UT: Zion – A Not-Subway in Zion… Fall 2015

Yet another Not- Canyon in Zion? Nah… This is a tale of a canyon Not-done. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, and also because I don’t remember, of course. Also, of course, details have been changed, just a bit. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I had just pontificated to friends, acquaintances and the whole Interwebs how we used to do such a good job mentoring people. Fifteen years ago, there were very few canyoneers. New peeps would show up on the Yahoo Group, and we elite types would discuss them amongst ourselves. If we thought they were bound to kill themselves out there, we got in front of them; invited them on a few trips, tried to set them on the straight and narrow. It worked, and we acquired friends for our canyoneering clan, mixed new talent into our pool, expanded our thoughts on how things could be done. We grew.

Back to 2015. Kid in Heaps falls off a cliff because they (reportedly) lost count of the rappels. (facepalm). Maybe we need to do some more mentoring. I used to catch people off the Yahoo Group or Bogley for a trip through The Subway or Pine Creek once or twice a year… maybe I should start doing this again. I was just telling myself this when the email came in that started this trainwreck:

Tricia from Vegas: “We need to hire a guide for The Subway. My friend who was going to lead us had to bail.”
Me: “Sorry. Guiding not allowed in the Park. You guys could take a one-day course…”
Tricia: “Well that’s stupid. Our permit is coming up, and we don’t really have the time to take a course. I really want to do the Subway! We could just pay you maybe?”
Me: “Uh, no. And I don’t know anyone foolish enough to do that.”
Tricia: “I hear it is not very hard. Maybe we’ll just do it anyway.”

This did not sound like a good idea. We left it there. Later, she emailed with further questions, and eventually I cracked.

Me: “OK, I’ll help you guys out. Wouldn’t mind doing the Subway. You can buy me dinner, but you absolutely cannot pay me.”

I communicated a list of required gear, which they would rent from ZAC stuff they needed. Wetsuits. (October – do we really need those? Yes.) Could I bring some extra rappel devices? Have you guys rappelled before? Mostly – what does that mean? Okay Okay.

We met at Deep Creek at 7 am. They had most of the gear… but we ran up to ZAC so I could grab a helmet for Vladamir, who thought he really did not need one. We headed to the KT Road – have to beat the road closure (it was a Friday), which we did, but still lost 45 minutes to traffic stoppage. Urgh! Stopped at the Left Fork trailhead and left their car, beer in a cooler, comfy shoes. Continued up to the upper trailhead… losing another 20 minutes for traffic stoppage. Urgh2!

Well, that’s only an hour behind schedule. Our crew of six assembled. One of the required items was “a pack”. Which I did not realize included Camelback devices about the size of my hand, which carried a watertank and not much more. I would call this a purse, but apparently in So Cal this is considered a pack. Alrighty then. Wetsuits and harnesses were strapped on the outside. We started walking. And talking. Pleasant conversation on a beautiful morning in the Park. So nice.

The group spread out. Vladamir is young and athletic and full of energy, and dashes on ahead like a border collie. He checks in once in a while, stays almost in sight most of the time. Other folks are lagging. We climb to the slickrock pass and I look back. Tricia and her man Oscar are some ways back, coming along slowly; Tricia is limping. “Shoes hurt” she says. We get her shoes off and put moleskin and duct tape on her hotspots. She puts on a second pair of socks. “Better” she says… but the damage is already done. She is still limping, like I do when my neuroma acts up, stepping with my foot angled to prevent putting weight on the place that hurts. We descend the slickrock bowl, find the trail, follow a few small cairns. The trail has shifted since the last time I mapped this out, and the change is not really very good. (Sigh).

Again the group spreads out, now in the shrubbery where sightlines are limited. We are close to the end of the ridge and the gully down… I hustle ahead to make sure Vlad does not start down the gully (he does not). We wait a bit… nothing. I go back 100 yards and find two of our crew. “Oscar lost his harness, so he went back to find it.” (sigh)

So far, it has taken us 2-1/2 hours to hike most of the 1-1/2 hour approach, after starting an hour late. I go back to the end of the ridge where Vlad waits. I suggest we put on our wetsuits, since we will need them soon enough. We put them on. We eat some lunch. Chat a little. Enjoy the fine fall day. I look at my watch. Five minutes to noon. I do some calculations — we are running at a 10-12-hour pace for the Subway, except… after it gets dark (6 pm), things tend to slow down. A lot. So that becomes an 11 to 14 hour pace. Assuming Tricia can walk the whole way out without getting hurt (no one in this group seems to grasp what “rough hiking” “down a streambed” actually means), I still imagine myself picking her up and carrying her up the exit. In the dark. At 11 pm.

I take my wetsuit off, change back into my hiking clothes. Vlad looks at me quizzically. “Not going to happen” I say. Just too slow. Vlad changes out of his wetsuit. The other folks show up, harness not found. I look at my watch: 12:15.

Me: “It’s not going to happen today. We are too late, I want to get out before dark. Sorry, but it is not going to work.”

There followed a bit of disappointed discussion. Some lunch was eaten. We turned around.

We spent twenty minutes re-re-routing that section of trail back to where it used to be. We hiked out, which if you haven’t done it is further than you would think, and goes up hill a lot. The KTR did not open until 5 pm. Some of us went to the end of the Northgate Peaks Trail and enjoyed the view of the Guardian Angels. We made it back to the car at 5:15.

So that’s how you do a Not-Subway. When I was guiding, I taught a few one-day basic courses as prep for the Subway, where I had to tell people at the end “NO”, you would not have a good time in The Subway. The HIKE is hard. Especially in July. The rappelling – not so hard. Off-trail hiking, boulder-hopping down a streambed… this is a hard concept for people to grasp, for people who are not hikers. This crew will be back, I am sure. Better fitting shoes would help, as would packs rather than purses. More daylight. An earlier start, without the time lost to road work. And yes, Oscar found his harness where a bush had grabbed it off his purse, further back than where he had looked. And we all made it back to town just as it got dark.