Back to Zion!

Well, my time in Norwood was now over and almost immediately, I was back to work in Zion. After a couple of days of office/desk time, I finally had my first field day. Will, the new Lava Point ranger, wanted to do a canyon. I was not up for it on my first day in the backcountry. Instead, I wanted to go to my favorite day hiking area, Right Fork. We had Andie with us who was our volunteer in backcountry for the year. I was intrigued by Seth’s description of a rock slide creating a large lake with a new dam. He said it was waist deep water when he went there early in the season. We got to the trailhead where the cheatgrass was thicker than I ever saw it. We had a tough time finding the way down, but I was lucky enough to see a chuckwalla dive under one of the hot lava rocks. It was brutally hot on the approach down. It was crazy going two weeks earlier from Norwood where it was snowing on me to the 100 degree summer June days of Zion. Luckily it was not as hot as usual, but with the black rock, it made it a bit hotter. The nice part was that we would be hiking in the creek the rest of the day. We were quick to find our way to the rock slide that was about a mile up the creek. It was rather massive with some big boulders to climb up around. Looking up from where we were we could see that the main culprit in all this erosion was water. I think people that doubt that water can erode in the desert just don’t know how it works. It slowly eats away until boom it all comes crashing down. We could look up and see this tiny little spring doing all this major damage. Past it though, was something more interesting. A big lake. Zion seems to have a lot of impermanent lakes that eventually fill with sediment. (Bad news Glen Canyon) This was another one causing us to get very wet. Without thinking twice about it, I plunged in at where I thought was the most shallow section. It ended up being neck deep on me requiring me to almost have to swim. Andie and Will were not so lucky. Being less than six feet tall, they were stuck swimming through part of this lake. I always love it when something new appears. This would definitely be one the best swimming holes in the park if it was more accessible. After that the canyon became more predictable. I was excited by the amount of growth that had returned from the fire of 2008. This area is so pristine and I just love the remote feeling of Right Fork, though it was right next to the Left Fork. We only saw two people in the canyon the whole day, which was a full patrol day of hiking. I was determined to make it to Double Falls wondering the whole time if the crew I was hiking with was just as determined. They did not complain, though, Andie was learning the hard way that I like to move on a patrol day to cover the most ground. We ran into some poison ivy and a lot of canyon before finally hitting Double Falls for lunch. With all the talk of high water in the Left Fork with it being closed, you sure could not tell it from Double Falls. It looked pretty much like normal. No raging river here. We ate quickly and began our trip back. It was uneventful until we swam the lake and hit the rockslide. After we crossed the lake, I was just finishing crossing the rock slide when I heard some rumbling and looked up. There were some large rocks coming down. My immediate thought was Andie and I just yelled to get the hell outta there. She moved swiftly and was quickly out of the way of the big rocks. Pretty exciting to learn that the reason it was a lot deeper than when Seth came through was that this slide was still active. Ahhh, the RIght Fork. It was a great day in the wilderness of Zion. I am so happy to be back. When I moved here the first time, one of my favorite songs by Death Cab said, “I want to live where soul meets body. And let the sun wrap its arms around me. Bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing and feel what its like to be real.” Sounds exactly like Zion to me.