Pine Creek

Brian was eager to do more canyons and our buddy Austin was up, so we figured that Pine Creek may be a good option since we all had to work. I was working at the tunnel and finishing work there, so it worked out perfectly to just do Pine Creek. Brian, Austin, and Amelia showed up a little after five and we got ourselves going by 5:30. The canyon was rather direct. No screwing around here. We were dropping in and heading through rappel after rappel almost immediately. The water was rather low, but there was still enough water at the Cathedral to swim just a bit. We did the canyon quickly, because we had to and we were able to. We still had to be cautious as many of the rappels were sandy from lack of measurable precipation in the last couple of days. The last rappel was the sweetest. It is a 100 foot mostly free rappel. I struggled with it because we were using Brian's sixty meter dynamic rope. It went incredibly slowly. There was a huge urge to take my right hand off the rope because it went so slow, but thankfully I did not. We finished with an hour hike out and made it before dark. Very nice to enjoy one of the longest days of the year getting paid in doing a canyon. I just had to figure out a way to do both of those at the same time.

Echo

It was a beautiful summer afternoon. Brian and I had been breaking off a canyon every weekend. This one should be no different. We got our gear together and headed on up the Observation Point trail. We were off to do Echo Canyon and we were without wetsuits. Some would call us crazy, but others would say go for it. And we did! We headed up that trail with a fixed purpose in mind. We found where we had to drop in to the canyon and in no time we were down. It seemed like a breeze and we were veterans by this time of the rap and swim joyful experience. The raps were all so small and easily managed. There were some awkward starts, but we figured them out quickly. We had one long swim around a corner from the drop-in point. Then after that there was the keeper. The only slight problem with the keeper is by that point I was freezing. Brian jumped into the hole without even a thought to his core temperature. Then he expected me to jump in along with him and just get him out. I was standing in the only sunny spot in the whole deep, dark beautiful canyon. He managed to do something amazing which I could not believe, even knowing Brian's ability. He was able to literally thread the needle by stemming the hole and hooking the rope through the rap ring. From there, it was easy enough to pull himself out of the hole. I was able to do the whole thing rather easily, especially after Brian already figured out the hardest problem for us. After that, it was just one rappel and smooth sailing. I could not believe the beauty of this true slot canyon. The most beautiful part is not the technical part, but instead the non-technical part. The cliffs were narrow, yet so dark. We sped through this part to and then popped out near the Observation Point trail. We did one extra section right under the trail, which was a mistake considering all the trash that was in there. We came out on the trail and headed down almost immediately. From shuttle bus to shuttle bus, it was a mere 3 hours. We felt like we were in top form, ready to tackle something big every weekend.

Mystery Solved

Having canyoneered with Brian for a while now, I was ready to go out with someone else as he was gone for the weekend. Vid and Julia had a trip going through Mystery Canyon and I asked if I could tag along. I am sure that Vid was not too excited about it since Julia was a brand new ranger and he and I had never been on a trip together. I was starting to get very confident, though, and was excited to try a new canyon. We got going late. We were supposed to start at eight, but the rangers had some paperwork to get done. We finally got going and it was a hot hike up to Observation Point. We were slowed down more by running into a family with a dog, which made the rangers have to do some rangering. 

To make matters worse, Julia was a rather slow hiker. When we finally got to the drop in point of the canyon, it was already pushing noon. The route in was very steep and broken up. It was slick in places, especially if we wanted to go faster. We were not going to because Julia was going slow and said she could not go any faster. By the time we got to the first rappel, which was a rather large one, it was already late in the day, around 2pm. Julia brought her gun and a sleeping bag, but neglected to bring an ATC. Vid gave her his and he spent the rest of the day rappelling on a brake rack. We pushed our way through with multiple rappels in a row. The order was me first, than Julia, with Vid last. This way Vid could always double check what was going on and I could give a bottom belay. The canyon was beautiful. The slotty sections were really neat and it was so lush. Vid and I started humming the Indiana Jones theme because of all the swinging off of ropes. We got to the slide which was super cool. Right in the middle of this big narrow canyon, there was a huge rockslide that dammed up the dry bed and we had to climb over it. After that, there were only a few more rappels. One of these was a really big one where we had to clip into a rope and traverse across a scary ledge. I still got to go first on this one and it was nerve racking to go off of a ledge without seeing the bottom. The rappel was easy once I got started and halfway down I landed on a big rock. From there, I kept going into a short pool where I got to be freezing cold and belay everyone else. Only thing left to do now was the rappel into the Narrows. I heard that you usually get a crowd of onlookers, but since it was now 7pm, that was not going to happen. We were cold and it was approaching dark. This rappel was monumental for me though, because 6 years earlier when Brian, Jessie, and I had hiked up the Narrows after our Keyhole trip, we saw some canyoneers coming out of Mystery. I remember looking up at them and saying no way would I ever do that. Now here I was being the first one down. I went through a waterfall and balanced myself against the slippery wall. Eventually I was standing in the rushing run-off that was the late spring Virgin River. I gave a bottom belay for Julia and then got to watch Vid come down. We popped out late that night and I was incredibly excited to spend the evening at Watchman 36 with my new girlfriend Jacqueline.