Spry Canyon, Zion (pictures)

[price1869]

TR – Spry

Spry was a great little canyon to do as a warm up for Imlay. Sam, Summers and I headed down on Thursday night, arriving at the zion campgrounds around 2:30 AM. We crashed briefly in the RV campground, Site C02 I believe. The plants sure flourish in that area. Crazy. We got up late (8:00) and paid for the site and went and got permits for Spry and Imlay.

We headed into town and ate breakfast at the Spotted Dog. Not too bad. Not too expensive. I’d recommend it. I bought some super glue to fix my 5:10 Canyoneers at the general store by the theater. It actually worked quite nicely since the entire sole was ready to detach. So, for everyone out there with Canyoneers, use superglue.

We took no wetsuits. we had a 70 foot rope, a 200' rope and a 60' rope. Sam wore his helmet, I wore my hair. The canyon does require complete technical gear. I would recommend reading Shane's description and following it very well. http://www.climb-utah.com/Zion/spry.htm

We proceeded to drive to the trailhead, and actually got hiking around 11:00 AM. HOT!! The hike up is a little brutal, but not the worst. There is just that one saddle that is really a pain. The bugs were pretty bad down in the bottom of the ravine. We rested for a few minutes before the first rappel. It’s a 45 degreer, and not too hard, but a rope is necessary. If you’re going to canyoneer, learn a biner block using a clove hitch. It will save your ass at times.





We continued down the canyon. I was a little disappointed that the canyon never really slotted up for very long. My disappointment was overcome by the fact that we just played and had a lot of fun the whole way through. The rappels were very entertaining as well. We practiced some hook placement on one rappel. Everyone was belayed by a separate rope as they went down on the hooks, but the second rope was not engaged.





We decided to do the final, optional rappel after the end of the canyon. We like to rappel. After boulder hopping our way down, we swam in the pools at the end of the hike. Only a couple tourists were there, so it was quite relaxing. Sam went to get the car and Summers and I stayed behind and swam and ate cactus.



After about 45 minutes, Summers and I decided to hike out to the road and see if Sam had any luck hitching a ride up to the car. No dice. Sam was getting irate sitting out there with every truck driving tourist shrugging his shoulders and driving on by. Zion seems to be a misnomer. No good Samaritans that day. Finally a Japanese couple stopped to take some pictures and Summers convinced them to take him through the tunnel up to the car.


This is me, waiting in the hot sun for a ride.

Overall, Spry was a super fun canyon. The rappels are great, the hiking is not too tough, and the swim at the bottom is very nice. Downsides: Not a lot of slotting, and getting a ride was a pain. That’s another canyon with a check.

[rockgremlin]

I've always wondered about Spry. Thanks for the TR! Very entertaining! Great pics too! Keep em comin!!

I noticed you mentioned you were also doing Imlay. How did that go? I did Imlay about 5 weeks ago, and it was really wet -- no hooking required. When Imlay is full it's a blast! Rap, swim, climb out, repeat!

[price1869]

patience my son,

I'm working on a TR for imlay. It was actually really dry, but we thought it would be more of a challenge. Took us less than 10 hours from bus stop to bus stop and we messed around a lot.

Price

[Sombeech]

Nice report. You guys are busy! I wish I could attack all of these places with you guys. One more semester...

[tanya]

[ The rappels were very entertaining as well. We practiced some hook placement on one rappel.]

This sums up Spry perfectly. It's not a pretty canyon but it has some odd rappels that give it interest. Birch Hollow is another that is quite entertaining but it slots up and is very beautiful. Nice Trip Report

http://www.zionnational-park.com