Andy Novak

 I was working the desk minding my own business issuing permit after permit when randomly a face from the past was in front of me. It took me a minute, but eventually we both placed the fact that we were once in college classes together at the University of Colorado. In fact, we both studied to become Secondary Social Studies teachers. The fact is that he actually became one and I did not. I did teach math for a few years and I guess I technically did teach a geography class, but he actually was teaching in a middle school in the Denver area. He was here for Spring Break looking to do some climbing and some canyons with his girlfriend Heather. He wanted to do the Subway, but I talked him out of it. He decided instead to do Keyhole and Pine Creek instead. He invited me to come and while I am frequently rather adverse to going through a canyon on my day off, it was such a breath of fresh air to see Andy again that I considered it. It is rare to find people in college classes that enjoy the same sorts of outdoor activities that I did even in Boulder. We never hung out in college, but I always enjoyed talking to Andy in classes. So I took the opportunity to hang out with him here in Zion.
But Keyhole in March! It had to be freezing. And Pine Creek, that was probably out of the question. Unless I had a dry suit, which I did not have access to. I did pick up the thickest wet suit that we had in the cache and I figured that would do. We made a plan and met at the second switchback. I left the Xterra there and rode with them up to Keyhole. We made the entrance and put on our suits. The water was not too bad with all the layers on. They seemed to enjoyed the dry suit option and I knew that they would need it for Pine Creek. Keyhole, the wetsuit was sufficient. They were great people to take through a canyon because they were climbers and were probably more comfortable on a rope than I was even though I spend much of the summer with ropes.
There were no new additional obstacles in the Keyhole, so it was just another day of knowing all the moves through this canyon. I let them go first so that they got to experience all the obstacles for themselves. We departed after the canyon was over and they continued on out to Pine Creek and I drove their vehicle down so they did not have to hitch hike. They came over and had a beer with us a few hours later. They enjoyed watching Zyla run around and we had fun hanging with them. I hope in the future if we are ever on the Front Range, we will be able to drop by and hang out with Andy and Heather.

Things I do at work

 It was a beautiful March day and I had the opportunity to be out in the field. So I decided to go up to Hidden Canyon and get rid of the graffiti that was out at a point that we use as a short haul site during SARs. There was a lot of graffiti, some of which that I have gotten rid of in the past. I spent quite a bit of time getting rid of what I could with a hammer and brush as this was the graffiti that was carved in. After a while, I realized that this stuff was of such a nature that it was not in a sensitive site that people were going to care about. So, I decided to turn upside down many of the rocks that were carved in.

 I did that with the ones that I could but the one big one took quite a bit of time. After about an hour of hammering on it, my hand was pretty sore. I was using a different technique with a hard rock that I had found in Clear Creek. This obviously left my hand feeling old manish and sore. But I got the job done and went down the trail to the junction and up to where the Observation Point trail met Echo Canyon. I climbed down into Echo Canyon only to see a family (Dad and three younger kids) trudging through the freezing cold water. The dad looked miserable as he carried his kids above the water. They were practicing some rappelling with some questionable knots. I sat down and had some lunch as they tried to go further up the canyon. They were turned back by the water rather quickly.

I came armed with a 7 mm wetsuit and that was definitely needed because around the first corner was a freezing cold pool of water. I scrambled up some obstacles including the log jam that eventually will make things challenging in that section of Echo. My purpose for this was to check on snow conditions to see if the canyon was supposed to be closed. I felt slightly uncomfortable being in there by myself because if anything happened to the snow bridges I was walking upon, it could be dangerous.

I found snow nearly immediately but then it cleared out again.
It took to where the canyon really narrowed down to where the snow got close to being impassible. Still I was able to walk up on top of it. This made me nervous and I did not even make it to the point that I knew was the pinch point where the snow piles up in 20-30 foot walls before I decided it might be a wise decision to turn around before I found myself on a snow bridge that would collapse.
 I talked to the family as I went out and they were surprised to hear about all the snow up there. It is hard for people to understand the different climates inside of a slot canyon when the temperatures outside reach 80 degrees. It looked like Echo would need to stay closed for at least another month.

Huber

 I try to restrict the pristinezone to hikes and pictures that are new or unusual. That is why not many pictures or descriptions of hikes in Zion that I do frequently make it on here. Huber Wash is a place that has appeared on the blog before, so the hike itself has not changed. The main change is that Zyla came with us on this hike. We did it on my 31st birthday too, which is kind of cool. We hiked all the way to the wall, but did not climb up onto the Chinle Trail.
We stopped for lunch where Zyla got out to run around for some time, but mainly she just stayed in the pack. She is nearly old enough to do the hiking too, but still is not completely stable on her feet in the loose rock of the drainage. We move much faster with her still in the pack. She is happy being there most of the time and able to take a nap also. It was a fun and when we made it back home, we could open some presents.

Clear Creek

There is this long canyon that runs the length of the road on the east side of Zion National Park called Clear Creek. It is mostly overlooked because it is right by the road. But if one blocks out the traffic that is above you for short periods of time on the hike, it is really one of the more enjoyable places to visit in the park. I had company for a hike there on a work day. Dad was up to Zion and it was nice to pick a different trip for he and I to do. This was his birthday hike also as he was celebrating birthday number 62!  We started at the Checkerboard Mesa parking area and dropped into the canyon there. At first, we had a more open canyon with beautiful rock formations. This part was also closer to the road. We had to deal with some graffiti on pillars below one of the bridges. I enlisted Dad to help out.

Soon the canyon began to narrow up. This was nice at first because the slot canyon aspect of Clear Creek made it a very enjoyable hike. But we came to one with some deep water. Oh my, was it cold. This early spring water was bone chilling cold. This first one was only knee deep, but we knew that it could get deeper which would lead to issues.
Near popular pull offs, we had to clean graffiti. Luckily, there were some nice hard stones to eradicate any of the graffiti that was carved in. We spent quite a bit of time working on this before continuing down the canyon.

The whole thing is about 7 miles long but weaves in and out of narrow canyon environments throughout. The weather out was nearly perfect, but we were hesitant to think that we were going to be able to do the whole canyon. The interesting part of it was after the small tunnel where a little arch went right over the canyon.
When we hit this section, we were determined to not let a little bit of water turn us back. So we went through for a ways easily wading through the freezing water. It was literally freezing because at times we had to break the ice to get through. But when it got up to waist deep and higher, we tried, but were forced to turn back.
This was a wise decision, even though we wanted to complete the entire canyon. We were able to scramble around the first obstacle like this that took us to where Clear Creek became Pine Creek. Here we found an ATV tire which we hauled over to a tunnel that was right near the road which we would pick up when we got back to the road. We thought we were in the clear and were almost around the corner to where the big tunnel met up with the technical section of Pine Creek.
But we ran into the deepest water yet. We even waded in it for a while and then gave up. By the time that I got out of the water, I could not feel my legs below the knees. Dad was tougher than I was getting in up to his chest, but we both were turned around by the water.
We hiked back up to the road. When I climbed out of the canyon, I used my knee to help me up on the rock and I could not even feel the scraping of sandstone against it. Once back on the road, we hiked over to the tunnel. Though we had not completed the entire canyon, I think it would have been nearly impossible and possibly foolish to try. But we did get rid of some graffiti and came back for the tire, so definitely a good work day.

Castle Rock

A friend of mine, Eric Lassance, was up to Zion to visit old friends and hike in the desert. He put together a guys' weekend out in Escalante in the Paria area off the Cottonwood Canyon Road. It seemed like a really good idea and a place that was close enough to home, but I had never been there before. I rode out with Alan and Adam, two guys that I knew but had not hung out with too much. Eric rode with Greg who I didn't know much at all by this point. Our first destination was the Toadstools. Zyla and I had visited the Toadstools six months earlier from the trailhead that left near the highway. Alan knew of a different way to get there off the Cottonwood Canyon Road. So after picking up some supplies in Kanab, we were off to the road and showed up there in the late morning. We followed a path that lead through the open high desert. There were other people around, though there were no signs for a trailhead. Eventually our path led to a point where it dropped off the rim and into a landscape full of strange formations.

Some looked just like mushroom tops while others looked like sombreros. There were many different toadstools and we all wandered around the whole place taking as many pictures as we could find unique formations. We spent a good 40 minutes wandering around the toadstools in different groups.
Alan was surprised that there were other people there and there were quite a few including clueless foreign tourists. I remember coming to this area in 2002 and just thinking how remote and quiet the area was. Now, even the Southwest has lost its innocence. Still, the farther we went up the Cottonwood Canyon Road, the quieter it became. We didn't have many plans, but decided that Yellow Rock may be a good destination for the rest of the day.
 I had just heard of Yellow Rock only a few days earlier. It was a beautiful rock looking like a mountain covered in snow, but instead of snow it was mostly yellow sand. It did not look too formidable, but as we started hiking it, it seemed so much larger than it truly was. We met some people coming down and talked to them for a few minutes. I found my way up to the top first. I was not quite trying to hike faster than everybody else, but I just did not take the time to mess around as much as everyone else.
I did take some pictures of the interesting formations and colors. Yellow Rock was so easy to imagine as an ancient sand dune because it looked just like the sand dunes of Death Valley. We spent some time on top, then headed down. We drove up the road a bit of a way before we found a nice spot to pull off the road by the small stream and picked a campsite. I made sure to pick my spot first a little ways away from the group knowing that
it could be hard to sleep if I just wanted to go to bed. We spent the rest of the night having a few beers, sitting around the campfire, while Eric, Alan, and Greg told sarcastic jokes to make fun of each other and Numz a frozen yogurt shop in Hurricane. I slept well, though others did not. We awoke to a cool morning, but with a purpose for the day. This was the biggest obstacle of them all on the whole trip was climbing to the top of Castle Rock.
Castle Dome was defintely the largest, most difficult sandstone mountain out in this area. It stood out above each of the other peaks. We had a route description from Kelsey's book, so it was time to use it. We parked across from a canyon and started the trip going up the canyon. Soon the route took an abrupt turn and we were climbing elevation. We eventually ended up at a high viewpoint of Castle Rock. This was good enough for Adam who was the least ambitious on climbing this peak. Eric called it quits here with Adam as he did not sleep well the night before. I think looking at the peak from this vantage point also led to it being quite intimidating as it looked nearly impossible.
Alan, Greg, and I continued on. We first picked our way down a small drainage until we were back in the canyon proper. From there we found a nice ramp that led up the slickrock of Castle Rock. We had to do some work to find the least steep way, but mostly it was just hiking up using the friction on the soles of our shoes to keep moving upward. We were able to make the flatter section up top with a few good choices on routes to take. Once we were there though, we had a difficult time finding where the actual top was located. We all wanted it to be closer, but Greg and I realized that it must be the farthest away point. Alan was not as determined to get to the actual top.
He still got a great view from the perch that he called the top down to the road and into our campsite as well as the whole surrounding terrain, but Greg and I figured that if we went this far, there was no use stopping here. We both took different routes and could not entirely determine what would be higher. I chose something that I thought would be higher and it turned out I was right. What I didn't account for is that the last ten feet would be straight up vertical rock.
 There were numerous holds though and I decided that it was worth the risk. I climbed my way up it making sure to remember where to put my feet on the way down. The view was awesome and this really felt like a good accomplishment as Castle Rock was such a massive rock.
The views were amazing and I was happy I went all the way to the summit. I climbed down as it was not the most comfortable spot to be with room for only one individual on top. Greg joined me soon afterward and scrambled his way to the summit. We went down after that, joined up with Alan, and eventually found the other two. This was the last of the hiking on this day. We drove our way back home after that. It was fun to have a trip with other guys doing something I love in this beautiful area.

East Rim in the Snow

 I have to admit that Seth and I had different expectations for this day. When I saw that it was going to snow on a day that we were supposed to hike the East Rim, I was excited to spend the day fighting the elements. When he saw that it was supposed to snow, he questioned whether it was still a good idea to complete the trip. I convinced him that it would be a good idea, so Ryan gave us a ride up to the East Rim trailhead near the East Entrance. When Ryan dropped us off, it was snowing pretty good on us. I was excited and hoped it would continue for at least some of the hike.

 Unfortunately, it was not too long before the snow stopped falling and a beautiful blue sky found its way into Southern Utah. Still, we got to hike a trail that seemed virgin in the fact that there were no other footprints. We debated whether we should bring snowshoes, but decided that boots and gaitors would be all that we needed. It was a good idea as the snow was only barely above the ankle in sections. We had the whole trail to ourselves and were able to check on the trail conditions where a couple of trees had fallen and the spring that was definitely flowing. We had a nice lunch up on the plateau with the entire area to ourselves without even the thought of other people dropping off the rim.

 There was one section of trail that we were concerned about. This section was right as we were dropping off the East Rim Plateau. This was the narrowest section of trail that often did not see much sun but did get big drifts of snow.
 It was not incredibly bad or anything and being the first two to hike it since the snow made it really grippy. But if a bunch of ice appeared, this would be a tough spot for people. After that the snow dissipated as we lost elevation. It definitely made a simple trip on the East Rim more entertaining and the snow really lit up places.
We hit the junction with the Observation Point trail and after that there was much less snow on the trail, except when we were in Echo Canyon. I could imagine that after this storm, it would be some time before the technical section of Echo Canyon would open for the season. The non-technical section was easy enough to get through and then it was down to the vehicle that we had left at the trailhead at Weeping Rock. This turned out to be a very enjoyable hike in Zion on the 1st of March.