Zion trip report

[moab mark]

Spent 4 days down to Zion. Had a great time. We did Das boots-Subway. Then Keyhole-Pinecreek. The last day we hit Englestead-Orderville. The group thought Eng-ord was the best day. Floating down the virgin was a riot. After the fact and looking at the pictures probably should of kept our helmets on.

http://picasaweb.google.com/markimsmith/ZionJune2009#

Tried to pair it down to just a few but picasa for some reason will not let you have two public albums with the same pictures? So there are quite a few pics.
Mark

[Deathcricket]

Some great pics in there! This one cracked me up.

[Cirrus2000]

Excellent collection of photos! Thanks for posting the link - now tell us more about your trip! :2thumbs:

:popcorn:

[moab mark]

We stayed at Desert Pearl Inn, that is a nice place. Highly recommend it. The price is steep but nice. That was the first time other then myself and son that any of our group had done any of those canyons. Monday we did Das Boots Subway. I had never done Das Boots the water was butt cold. In just those blue thermal gloves it hurt your hands. 4/3 wetsuits were enough. None of the girls were cold. Suprising how much warmer the subway water is. That picture of the snake is in Das Boots,luckily it was dead or I would of gone back up. I hate Snakes. Tom says it is a king snake? The subway section is amazing. But I would like a chair lift installed at the red falls. That hike out the bottom never ends.

On tuesday we dropped into Keyhole about 9:30, the weather was looking rainy so we booked. That is a fun little canyon. Hopped in a pick up and headed right to Pinecreek. Pinecreek was as full as I had seen it. No matter how many times I do that last rappel it gets my attention. Started to rain on us as we were about to the swimming hole. Those two canyons combined are hard to beat.

Wednesday hit Englestead-Orderville. Used Shane's beta along with Tom's and got lost going in? Had the GPS coord. for the drop but my gps was not playing along? Started down the wrong drainage. One to the west. Got to the edge and knew something was wrong. Regrouped kicked the gps and figured out where to go. When you first walk up on that drop I thought what in the $%^& are we doing here. Rigged off of the big pine tree, amazing rappel. Oh we hired a neighbor kid who was in St. George to hike down and haul our rope out and then take our truck back to town. That's the way to do Englestead. Only had to haul 2 120's. I had heard there was some snow but never expected anything like what was there. It was awesome. The kids thought it was a riot climbing over and under etc. When we got to the narrows the flow was pretty high and we probably only walked a 1/4 mile. Floated the rest.

We only saw a few people in Subway and the usual crowd in the narrows. Other than that never saw a human.

On the whole great trip. Wanted to stay a few more days but most of the group was pretty worn out. So we headed home. Zion is hard to beat.

Mark

[Bo_Beck]

We stayed at Desert Pearl Inn, that is a nice place. Highly recommend it. The price is steep but nice. That was the first time other then myself and son that any of our group had done any of those canyons. Monday we did Das Boots Subway. I had never done Das Boots the water was butt cold. In just those blue thermal gloves it hurt your hands. 4/3 wetsuits were enough. None of the girls were cold. Suprising how much warmer the subway water is. That picture of the snake is in Das Boots,luckily it was dead or I would of gone back up. I hate Snakes. Tom says it is a king snake? The subway section is amazing. But I would like a chair lift installed at the red falls. That hike out the bottom never ends. Mark

Pamela, Brittany, Andy, Clayton and I hiked Das Boot/ Subway on Wednesday! I came around the corner and that same King Snake gave me a startle too! Poor fella must have been trying to escape the pothole and got to the top of the log with nowhere to go! Yeah...the water temps from Das Boot to Subway were really noticeably different!

[Scott Card]

Thanks for the TRs. I loved the snow photos in Englestead. Also, I love when the water is high in the narrows. Floating is the only way to go. :2thumbs: