UT: Zion – Russel Gulch / Subway / Accident

About 2 weeks ago, discussion came up of doing a Spring descent of the Full Left Fork. Subway & Das Boot permits were obtained and plans were set in motion. As the week progressed, the weather continued to turn bad with much rain and snow in the mountains. Saturday morning, it was decided that there was too much water and too much weather to make it safe enough for the long day. Plans were changed to go down a flowing Russel Gulch, do a short portion of the Subway, climb out of the Subway towards South Guardian, skip the narrow high flow section of the Subway and drop back in a short slot down lower in the drainage and then continue out of the canyon. Rain was forescast for around 6pm, which gave us plenty of time for our trip.

We all met at the Left Fork trailhead, left a vehicle there, and drove up to the Wildcat trailhead for our trip. It was around 7:10 when we left the vehicles, and the hike down to Russel Gulch went quick and uneventful. While hiking in, we passed many small flows which meant we were definitely going to have a fun and wet day. The Russel Gulch drainage was found, wetsuits were put on and we headed down. I had never had a very good impression of Russell Gulch, saying in the past that I would probably never do it again. However, after seeing the canyon with some good flow, we all knew it was going to be an awesome day.

The canyon with its 3 raps of approximately 100′ each came and went, with lots of hooping and hollering in the fun waterfalls. Soon we were at the Subway confluence and jumped into the main drainage. Some good flow there, but nothing that would cause any issues. We looked up into the Das Boot section and it confirmed our choice that it would have been a terrible idea to attempt that section in these conditions. The Subway looked familiar because we had been there so many times before, but was also different because it had lots of water. Knowing we were only going to the be in the Subway for 15 or 20 minutes we headed down, having lots of fun taking pics and playing in the water. We go down to the first normal swim and slide down into the deep water and swim the 40′ section. The next little waterfal comes that drops down to the underwater swimming cave. A couple people go down, then I go down.

This is where the day changed drastically. I’m not really sure why or what really happend, but as I slide down, put my left onto the wall to push off the right to follow the water course, I heard the nastiest sound that anyone wants hear. There was absolutely no pain, but I know what the sound of bone snapping sounds like. Just go camping, grab a nice branch and break it over your knee if you want to know what it sounds like. Right at that moment I knew it was going to be a long day and night or nights. I instructed my daughter Lacey to go find 2 nice straight sticks about 2′ long while Felicia pulled a liner out of a backpack so we could make a good mountain leg splint.

We spend about an hour talking about different options and how to proceed from here. It was decided that first priority was to get up out of the canyon and find a good safe place to spend the night as we knew it was going to rain in a few hours. Devin & Eric explored up high and found a good alcove, the only problem was that is was almost 60′ or 70′ above me. The group then proceeded to tie some ropes to trees, lower them to me and help haul me up the cliff face. I had 2 good arms and 1 good leg, so I helped as much as possible, but they did a lot of the work dragging me up the face. Once we were up higher, we decided to keep Lacey and Felicia with me at camp, while Kip, Devin & Eric went back up the normal Subway approach to get help.

All extra food, water and clothing was left for us and at around 2:30, they headed out. We had plenty of food and water, and were mentally prepared to stay the night and possible one more night because the weather was a little bit iffy for Monday and because it wasn’t life threatening, there did not need to be any risk of more people coming down. The night wasn’t too bad, as we had a fair amount of clothing and 4 emergency blankets for the 3 of us. Food was plentiful and we joked around and tried to enjoy the nice camping spot as much as we could. I left my wetsuit, neo sock and shoe on my broken leg for the entire night. Doing this was a big plus as it kept a nice and tight cool compression on my leg. Although the Dr. did cut my suit off at the hospital.

At about 11:30 on Monday morning, we heard voices below. We had left a fixed rope down to the canyon floor, and Lacey & Felicia helped the Zion SAR climp up to our location. They spent a little while assessing my condition and the situation. I wasn’t doing to bad, and am still intrigued as to why it didn’t hurt worse than it did. The decision was made that the only feasible option was to airlift me out, so the Grand Canyon helicopter was called. 3 locations were found that seemed to viable to pick me off the cliff and the rangers marked them with yellow shirts. An hour or so later, the chopper flew down into our location hovered for a little bit, picked the spot they liked and headed back to Hurricane to fuel up.

About an hour or so later, we started hearing noises as the chopper was approaching again. Grand Canyon SAR rescuer (Craig) was hanging about 250′ feet below the heli and the precision pilots set him down on the sloped area right next to me, he unclipped from the rope and proceeded to help me into a sitting harness. Within a matter of 30 seconds, I was strapped in, clipped to Craig, and pack full of gear was reattached to the rope hanging from the heli. They lifted us up off the ground, then out about 20′ over the canyon, then straight up until we were well above the canyon walls.

The flight from there back to the Kolob Terrace road was awesome, some views that you will never get to see. Although I don’t think its worth the admission price.

I was a little hesitant about writing any type of a report as I am quite embarassed and my pride has a big chunk taken out of it. After quite a few discussions with our group members and couple of days to reflect on it, I decided that I needed to tho. As a group, you would be hard pressed to find a more mentally and physically prepared team. Safety was always a concern, down to changing the plans the day before. What it instilled in me and hopefully everyone else, is that something can happen to anyone and at anytime. Proper preparation and good group decisions really made the adventure into a non issue, other than my mental confidence.

Everyone be safe this year, be smart about everything, and be at least a little bit prepared because you never know when something may happen to you, someone in your group or someone you may find stranded.

PS. The rangers opted to leave or stick splint on rather than replace it with an air splint, we must have made a decent on. I am home now working again for the few month recovery. A plate with 12 screws is my hardware. Guess I will get lots of camping trips in for the next little while.