I'll Have Two Subways and a Das Boot

One of the perks of the backcountry ranger job is that you get to go on some rather fun trips, such as the Subway. One of the drawbacks of being a backcountry ranger is that sometimes you have to go on trips that are not necessarily something you would pick for that day or for your company. That was how this weekend went. I was scheduled to go through the Subway on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was going to be the day that I was responsible for the health and safety of my crew as I was taking the backcountry volunteers from Kolob and also Alice from our side. Knowing that all three of them had done little rappelling, I asked to take Matt too. So our quintet was going in to the Subway on a day when the max temperature was expected to be in the sixties. To add to that, the water was going to be very chilly as it was still cool from spring runoff. Some of us brought wetsuits, while others of us, me included, did not want to bother with them. I should have grabbed one because it was chilly. I had a good time with Gary and Daniel as they were both fun and in good spirits about the whole trip. When Daniel brought trekking poles for the Subway, though, I knew I was in for it. Daniel's trekking poles were not going to help him rappel and neither would his lack of a rappel device. I gave him my extra ATC and then had to hand over my other one to Gary when he managed to tighten his carabiner so tight, we could not for the life of us, get it unstuck. So I got to do the last rappel on a munter. It was a good experience for me and for all the little stuff such as that, it was fun to be with a crew of people who were really enjoying themselves. I was happy to get out of the technical section as that was probably the coldest I had been on a trip through the Subway. I was shivering for most of the day until we stopped having to swim. The hike out was good, as Gary and I got ahead of the crew to get the vehicles. It worked out as we were able to hike a bit faster up the hill.
The next day Brad, Jon, and I were back, but this time it was to go through Das Boot and the Subway. I was sure to bring a wetsuit on this day as my memory of Das Boot was lots of swimming. So we were back to the Wildcat Canyon Trailhead and beginning the hike down. This time, though when we crossed Russel Gulch, we headed up to the left. Then we ended up going through some slickrock, down a drainage, across some steep slopes, and plop we were in the Upper Left Fork. We found another couple there, so we sat and talked to them for a bit. They were good folks and as we ate lunch they got ahead of us. We got our wetsuits on and were on our way. The canyon was wet, but there was a little less swimming then I remembered. It is funny how canyons change so much. It was incredibly narrow, though, and beautiful. There were only a few short rappels and some awkward downclimbs. The wetsuits were good companions on this day as it kept us nice and warm. We wandered through really narrow cracks until we were at our last rappel. The couple we talked to when we started was there with a rope, so we used theirs to drop into the Subway. From there it was business as usual. There were lots of groups to run into, but so far everyone had a permit. It was much more enjoyable until we came upon a campfire that was left there the night before. This did not make us too pleased. It always upsets me, but this one I knew was done that day before. On our way out of the Subway, we happened to run into a shuttle bus driver in there without a permit. I knew that this was going to be chaos. She was respectful, but obviously very frustrated. She made up a bunch of stuff to try to get out of it, but frankly the whole thought was frustrating. She gets free permits, she just did not get in to get it. Honestly, what is the damn point of that. She should be the last one to try to beat the system because she works for the system. Well, it made the rest of our hike out less enjoyable to have to bust her, but I made sure to make the best of a weekend full of trips through the Subway.