2065toyota
07-28-2014, 07:55 PM
So its the 24th of July holiday weekend.
Zion is going to be packed with tons of people.
I get my 2 kids, one their friends and my buddy Bruce convinced that we need to go do Mis Me canyon. Not that its going to be any kind of epic, but that none of have done, I personally don't know anybody that's done it, and there will be no people. Thanks Luke (bluugnome) for the beta on the canyon.
We choose to be lazy and drive up to East Mesa trail instead of the hike up and start on trail about 9am. We have ropes of 90', 60' w/cord, & 40' w/cord. More than enough for anything we should encounter. The approach is nice, around 30 minutes of slightly downhill. Really nice know, but in the back of my mind I hate car shuttles and am almost wishing we would have just hiked up. We go towards the head of the canyon, look for a good way down. There really isn't one. It looks just like the death gully approach to Mystery, but with no trail or obvious way into it. Makes sense since we are only 1 drainage East of Mystery. So we bushwack, slide, stumble, grab and do whatever we can to head downhill, but without going to fast because there is a pretty good cliffband below.
We finally get into the drainage and wok our way down to the first drop. There is fairly new webbing on a tree, not more that a year old so we tie off the 60' rope and Bruce heads down. Probably should have used the longer one as the rope ended at a ledge, but the rest was down climbable. Got to the second drop, webbing on tree again. Some used the rap line, a couple of us down climbed. The next anchor had a knot chalk. It looked pretty old, maybe it is Luke's original from his first descent. It looks a little worn and sketchy so I give it a little tug and it pops out of the crack. Ya, we good thing we didn't use that one. There is a 4" pine tree LDC, that is a little sketchy to reach, but works perfect with long piece of webbing.
Quite a few more down climbs, body belays, partner assists and we work our way towards Orderville. It ends with a 25-30' rap right into Orderville, which is where we stop for lunch break. This canyon drops you at the perfect spot in Orderville. Within 5 minutes we are at the water and 30 minutes to the Guillotine and last rappel (handline) in Orderville.
About 5 minutes later, the sky darkens and lets loose. We can hear thunder and are watching the lightning strike the upper walls of the Canyon. The tourists in lower Orderville are scrambling to get to higher ground to avoid the impending flash floods. We convince them that it takes a lot of water to flash Orderville and the Narrows and to just keep heading down. It was a nice easy stroll down the Narrows and it rained on us the entire walk. Perfect for this hot July weather. The Riverwalk trail was horrible though with all the people trying to leave and the shuttle station was even worse. There had to be 500 people in line trying to get on the shuttle and I think we had to wait 3-4 full shuttle loads to finally get on.
It ended up being exactly what we had wanted. A remote canyon feel right in the heart of Zion on a packed Holiday weekend. It isn't an Imlay or Heaps and I probably won't do it again, but no regrets at all for the adventure.
Because the canyon rarely gets visited, there are a lot of loose rocks so be careful and wear your helmets
Zion is going to be packed with tons of people.
I get my 2 kids, one their friends and my buddy Bruce convinced that we need to go do Mis Me canyon. Not that its going to be any kind of epic, but that none of have done, I personally don't know anybody that's done it, and there will be no people. Thanks Luke (bluugnome) for the beta on the canyon.
We choose to be lazy and drive up to East Mesa trail instead of the hike up and start on trail about 9am. We have ropes of 90', 60' w/cord, & 40' w/cord. More than enough for anything we should encounter. The approach is nice, around 30 minutes of slightly downhill. Really nice know, but in the back of my mind I hate car shuttles and am almost wishing we would have just hiked up. We go towards the head of the canyon, look for a good way down. There really isn't one. It looks just like the death gully approach to Mystery, but with no trail or obvious way into it. Makes sense since we are only 1 drainage East of Mystery. So we bushwack, slide, stumble, grab and do whatever we can to head downhill, but without going to fast because there is a pretty good cliffband below.
We finally get into the drainage and wok our way down to the first drop. There is fairly new webbing on a tree, not more that a year old so we tie off the 60' rope and Bruce heads down. Probably should have used the longer one as the rope ended at a ledge, but the rest was down climbable. Got to the second drop, webbing on tree again. Some used the rap line, a couple of us down climbed. The next anchor had a knot chalk. It looked pretty old, maybe it is Luke's original from his first descent. It looks a little worn and sketchy so I give it a little tug and it pops out of the crack. Ya, we good thing we didn't use that one. There is a 4" pine tree LDC, that is a little sketchy to reach, but works perfect with long piece of webbing.
Quite a few more down climbs, body belays, partner assists and we work our way towards Orderville. It ends with a 25-30' rap right into Orderville, which is where we stop for lunch break. This canyon drops you at the perfect spot in Orderville. Within 5 minutes we are at the water and 30 minutes to the Guillotine and last rappel (handline) in Orderville.
About 5 minutes later, the sky darkens and lets loose. We can hear thunder and are watching the lightning strike the upper walls of the Canyon. The tourists in lower Orderville are scrambling to get to higher ground to avoid the impending flash floods. We convince them that it takes a lot of water to flash Orderville and the Narrows and to just keep heading down. It was a nice easy stroll down the Narrows and it rained on us the entire walk. Perfect for this hot July weather. The Riverwalk trail was horrible though with all the people trying to leave and the shuttle station was even worse. There had to be 500 people in line trying to get on the shuttle and I think we had to wait 3-4 full shuttle loads to finally get on.
It ended up being exactly what we had wanted. A remote canyon feel right in the heart of Zion on a packed Holiday weekend. It isn't an Imlay or Heaps and I probably won't do it again, but no regrets at all for the adventure.
Because the canyon rarely gets visited, there are a lot of loose rocks so be careful and wear your helmets