The Left Fork (Subway) Top Down 08/20
Thought I would give a quick report of our trip down the Subway on 08/20. This is the first time I had the opportunity to do this hike and I was very eager to see this marvelous canyon but a bit worried that the huge rain we had on Wednesday night (08/18) had left the canyon muddy and murky.
We had permits for Orderville Canyon the day before but decided not to go due to the flash flood warning. Because of the warning, I had to wait until 8 hours after it expired to get my Subway permit. I now understand why so many people are critical of the permit system after standing in line over an hour. After our hike we decided to sit through the 15 minute video to get set up for the express permit system and will definitely take advantage of that next time.
The route down to the subway was fairly easy to start and fairly well marked where needed with Cairns. The final down climb into Russell Gulch was a bit tricky carrying all my gear but not too difficult. We noticed immediately a lot of sand movement from the previous rain.
My hiking partners were Tracy (DSTRBD) and my friends Paul, Susan and Terry. All of us are in our late 30's to early 50's and most of us were in good shape for the hike. Had we not had the earlier rain and done the Orderville hike (12 miles) the day before, we may not have had the energy to do this hike since it ended up being harder than expected. For out of towner's like us, it's difficult scheduling a day of easy hiking in between the longer hikes using the Zion Lottery system!
As we progressed through Russell Gulch and into the left fork there was considerable water flow and as I had feared, very muddy. We got to the first obstacle and down climbed it using a hand line / chimneying down the right side of the bolder. To me, this was the hardest obstacle to face as it had an awkward angle and required a bit of contortion! We started to enter the narrower sections of the Left Fork and there were obvious signs that it had flashed on Wednesday night. A lot of pushed over grasses and small trees all along the bank.
The swims had a lot of sand in the bottom and we could walk through all but one. The bowling ball chock stone was about 2-1/2 feet above the water which I understand is not the normal height. Still, this was a lot of fun and my friends who had never seen any info on the Subway were very amazed at the sights and what they were required to go through (yes, I warned them).
When we reached the Narrows section, Tracy let out a gasp of astonishment and noted that the last swim right before the Subway was gone! Indeed it was full of sand and we walked across it in ankle deep water. It was very disappointing for me after seeing all of the pictures of pristine emerald pools of water and algae that a photographer does these hikes for. It was a muddy hike for most of the trip and the water didn't actually start to clear until well after the actual Subway section.
Still, the rock formations were very impressive and I did what I could to salvage a good shot. The falls and water running through the slot in the rock looked great though, and I did manage to take some nice shots there. We learned that sliding down the waterfall that you see everyone do on Youtube may not be a great idea if you hit it wrong! My friend Paul had a bruised tail bone from hitting a very bumpy spot! I down climbed to set up my camera but missed the stupid human trick!
We continued down the water course crossing the stream many times and I was amazed that there was still so much hiking left to do after the Subway section. My friend Terry was really having a hard time with all of the up and down over small and large rocks and crossing the stream so we stopped to get some food and electrolytes in her system. We started to run into the bottom up hikers about 45 minutes to an hour after the Subway, everyone asking "How much further?" When we got to the final climb out of the canyon we looked up and my first thought was "I could have sworn I read that it was only a 400 foot elevation gain. That looks like more than a thousand!" The Hike out in the hot sun is grueling! Make sure you have plenty of water. All of us in our group had agreed that the people doing the bottom up route had it harder and miss a lot of great sights.
I'll try and post some pics as soon as I get them processed. Will definitely have to go back after the water washes some of that sand away. I need to find the best time of the day for photo's as the sun was a bit too harsh in mid afternoon. Overall it was a good trip but a bit disappointing for me. We did Mystery Canyon the following week and it ended up being the highlight of my trip.
Hopefully Tracy will chime in with some additional comments.
