Brrrr!

Oh what a weekend adventure we had in store for ourselves. Jacqueline really wanted me to take her down a slot canyon this whole season, so we finally got our chance. I heard that Echo Canyon did not have very much water in it, so that seemed like a good option for a canyon. I enlisted David, a good friend and co-worker since he had not made the descent before. We hit the shuttle and went up the trail from Weeping Rock. I knew kind of where to start, but David said he knew for sure, so I followed his lead. We ended up rapping in rather higher up than we intended. We looked at the water and it did not seem that low. It was not particularly a very warm day out already, so we enjoyed the last few minutes of being dry and comfortable. Jacqueline was happy and nervous to start her first technical canyon. David went in first and then we got Jacqueline in after him. He was able to throw her out of the keeper pothole that we rapped down into. He climbed out with that and I was forced to wiggle my way out. The canyon had a couple extra down climbs and raps that I did not remember. Finally we made it around the corner and I saw where I came in with Brian the previous year. By the time that we started the part of the canyon that people normally do, we were already wet and cold. I guess wetsuits would have been a wise decision. We continued on and the canyon was rather straight forward from there on out. A couple raps of 15-20 feet into some pools of water. Jacqueline became more comfortable throughout with the idea of how to rappel by leaning back and putting her weight on the harness. We were really cold and had to stop fairly often to warm up. We came to the keeper pothole. There was some debate about how to get out of it, but David finally manned up and jumped in. He wiggled out of it and then we helped Jacqueline rappel through. Then I got to go down after they were down. We were cold, but we finished the last rappel after that. The canyon still remained slotty for quite a long time. It is a very deep, dark canyon. We enjoyed it much more now that the water was gone. We made sure to take lots of pictures of the slot formations. There were only a few small down climbs ahead, so we finished with those and popped out of the canyon. It took a bit longer than we expected and was definitely very chilly. Rapping into a pool of water near the end of summer can do that to you. Afterward, we were able to enjoy a Pizza Noodle pizza or two (for which I still owe David $10) and watch some Monday night football. Not too bad of a day in Zion.