I decided to take a simple hike out to a well known arch near Keyhole Canyon in Zion National Park. Jug Handle Arch can be seen from the Hoodoo Pass on the approach into Keyhole Canyon. Having never ventured past the canyon itself, I decided that this crisp fall day would be an excellent time to do that. The beginning was simple enough. Do the Keyhole approach and then climb up a ramp onto the slickrock. Take that ramp until the canyon opens up.
Hike as close to the arch as possible before turning around and leaving. I did all of that except the turning around and leaving part of it. After getting to a good viewpoint of the arch, I continued up the canyon to find a whole slew of interesting slot canyons. They were here, there and everywhere. I could not help myself but to wander up these hidden gems. Some of them had challenging obstacles that I needed to do some climbing to get around. Some had debris and interesting rock formations. All of them ended before I could use any of them to access the East Rim, though I tried especially at the back of the canyon.
I ran into difficulties when I got to some steeper sections and made the wise decision of not trying anything too sketchy when I was in a canyon that no one wanders into just on a random day hike. Heck, I had never done it before. On the way down, I made sure to check out all of the interesting side slots. My favorite one on the east side of the canyon made me very interested to see if I could get down to it from the top. More than likely I could, but finding it again from the top would prove to be some masterful navigational precision.
The leaves were out too, though I was looking at the end of the season. The greens, yellows, and reds had now turned into the yellows, reds, and browns, but there were still a few hangers on remaining. My next goal was to check out the Upper Keyhole section. I thought a few times about making a solo descent, but I did not know if there was any rappelling to do. Most likely there was something formidable as the canyon narrowed down to a truly tight spot.
Instead I checked it out until it did not look too easy (or too dry for that matter) and scrambled back up to my original plateau. I looked down to see a whole bunch of bighorn sheep just minding their own business. Say what you want about Zion's bighorn sheep population being domesticated, these bighorn sheep wanted nothing to do with me. They saw me, were spooked and in 30 seconds covered the ground that it would take me 10 to 15 minutes to cover. I looked over to the west from my plateau and saw another section of this canyon yet to be explored (by me) and knew that I would have to come back to give it a look. There seemed to be even more canyons and slickrock to wander around upon.
The last thing to do for the day was after I dropped into Keyhole proper, to hike up the upper section to see what it looked like. It wasn't long before I was wading through some cold deep water in a nice tight slot. This upper section needed to be explored eventually, but on today, it was going to be left for when I could convince someone else to give it a try. All that was left to do was to hike back down to the car and smile because I had found myself some interesting slickrock and slot canyon features in Zion that maybe I was the only one to know about.
Hike as close to the arch as possible before turning around and leaving. I did all of that except the turning around and leaving part of it. After getting to a good viewpoint of the arch, I continued up the canyon to find a whole slew of interesting slot canyons. They were here, there and everywhere. I could not help myself but to wander up these hidden gems. Some of them had challenging obstacles that I needed to do some climbing to get around. Some had debris and interesting rock formations. All of them ended before I could use any of them to access the East Rim, though I tried especially at the back of the canyon.
I ran into difficulties when I got to some steeper sections and made the wise decision of not trying anything too sketchy when I was in a canyon that no one wanders into just on a random day hike. Heck, I had never done it before. On the way down, I made sure to check out all of the interesting side slots. My favorite one on the east side of the canyon made me very interested to see if I could get down to it from the top. More than likely I could, but finding it again from the top would prove to be some masterful navigational precision.
The leaves were out too, though I was looking at the end of the season. The greens, yellows, and reds had now turned into the yellows, reds, and browns, but there were still a few hangers on remaining. My next goal was to check out the Upper Keyhole section. I thought a few times about making a solo descent, but I did not know if there was any rappelling to do. Most likely there was something formidable as the canyon narrowed down to a truly tight spot.
Instead I checked it out until it did not look too easy (or too dry for that matter) and scrambled back up to my original plateau. I looked down to see a whole bunch of bighorn sheep just minding their own business. Say what you want about Zion's bighorn sheep population being domesticated, these bighorn sheep wanted nothing to do with me. They saw me, were spooked and in 30 seconds covered the ground that it would take me 10 to 15 minutes to cover. I looked over to the west from my plateau and saw another section of this canyon yet to be explored (by me) and knew that I would have to come back to give it a look. There seemed to be even more canyons and slickrock to wander around upon.
The last thing to do for the day was after I dropped into Keyhole proper, to hike up the upper section to see what it looked like. It wasn't long before I was wading through some cold deep water in a nice tight slot. This upper section needed to be explored eventually, but on today, it was going to be left for when I could convince someone else to give it a try. All that was left to do was to hike back down to the car and smile because I had found myself some interesting slickrock and slot canyon features in Zion that maybe I was the only one to know about.
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