Sleepy Hollow

I had a backpack scheduled on the West Rim and I was excited. There is something about the West Rim that just has a way of relaxing me. When I looked at the permit system for available campsites, I saw that there were none available. Being that this was a work trip, I went ahead and booked an administrative site meaning that I was going to camp at large. This was a luxury of working as all sites on the West Rim were designated. I was just going to have to camp far enough from the trail to keep my tent disguised and my impacts to a minimum. I got a ride up to Lava Point and hiked down from there. Not much exciting happened during the first part of the hike and I eventually found myself in Sleepy Hollow.
This was where I was planning to camp. I wandered through this open area until I found a nice flat spot. I was able to clear away some brush and put down my tent. This was going to be a long night as I still had a significant amount of daylight left. I wandered on down to the end of Sleepy Hollow. After a few short down climbs, I found myself overlooking Imlay Canyon. This was a spot in Zion that not many people get to see. This looked like a workable route to get into Imlay. Today, though, it was a beautiful view. I admired the view for a time and then wandered back to camp.
I had not much to do for the evening except to read a book and think about the future. Jacqueline was interviewing for a job in Oregon and we would soon find out our future. I was sort of indifferent to the whole experience. Zion had been really good to me, but there were some limitations. We were unsure constantly about whether my job would continue. Jacqueline had been permanently seasonal for so long that she seemed to be stuck there. We really wanted to buy a house and get some routes. My job would definitely be much different if I became a teacher again, but being in a new place had its rewards too. Plus there was the added benefit of making quite a bit more money. We had decided that if we both got teaching jobs, we were going to take it. For tonight, though, I was really enjoying being a wilderness ranger at Zion.
When I awoke in the morning, it was time to pack up. I went by the campsites to check them out. I got to spend a significant amount of time at campsite 5 as someone had built a truly massive shelter. Frustrating to deal with as this was about the 3rd time that I had destroyed a shelter there. Way more creative was campsite number one where I found wilderness Catan. Someone had been creative enough to make all the resources and the game board using natural elements. These were awesome campers.
The rest of the way, I continued off the West Rim and made my way back home. When I got back, I found out that we had both got jobs in Oregon and we were now on our way to the McKenzie River area of Oregon. This was kind of a big deal in our lives that we were going to adjust to. The moving process was beginning.

East Side with the Little Man

 

My friend Brad was up visiting. He wanted to take a hike out on the east side of the park and just get on some slick rock. I was up for it but I had to bring Conrad with me. This was going to limit our options. We decided to go to one of the easier spots near the tunnel on the east side. This was more like a sojourn than a hike because our goal was just to be out there rather than to necessarily get anywhere. We climbed up a steeper section of slick rock and I was able to take Conrad out of the baby backpack for a while so he could check out the surroundings.

 He was particularly excited about the water that was flowing in from a spring. We took some pictures and generally enjoyed the beauty that is the east side of Zion. We were only out for a short period but it seemed to satisfy Brad's craving for some east side slick rock. 

Little Creek

Ever since the day that Paul Simonetti and I went for a day hike in the Left Fork and instead of hiking to the ever popular Subway, we instead hiked up the canyons of Pine Spring Wash and Little Creek, I longed to get back to Little Creek. During that hike with Paul, I happened to pull a fairly good chunk of rock down while attempting to climb up a steep section simultaneously falling on my hip which contained my camera, breaking the camera, then falling into the water. I was hoping that this day would go much better. I had enlisted Derrick to go exploring with me on this day and he seemed up for it. We brought a whole bunch of extra gear that we did not know if we were going to need but had to be prepared for any unexpected drops. 

The beginning of the hike was the typical entrance to the Subway starting at the Wildcat Canyon Trailhead. We took the trail until it crossed what I could tell from the map was Little Creek. We followed that drainage and it turned out to be a fairly mellow drainage. One thing that we were surprised to see in May on a dry year was flowing water fairly near the Wildcat Canyon trail. All of this was valuable information for any backpacker as the section from La Verkin Creek to Wildcat Spring was the longest section without filterable water yet here it was right off the trail. We continued down the canyon. It was pretty open and dry most of the way. It actually made for fairly good walking with great views over to the South Guardian Angel. 

The majority of this hike was just large ponderosa pine forest with some excellent views of the plateau. Then the canyon started to do a few things all at once. It started to narrow up. It started to get less sandy on the bottom and more rocky. It also started to drop more. Lastly, it became wet. This is where we were entering the unknown where each step could take us closer to some sort of perilous danger. We were fortunate that it actually did not lead us to any danger. Instead it led us to one of the most unique canyons in Zion. There were strange formations brought about by volcanism hitting sedimentary rocks. There were amazing waterfalls that I would love to go back and see during high runoff times.

One of the most spectacular parts of this canyon was the water though. It gave the appearance of being red. Sometimes it was the vegetation underneath that had a red appearance to it, sometimes it was the rock Maybe it was the mineral content of the water coming out of the rock that influenced this or maybe it was just happenstance that there appeared to be a lot of dark red to this canyon, but it was more prevalent than I have seen in any other canyon in Zion. Another amazing thing was even though this was right in between the most popular backpacking route in the park and the most popular wilderness canyon in the park, this place was virtually untouched. 

The canyoneering was nothing special that Tom Jones would have to do a new edition of his canyoneering book. Derrick and I were able to negotiate every obstacle out there with no issue whatsoever. Just downclimbing through somewhat brushy loose rock. The biggest difference between this canyon and others though is just that each footstep had to be carefully selected when downclimbing as it was highly doubtful that anyone had put any weight on that rock before. None of the obstacles were too challenging though and I hoped that others would not give this place a look because the impacts quickly could mount up. 

After climbing down a steep loose section, I popped out at the place I turned around the last time. Nothing technical had been found, but a unique canyon with some great views and interesting waterfalls had been explored. Derrick and I were able to continue with the real part of our job and check permits in the Left Fork. It was an interesting way to access the canyon, but one I would probably not recommend for most people out there. For one, it will impact the canyon too much and for another it just wouldn't be fun unless you found this place on your own. It is a unique place in this incredible landscape. Zion truly is a magnificent place. 

Testing the Waters

Jacqueline and I spent the winter trying to figure out what our next step would be. My term was coming to an end very soon and she was stuck mired in the world of continual seasonal employment. We both had teaching degrees just sitting there and the chance for a career where we could buy a house, raise our children, and have a pretty predictable schedule to make all their school events and even spend summer vacations with them. The allure was there and we began applying for jobs in the winter and spring. Sure enough, we started to get some phone calls about interviewing for jobs. 

There were not many of them that were sounding too appealing until we heard from a school district along the McKenzie River in Oregon. I went through the preliminary stages of interviewing with them and sure enough, they wanted me to come out and have an interview. Making that work was going to be a challenge. I had some vacation days built up though, so we got my mom and Carl to watch the kids and then we went and drove out to Oregon. 

We went through the desolation that is Nevada and up through Lakeview, Oregon eventually coming in from the south. The drive itself was not that interesting, but when we showed up in the Pacific Northwest, the green was very enticing. I knew very little about the state of Oregon even though I grew up in western Washington. For some reason, we never seemed to have a need to come through Oregon and instead seemed to just pass through more often. So here was a new place that looked interesting to explore. We even made time for it coming out for the interview. We spent a night in Springfield, Oregon, then the next day drove up the McKenzie River valley. I was impressed just how open this area was. There were nice homes along the highway next to the river and I think every bit of it, we were imagining ourselves living in this area. After about an hour of following this river, we drove past the school and could see ourselves teaching there. We continued up river to where there was a trailhead for the Blue Pool. This was supposed to be the hike to do in this area, so we went for it. The trail took us right by the McKenzie River through the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest. We were enjoying the cool day as we knew we were in for the heat in Zion in the near future. 

Jacqueline and I had not had much time to go hiking with just the two of us, so this was great. The trail was short and put us out at exactly what it said it would a blue pool. It was a large spring coming out of the volcanic rock. Previously the river used to flow over this spot but was diverted for hydroelectric power. It would have been a pretty neat waterfall had that not been the case. Still, it turned out to be a pretty excellent spot and we had the trail to ourselves during a weekday. We headed back to the car and drove up to the two waterfalls above. Koosah and Sahalie Falls were running very powerfully as we did the hike between them. We could truly see that this area had a lot to offer as far as natural beauty. 

I longed for some new trails and some new areas to explore. The rest of the trip was spent preparing for the interview. It went very quickly as I showed up at the school the next day, did the interview, and five minutes later we were heading back to life in Zion. I would wait to hear whether I got the job and whether or not a position for Jacqueline awaited also. We could hope as there were some opportunities for something new to challenge us. It would be sad to leave Zion behind, but we were not thinking too much about that yet as it still seemed somewhat of a long shot. I think we both agreed that given the opportunity, though, we were in.