Family Reunion in Zion: Pine Creek, Keyhole, Echo, Keyhole, Mystery
We just got home from our family reunion (in Zion this year). We (@Utah Canyoneer and I) took a bunch of cousins, aunts, and uncles through their first canyons. Everyone had a great time.
The videos are all 1 or 2 minutes long (Mystery video is 4 minutes), so hopefully they're not too painful to watch.
On Tuesday, we did Pine Creek with 6 adults and 3 teenagers. We started at 11:00 and finished at 4:00.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va5uYI7T9Z4
Then later we did Keyhole with 12 people. My camera battery died, so no pictures or videos of that trip. It took approximately 2 hours.
On Wednesday, we did Echo with 2 adults and 2 teenagers (Anthony did it without a wetsuit because he forgot his in the truck). We started at 7:15 and finished at 11:45. If we hadn't dropped our rope in upper Echo and had to go back and get it after finishing the canyon, we would have finished the whole canyon in 3 hours flat. This was from the Stave Spring Trailhead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4NJ5uUQYoQ
Wednesday afternoon, we did the Riverside walk and Narrows (bottom-up).
Wednesday night after dinner, we took a second group through Keyhole Canyon. This time we had 4 adults, a teenager, and a six-year-old. It took us 1.5 hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUHOkc-5ph0
On Thursday, we did Mystery Canyon with 5 people. Started hiking from the East Mesa Trailhead at 9:50 and finished the last rappel at 3:20 (5.5 hours). The river flow in the Narrows was low and shallow, but we all floated on our backs down to the riverside walk, with the extra buoyancy from our wetsuits. Then my cousin and I floated down the rest of the river to the shuttle stop while the others walked the trail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRpALr-q1wg