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.