UT: Zion – Behunin 5-25-13

I had thought I had done my last canyon for the summer when Richard and I did Birch Hollow (leaving to an internship in Idaho.) Thus I was incredibly excited when one of The U’s canyon instructors, Cole Castleton, called me up saying he would be passing through with his girlfriend and they’d be up for a canyon. We even had the same thought on a canyon: Behunin.

Along the way to the canyon Cole took Kelsey out to Angel’s Landing (people who’ve never been to Zion have to visit there.) I loved it because I took a siesta while watching the bags (I dislike that hike.) The rest made the remainder of the hike to the canyon fairly pleasant.

Behunin was trememdously fun. The scale is awesome. I was glad to have my sensei there to help. This canyon was definitely on a higher logistical level than anything I’d dealt with before, mostly because of half the rappels being longer than my 200′ rope could handle. I had used a pull cord once before so the raps intimidated me. Cole was my champ though, willingly dealing with the cord and showing me the ropes (ha punny.) He also showed me how to not deal with the ropes by sticking the pull cord under the rappel line, making him ascend back up. A large group arrived at the first rap as we were on the third but we kept fast enough to not see them until we were lounging at the end. What an end!!!!

This lizard crawled on me at a break and would not get off. It was like Cole broke its wildness by catching it.

The canyon is in great condition. The anchors were good and the pools weren’t deep. I got one foot in the first pool then pulled the others over while Cole kept us all out of the second pool (rap 7) pretty amazingly. The canyon is very froggy, the suckers must be breeding.

One negative note, that is absolutely unacceptable. Hiking to the first drop we would sporadically come upon toilet paper. It never seemed used so we would pack it out. Then right where the canyon drops was a whole fudge log sitting on tp. It wasn’t even hidden behind a tree that was maybe 30 seconds walk away. This none of us would touch. Disgusting!!!!!! We still ran into tp through the canyon but now weren’t looking for fear of what we’d find. Then right at the end was another blatantly obvious piece of crap. Someone thought they were ingenous using an arch as a toilet but the arch had two opennings and the stinky was right there. Cole got the thought that someone must have had the runs but as was visible, these were a bit too solid. The gall of some people. None of what we found could have not been hidden, someone just… thought they were funny? Did not care? Are A’holes?

That said, FUN TIME!!! I even have a movie to shard some of the fun!

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