Disappearing Waterfalls

Well, Jacqueline and I had to head up to the park to get some paperwork done, so we got a short hike in. I figured, with all the snow and rain that has been coming down in Southern Utah, that we should go somewhere that could have quite a bit of water. I remembered from the trip through Spry Canyon in September that from a rockfall that happened at some point in 2007, the canyon was dammed up a little bit. I thought that maybe there could be a rather sizable lake in there. From the view of the Great Arch going up to the tunnel, it should be rather impressive since I never saw a waterfall shooting out from the Great Arch before. 

We parked the car in the Canyon Overlook Trail overflow parking and wandered up the road a ways. We dropped in and I knew that it was going to be an interesting trip since we were knee deep in snow going down the hill to drop into Upper Pine Creek. It was going to be hard since the water was flowing rather freely to navigate our way around the water. Almost immediately we came across a narrow drop with water flowing strongly to make a mini-two tiered waterfall. Well, we fought our way through the snow and the bushes until we came upon the lake. The rockfall was there and that is impressive by itself. 

The lake, although much clearer than it was in the summer, was not particularly any more chocked full of water. I guess the height of the rockfall is as deep as it could go and with the narrowness of Zion's canyons, it does not lend itself to very large amounts of water. We made our way past the lake and realized that the true sight to see was actually around the corner. I could hear it from still far away and then we came up on it. A beautiful, large, two-tiered waterfall pouring into the canyon. It was just so impressive. The power of the water and the noise were exciting and the beauty of the dang thing, too. We definitely picked the right time to explore this canyon. There is not many times where you can get me to stop a hike to just soak in the splendor, but this was definitely a sight to see in Zion. My comment to Jacqueline was, "Yosemite, eat your heart out." This just had everything now that a dramatic landscape requires. We continued up a bit farther. I was doing good by this point because I realized that if I walked on my tiptoes, I could just walk through the water. I left Jacqueline to the scrub brush. We went past the turnoff for Spry and went to check out the last of the waterfalls. This was a jumbled mess capped off with another fifteen footer higher up. I went up to investigate. Not sure if Jacqueline could have made it without getting wet, but we both agreed that this would be a good place for us to turn around. I made it all the way up to the higher waterfall, surprisingly, as through the mess, there was still an easy way. I probably could have gone farther, but I figured I would try it another day when the snow was not quite so prevalent in the rocks were not so slippery. 

We headed back down and this time got a face to face view of the waterfall, standing right beneath it. Awesome, I loved it. It is not very often that I get to see something unique in a place that I know so intimately. This is going to be a great summer. The canyons are going to be chocked full of water and the fire season is going to be short. Unfortunately, unless we have an extremely dry spring, the narrows is going to be closed for a long time, to the dismay of the throngs of hikers making the big trip into the park for that occasion. Well, we wandered back on out. I wish we would have had the whole day to do more with this trip. But, we wanted to spend some time with some friends from the park, so we headed back down. Excellent short hike for a drizzly weekend in February. Soon, all those waterfalls would disappear with a tell tale sign of that being the Great Arch lacking in its rare waterfall.