I have always wanted to see what was above the middle portion of Keyhole Canyon. Seth and I had a day to work on Keyhole Canyon, so we decided to do the Full Hole. We entered in the traditional entrance where we spent a good portion of the morning working on the slope. It had become so badly eroded from people using it to get into the canyon. We tried to block off as much of the sandy slope as possible so that we could keep whatever soil was still left. After this was done, if we were doing the traditional route, we would have just dropped into the canyon from here. Instead, we hiked back out onto a slickrock bench to the west of Upper Keyhole and then around to where the canyon really opened up. We dropped in here and put on our thick wetsuits.
It was kind of a funny canyon because all the obstacles were easily passed by just downclimbing, but it was still a canyon you had to commit to. The top of the walls were only 15 feet over our head, so the sun shined in during much of the canyon, but it still would not have been a very good place in a flash flood.
There was a lot of water and a bunch of narrows. The downclimbs were at least interesting and we had to use a rope in one place just for a little handline because a rappel would have been too awkward. A long stretch of narrows brought us to the opening before middle Keyhole. We continued down that canyon, while much more deep, dark, and narrow then the upper stretches, they were all the same obstacles that we had done many times before. I was happy that we solved another one of Zion's many, many mysteries by completing the Full Hole.
Suri and I had the day to hike on the east side for work. These days do not come up very often, so we were excited to actually get out and hike for a long distance. We chose to go behind Bridge Mountain through the route from Gifford Canyon to Hepworth Canyon. This is a route that I have done many times, but Suri had never been out there before. This was the first trip that I ever took with someone else. Having company made it more enjoyable and a little bit less scary. We went most of the way up Gifford Canyon until we climbed up the steep slickrock and traversed over to the steep entrance through a side canyon to Hepworth Canyon. This is the most sketchy spot of the entire hike, but we did it without issues.
We went down the canyon until it popped us out in Hepworth. I was hoping that we would be able to get over to Stevens Canyon which was on the other side of Hepworth. The easy way to get into Stevens is to go up to Bridge Mountain and then go back down Stevens. I was hoping we would be able to find a shortcut.
We took it and it put us right above Stevens Canyon but with no easy way down. I was excited to see if this worked, but found out that it did not. So we decided instead to take Hepworth all the way to its end. It put us above the tunnel looking down on the switchbacks. It made me want to come back and descend the canyon all the way to the floor. But on this day, we had not enough rope with us to get the job done. Still it was an excellent view. By that point, it was getting late enough in the day that we had to turn around.
We took the same route back enjoying the snow in the side canyon along the way. That was not going to last long as it was already getting rather warm. We made it back with time to spare, but had another great day on the east side of Zion Canyon. 
