice on the best slot canyon to descend in the southwest Utah area: Pine Creek Canyon in Zion National Park. For the effort you put into it, it is the most fun and prettiest you can find.

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Slot canyons are technical, dangerous, and inaccessible. No slot canyon should attempted without at least one companion with moderate experience. They shouldn’t be approached lightly. The mildest rain upriver could result in a life-threatening flash flood. Preparation is absolutely essential. Ropes and harnesses should be checked, emergency supplies and equipment needs to be considered, and SLOT CANYONS ARE THE FUNNEST!

I’ll save all the melodramatic, cautionary mumbo-jumbo for some other time. While nothing I said above is untrue, and is quite important, I really don’t feel like writing about it at the moment. Suffice it to say, as with all hiking, any slot tackled with preparation and common sense is going to be quite safe.

Last July, the epic Brian Farrer, RN, announced his desire to do some canyoneering in Zion National Park. I announced that it sounded “hecka fun.” Within a couple of weeks, we packed up his Camry and aimed south.

After the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had in a sleeping bag (on the lawn of a LDS church), we woke up bright and early to land ourselves in line to get a permit. Zion is laced with amazing slots like Pine Creek, but can only offer access to a limited number. High volumes result in bottlenecks at the various drops. Bottlenecks may mean waiting in a freezing wetsuit in shade for twenty minutes while the family ahead of you assures the youngest girl she’ll be alright when she panics three feet into her rappel. Frustrating as permits are, no one doubts their necessity. As it happened, we got among the last available permits for the canyon. Probably the most accessible and better-known slots in the park, Pine Creek has a lot going for it, and a high demand to boot.

Pine Creek Technical Slot Canyon

The warped, carved narrowness that makes up the walls doesn’t allow for a lot of sun. So, unexpectedly, the water lingering from flash floods past is frigid, and is often waist deep or more (though there was only one point too deep to touch.) Guides and sites detailing the canyon highly suggest drysuits, or wetsuits for the hardier bunch. The indomitable Nurse Brian, though, insisted that board shorts and t-shirts were fine. The temperatures in Zion were sweltering, he explained, and so brief moments of cold in the slot would probably be a welcome change. Halfway through, I was cursing Brian’s name. Or, I would have, had my teeth not been chattering too violently to speak.

Pine Creek, like most slots, is a study of wild contrasts. It’s dark, cool, and humid otherworldliness lies mere feet below–and above–expanses of open, arid, parched desert. The way sound bounces and beats off the odd-angled walls, returning muted and tinny is almost reverential. It’s a place of awesome power. High above our heads the 20 foot corpse of a desert cottonwood, some four feet in diameter had been tightly wedged into the canyon. If the forces that created the canyon could handle a cottonwood so lightly, it begs the question how a couple of skinny guys with ropes might fare if nature’s nasty side happened to awake. The same hydraulics that tossed the tree carved scalloped, angled divots from the walls. It’s stone sculpture carved by water. It’s danger and beauty are such that you feel like a stranger, an intruder. To visit is to tread without disturbing, a walk through a geologic art museum of breathtaking beauty.

There are five drops in Pine Creek, two of which can rival about any rappel I’d ever done. There was a family ahead of us, a pair of brothers with their kids of various ages. As we were stringing up for the third drop, listening to their voices spin and pirouette oddly down the canyon, they suddenly went quiet. Then a beautiful, ringing voice started singing a Mormon hymn called “The Spirit of God.” The pitch-perfect, pure voices sequentially joined in harmony, until I was sure the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had somehow dropped in ahead of us. It was mesmerizing, and would have halted the severest atheist in reverence. Brian went down the drop first, a 70-foot descent into inky black water. As I followed, Brian took my picture. I was so focused on my foot placement, I didn’t glance around to see what had offered the family such incredible acoustics.

Pine Creek Technical Slot Canyon Park

The Great Cathedral is one of the best named natural wonders I have ever seen. But between the frigid water and my focus on the rappel, I didn’t actually see it until Brian forced me to look up. Three arches weaved in midair framed a round stone chapel of light and sound. My descriptions may seem a bit maudlin, but I actually may be failing to do that wonder justice.

The final drop is intimidating. It’s a 106-foot blind free-hang. In canyoneer parlance, that means you can’t see the bottom from the top, and save about five feet of initial ledge, the route doesn’t come anywhere near a wall. Just you, your rope, and 100 beautiful feet of open sky between your feet and the canyon floor.

It was creepy.

. . . and the most fun I had that entire weekend.

Pine Creek Technical Slot Canyon

In 2008, Kaitlyn Bohlin, a 23-year-old park employee, was introducing her friend to Pine Creek and canyoneering. Her rope was shorter than the ideal length for that particular, last drop, and so she had to rig it with a prusik and biner lock for safety. She hung a thinner pull cord so she could retrieve her rope once they were down. She’s not sure what happened next. Others have speculated that she clipped her belay device into her draw rope, a stunning error for someone so experienced. She knew only that she stepped off the ledge, tossing a reassuring smile to her nervous companion, and then started to drop. fast.

She woke up on the canyon floor, miraculously alive, and called for help. A scout troop ahead of them on the trail heard her fall, turned back, and helped stabilize her. Kostenlose automate ohne anmeldung spielen. She was flown to Vegas in critical condition. She had collapsed both lungs, broken nearly every vertebrae, shattered her pelvis, and nicked her spinal cord. Astoundingly, she walked away from the experience with one minor spinal fusion, a few surgical scars, and one messed up cautionary tale. You can read more of her story here.

The moral of the story? Pine Creek is in the top five hikes I’ve ever done. It was beautiful and a complete blast. But, it’s a slot. Slots can be dangerous, even life-threatening. So they shouldn’t be approached without experience and preparation.

The final mile hike out of the area is beautiful and riddled with pools of cool water teeming with great basin spadefoot toads and northern leopard frogs. It’s cool, green, and beautiful. Right as the trail breaks toward the road and home, there’s a final, deep pool Brian literally leaped at the chance to enjoy. The entire hike lasted less than five hours, and has become my favorite experience from a park that never ceases to amaze me. My official recommendation is this: next time you find yourself in Zion with equipment and an experienced trail buddy, jump in line for Pine Creek Canyon, and make sure to g