Behunin Canyon May 5, 2009

[taatmk]

Myself, two sons, a daughter-in-law, and a brother visited Zion this past week and went down Behunin Canyon on Tuesday, May 5th. Although my married son had college friends who have been down it before, it was the first time for all five of us doing this trip.

We left the Grotto shuttle stop at 8:05 am, and hiked up the West Rim Trail in mostly shade. The Park was much more crowded with hikers than I had anticipated for early May. Most traffic we encountered veered off for a hike up Angel's Landing.

Coming around the north side of Cathedral Mountain, I was surprised to find several patches of snow, including one where the trail crossed it, located just below the final push up to the Behunin pass.

There was a lot of greenery, flowers a blooming and occasional pools of water in the canyon bottom that required side stepping (mostly to the left). By the time we reached the first rappel, there was a good trickle flowing down the four raps there.

Behunin takes some effort just to get to the raps. Not only was the hike up to the pass a good work-out, there was still 45 minutes or so of bushwacking in the stream bed before beginning the raps.

I found this canyon to be very scenic, and particularly enjoyed the first sequence of raps. With my oldest son's wife along (her second Zion canyon ever) we went a rather causal pace. She loves "free-hanging raps" better than wall walking, and particularly had fun at the last one. Nice view all the way down.

From shuttle bus to shuttle bus took bus 11 hours.

[taatmk]

More pictures of Behunin

[Pubalz]

Great pics good times that canyon is on my list to do's for this year

[Wasatch]

What no HELMUTS?

[Felicia]

Very nice pictures. Looks like the weather was wonderful.

[jman]

nice TR looks very green. Good to hear there is still snow.

Questions for ya - it looked like you guys were wearing your harnesses all the way to the top of the canyon, correct? and what was the rope sling around your son's shoulder for, just curious. It looks to short for a pull-cord, although it could be webbing - kinda hard to tell. I ask lots of questions.

[ratagonia]

What no HELMETS?

HEY!!! That's MY department...

What, No Helmets? You guyz hardheaded, or something????

Tom

[ratagonia]

Behunin Notes:

1. Wear helmets. Please...

2. At the first rappel, I like going left along a little ledge to a single bolt. Youze guys went right where Kelsey says, to two bolts on the wall. I thought that rappel was not so good, over two sharp edges, dirty, some loose rock.

3. At the last rappel, there are two anchors, and I see you used both. Really, the bolts and chains under the boulder are the "old" anchor, and you can use for clipping into to get to the "new" anchor, which is out on the face around the corner (webbing and ring). The rope will pull better if you just use the "new" anchor for the rope, and the old anchor as a safety clip in getting to the new anchor.

4. really ought to wear helmets...

Tom

[tanya]

Tom is helmet police... and I am photo police

Try and size the width of your photos no more than 630 pixels and they will fit in the posts. :)

Wonderful shots and trip report!

[gootwan]

2. At the first rappel, I like going left along a little ledge to a single bolt. Youze guys went right where Kelsey says, to two bolts on the wall. I thought that rappel was not so good, over two sharp edges, dirty, some loose rock.

Ever since I did Behunin I always wondered what the consesus here is. We came to the first anchor and , per Tom's book, found three rappel stations: Left ledge, single bolt; High left, off tree; right ledge, two bolt. We chose the right side because 1) had two bolts, unlike the left ledge, and 2) didn't need our pull cord, unlike the tree high left. However, I DID NOT enjoy the traverse to get there. I would've much prefered the single bolt station (although its pretty exposed itself), but I just figured rapping off a single bolt is never a good idea.

So, I'm curious, what do most people do when they get to this spot? Left or Right?

Jordan

[Scott Card]

I go right. When I take folks through that canyon I tie a safety line to the tree at the start of the traverse and then to the anchor. Then everyone clips to the rope and does the traverse. The left seems more exposed to me. Tom is right about the sharp edges and dirt falling on you when you rap. But the third rap through the bushes (unless they are gone now) seemed to also produce a small shower of twigs and junk upon a few less-than-graceful rappelers. Fun canyon. Thanks for posting.

[taatmk]

nice TR looks very green. Good to hear there is still snow.

Questions for ya - it looked like you guys were wearing your harnesses all the way to the top of the canyon, correct? and what was the rope sling around your son's shoulder for, just curious. It looks to short for a pull-cord, although it could be webbing - kinda hard to tell. I ask lots of questions.

Only my son and his wife wore their harnesses on them all the way to the top. He says he prefers the weight on his hips and not in a pack. (He was carrying a 160 meter rope in his pack). My daughter in law was only carrying a camel back water pack, and also prefered to have the weight on on the hips and not on her back. The rest of us had our harnesses in our packs.

Over my sons shoulder was a "sentimental" piece of short rope. He found it on a former canyon trip, something about the first he ever did with his wife, then just a girlfriend, and so has started a tradition now of carrying over his shoulder for short handlines, downclimbs, etc.

He used it once in the canyon to help the wife around a pool in the water course.

Vegetation was very green and eye appealing. There was a trickle of water at the first sequence of raps, and the water trickled all the way down all four of those raps.

As Tanya mentioned to me in an email over on yahoo Groups, the water tricked did get your ropes wet and pulled the descender "grey" stuff off onto your rope, making the rope very dirty.

[taatmk]

2. At the first rappel, I like going left along a little ledge to a single bolt.
Tom

At the first rap, we saw all three options. Some wanted to do it off of the tree high on the left. We had gathered at the lip to eat lunch before the descent, and those that had wanted to do the tree decided against going back up there.

The "shimmy ledge" as we dubbed it to ourselves, was not as bad as it seemed from a distance. There are several rope grooves over the edge of this rap to the right.

Speaking of rope pulls.....
We had no difficulty with any of them. Reading in the guides that it could be an issue, we found them not to be a problem by walking away from the wall. On the longer raps, by walking away from the wall as far as the end of the rope allowed, it gave us no troubles.

The last rap has a little sandy area that we walked over to.....no rope sticking at all when we pulled from there.