Arch Canyon

Guest Post by Mommy:

This Saturday I had the delightful opportunity to do Arch Canyon with my dad, mom and brother Eric. I do like canyoneering I just haven't been in quite awhile due to having two small children. I had a rough couple of days at the end of my week so instead of passing off the opportunity to Pete as I usually do, I jumped at the chance to go with my dad. Normally most of the canyons we do are over in Zion but this one drops in to Snow Canyon right at Johnson's Arch. The trail out is actually closed seasonally which makes this weekend one of the last in the year that you can do this one legally.

Well we dropped off a truck at the bottom of Snow Canyon and then drove up to the start point. We hopped out as it approached 10:30 in the morning and there was a little breeze making it kind of chilly. We had all been hoping for a very warm spring day. We got to where you can see the drainage that we were going to drop in to and my dad kind of stopped and started looking around. He had gone through with the Snow Canyon rangers and local climbing association to bolt the anchors for all the rappels last year and had done the canyon. Mom and Eric had been at the top part of it looking at the petroglyphs that exist in the area but what gave my dad was pause was that he saw water. Running water. He had told us that we might get wet on the second to last rappel but that he was hoping he could go down first and maybe help us avoid it. He had however thrown in wet suits for all of us just in case. Well he has never seen running water at the beginning of this canyon. This meant there was a lot more water than he had been anticipating.



After a little bit of waffling around, I told everyone that I was all in and would be up for an adventure. My mom was really the only hold out as she was already cold and didn't want to get any colder. But she was also willing to push forward for the adventure We headed a little bit of the way in to the drainage and decide to just suit up because the first little down climb/possible rappel already had a pool of water at the bottom. I must take a moment and say that my thighs are a little more meaty than most in my family and the wet suit ordeal was almost comical.



We had to kind of lower ourselves in to the first pool and man was it COLD! My feet were immediately pins and needles! Eric opted not to do a wet suit and was pins and needles all through his legs.



After the first little pools though we walked out in to just damp sand. The canyon is beautiful and quite open and not too technical so it was very enjoyable. We even got to laughing about how the wet suits seemed a little silly except for those first moments in the water. Little did we know that my dad was keeping quiet about what was to come.



The next couple rappels had water but one you could jump over the pool and the other never got more than thigh deep. I wish this picture showed a more lithe and graceful me but the wet suit isn't very flattering and I wasn't a very graceful rappeler.



Then we reached the second to last rappel. Mom and Dad were setting it up and Mom said that she could see water at the bottom and we heard a splash as the rope hits the pool. This was the rappel Dad had been expecting water. The last rappel that had water thigh deep had been bone dry the last time he had done it. He went down first and it felt like it took him forever before he told Mom to come down after him. Eric and I sat up at the top shivering as a breeze kind of whipped through the canyon. We waited and waited and finally Mom told us she's off rappel and I started to get on rappel when we heard what I thought was a strange noise. I asked Eric "What's that sound?" and he looks at me kind of woodenly and says "That's the sound of kicking...she's swimming." SWIMMING? The water up to this point has all been around 38 degrees...SWIMMING?! I got over the hump of the rappel and saw the 20 yard plus pool of water and realized I had to swim it. To make it worse, I had to rappel down to a very tiny spot and wedge myself in while we transferred my dry clothes in to a dry bag. And then I just basically had to drop myself in chest deep in freezing water and start swimming. I had on a Farmer John wet suit which means no ARM COVERAGE. I swam like crazy and felt like I was getting no where and that I wasn't going to make it! Luckily my instructions were to get to the sun. Mom was waiting for me and I stripped off my pack and the top of the wet suit and kind of soaked in the sun. Just to show you how crazy it was, this is what Dad and Eric looked like wedged in at the bottom of the rappel.



I post this next picture only to show you how desperate we were to get warm and how good the sun felt. I also obviously need to start laying out or fake baking as I actually reflect the flash!



We all survived and warmed up nicely. The final rappel was quite beautiful and we had people watching us come down. My dad got applause. It's quite a long rappel and I felt small because I had to work to make the rope go through my rappel device. I'm actually sore today from just that I think.




We changed out of our wet suits and started the small hike towards the truck. The truck we parked at the bottom. The one I was responsible for. Which is why my dad asked me if I had the key to the truck. And funny enough I had left it in the truck at the top, totally defeating the purpose of taking two vehicles. Luckily we had cell phone service at that point and I made a phone call to Pete to come get us. It took us almost two hours longer to do the canyon than Dad had expected but we did it and we had fun!