When I saw Behunin on the schedule, I cringed after the long expedition we had there last time. When I checked the permit list in the morning, I realized that my fears were going to be realized. We had a full canyon on our hands and the group we were going with was none too small. Five people for us was going to be a large contingent of park people to descend. We had both Petes, myself and Sawtell. We had Ray, the boss, and Cheryl from resources. Also with us was Rob who is the new librarian in Springdale. This group was a fun group to go canyoneering with and we seemed to make good time trudging up the steep Wes
t Rim trail to access Behunin Canyon. Our hope was that we may beat all the rest of the groups to the first rappel. That did not happen and in fact, they had too many group members. Later the other Pete dealt with that. We ate our lunch before starting the series of rappels to gain the canyon floor as we knew it was going to be a slow process. We rapped and waited. Rapped and waited the rest of the way down. We were lucky enough to get in the canyon when we did as there were a couple of groups behind us. One group became impatient with all the waiting taking place and decided to go ahead and byp
ass the rappel and try to downclimb a steep section. While it looked do-able from above, about halfway through they got into trouble. They tried tossing their packs to make it easier. One stopped, the other didn’t and it went rumbling, tumbling down before it went into free fall for 300 feet. The folks below us let out a loud cry of anger as that w
as dangerous for them. Ray shouted to our group of geniuses, “What’s your plan?” They were going to have to go with the group behind them because one of their ropes and harnesses was in that backpack. It is a shock that a larger number of people are not hurt or killed with all the unsafe behavior we see take place in slot canyons. Especially as this sport becomes more popular and people with less and less experience are leading trips. On this day, Ray was the most experienced, but he sat back and let Pete and I do all the work. It was nice because we were both experienced enough to do a fine job of it. W
e lumbered along through the canyon doing rappel after rappel, never having to even get our feet wet. When we got to the 2nd to last rappel we did some more waiting un
til finally we got to wait on the last rappel. We were lucky enough to get down before it got dark, but the three groups behind us were still rappelling when we were at the shuttle stop at the lodge. I enjoyed the last rappel because our ropes were so stiff that it went very slow. I have felt near out of control on long free hanging rappels, so this was good. I enjoyed the canyon, even though it was a long day, and it just further cemented in my mind that I have gotten pretty good at this stuff.
t Rim trail to access Behunin Canyon. Our hope was that we may beat all the rest of the groups to the first rappel. That did not happen and in fact, they had too many group members. Later the other Pete dealt with that. We ate our lunch before starting the series of rappels to gain the canyon floor as we knew it was going to be a slow process. We rapped and waited. Rapped and waited the rest of the way down. We were lucky enough to get in the canyon when we did as there were a couple of groups behind us. One group became impatient with all the waiting taking place and decided to go ahead and byp
ass the rappel and try to downclimb a steep section. While it looked do-able from above, about halfway through they got into trouble. They tried tossing their packs to make it easier. One stopped, the other didn’t and it went rumbling, tumbling down before it went into free fall for 300 feet. The folks below us let out a loud cry of anger as that w
as dangerous for them. Ray shouted to our group of geniuses, “What’s your plan?” They were going to have to go with the group behind them because one of their ropes and harnesses was in that backpack. It is a shock that a larger number of people are not hurt or killed with all the unsafe behavior we see take place in slot canyons. Especially as this sport becomes more popular and people with less and less experience are leading trips. On this day, Ray was the most experienced, but he sat back and let Pete and I do all the work. It was nice because we were both experienced enough to do a fine job of it. W
e lumbered along through the canyon doing rappel after rappel, never having to even get our feet wet. When we got to the 2nd to last rappel we did some more waiting un
til finally we got to wait on the last rappel. We were lucky enough to get down before it got dark, but the three groups behind us were still rappelling when we were at the shuttle stop at the lodge. I enjoyed the last rappel because our ropes were so stiff that it went very slow. I have felt near out of control on long free hanging rappels, so this was good. I enjoyed the canyon, even though it was a long day, and it just further cemented in my mind that I have gotten pretty good at this stuff. 
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