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.