3 injured in Zion National Park flash flood

[blueeyes]

wow

[Iceaxe]

How in the hell do you get flashed in Spry?!?!?

The canyon has a very small collection area, several hundred safe places to hole up, and it has to rain really hard directly on top of you...

Hint... when it's raining cats and dog on your head find a safe place to sit for the next 30 minutes.... Commonsense people... its not that difficult.

[Pubalz]

Im glad someone said it

How in the hell do you get flashed in Spry?!?!?

The canyon has a very small collection area, several hundred safe places to hole up, and it has to rain really hard directly on top of you...

Hint... when it's raining cats and dog on your head find a safe place to sit for the next 30 minutes.... Commonsense people... its not that difficult.

[nelsonccc]

It looks like where they are watching the flash flood is after the last canyon proper rap and before the lambs tongue rap. Why would they stay so close? That is a wide open canyon at that point and it seems like they could just walk up and away from it. weird.

Have to agree with shane. There are only a few spots in Spry that I don't have escape options. Why would you allow yourself to get caught in one of those spots when it has been cloudy and undoubtly raining long before the flash?

[trackrunner]

part 2

[Scott Card]

Oh please don't sign your name on that rock. Can you imagine the thread that will start.

Thanks for posting the videos. Great stuff.

[stefan]

Oh please don't sign your name on that rock. Can you imagine the thread that will start.
.

[ratagonia]

How in the hell do you get flashed in Spry?!?!?

The canyon has a very small collection area, several hundred safe places to hole up, and it has to rain really hard directly on top of you...

Hint... when it's raining cats and dog on your head find a safe place to sit for the next 30 minutes.... Commonsense people... its not that difficult.

Is a lack of generosity your theme this month, Shane?

The storms have been coming in from the north. It is entirely possible that the canyon was already flashing before rain fell upon the people involved. While Spry has a "relatively small" collection zone, it is still quite large, and the intensity of this storm was obviously quite high. From the video, you can see that the canyon "went big" for an extended period of time.

Spry is a "dropper". AND has very little water-holding capacity. And two large collection bowls up top. A flash flood would progress very quickly through the canyon, especially leading into the part where the people got caught, near the end.

In heavy rain, places that people do not usually identify as "watercourses" become watercourses, possibly to the point of being untenable as a place to sit or stand, even allowing for some discomfort. Heavy rain also tends to knock rocks off the walls, further limiting choices of what may constitute safe places.

The parties caught were caught at the final rappel sequence. Having not been flashed in the canyon (perhaps Sonny can weigh in, but he was caught somewhat higher up), from my luxurious armchair, it is hard to speculate accurately as to where safe ground would be easy to reach. Sounds like there were two parties involved, and as many as 8 people. Group dynamics and inter-group dynamics in an emergency situation can contribute to making the situation more difficult still. People may make sensible choices about moving to a "safe place", only to find that the magnitude of the flash overwhelms their safe place, and that moving to a better safe place is no longer possible.

Etc.

Sometimes, even when doing a good job of managing risks, an act of God overwhelms. I consider Spry a pretty-good place to go canyoneering in threatening weather, but disaster is still possible, obviously.

But it's OK Ice, I still value your opinion as representing the pompous ass end of the spectrum.

Tom

[Iceaxe]

I was being nice.... What's the deal? you need me to interpret for you again? OK... for those who ride the short bus..... and Tom.....

You have to be a retard to get flashed in Spry....


You can always go sit under a rock like the guys in the video. Obviously they were smart enough to figure out what was coming and find safety.

[bshwakr]

__

[ratagonia]

I agree with most of the facts that you presented. I would only add that it's the human element here that I don't fully understand. Many...MANY canyoneers overestimate their skills. But in Spry, there are places in the last 1/8 mile to hide out, including at the dogleg before the last 3 raps. I would consider it a mistake if they overestimated their skills by thinking that they could outrun a flashflood when it started to rain.

It's complicated. How many people were there? Where exactly? Skill levels? Fear levels? How much indecision was there? What was actually happening AT the moment? I doubt they thought they could "outrun a flash flood".

It may or may not have been raining hard when they got hit by the flood. Or for very long. The rain falling on them is not what caused the flash flood - the rain falling REALLY REALLY HARD in the basin above them is what caused the flash flood.

I think all involved would admit that mistakes were made. Without knowing what knowledge they had when key decisions were made, it is hard to say whether we would have made the same decision given the same information.

Thus, assuming that they are "retards" is rather... amazingly ungenerous. As in asinine, of you, Shane.

Tom

[bshwakr]

__

[nonot]

Our group popped out of Telephone (well ran out) as soon as we started seeing that storm roll in. Telephone faced at the right angle where that could be observed, I don't think the folks in Spry could have seen it coming.

It came in from the east and stayed on the south end of the park. The storm moved in very quick and dropped tons of rain. You couldn't see more than about 100 ft in the places it was really raining hard. In the beginning there wasn't much thunder or lightning, I really didn't hear thunder until the storm would have already soaked Spry and was dousing the campground areas pretty good.

We saw the helicopters working that afternoon and night to get those guys out and to help.

Met SAR member/park ranger Dan Hovanec in Pine Creek 3 days later that essentially confirmed what happened that was described on the nationalparkstraveler website. They climbed up the erosion slope to go get them. Choppers helped ferry them back. Met some other guys in Subway the next day who had gotten trapped in Lodge with no injuries for a few hours, if they weren't where they were when they were they said they would have died as there was almost no warning.

The chance of rain and thunderstorms was posted at 30% on all the park bulletins. There were just a few cloud wisps from 6AM to noon. We started seeing clouds at 1PM and the storm must have hit them about 1:30PM, right as we exited telephone. The same forecast existed for the next day and the day after. Tuesday it was 40%. It rained Saturday and Monday, on Tuesday there were storms in the area but we left before any came close to reaching the park.

[ratagonia]

1:30 PM - wow, that's pretty early!

Tom

[nonot]

Hmmm, Please note all my times are AZT, you Utah'ns will have to add an hour.

[accadacca]

Wow! Crazy.

[nat]

Is a lack of generosity your theme this month, Shane?

The storms have been coming in from the north. It is entirely possible that the canyon was already flashing before rain fell upon the people involved. While Spry has a "relatively small" collection zone, it is still quite large, and the intensity of this storm was obviously quite high. From the video, you can see that the canyon "went big" for an extended period of time.

Spry is a "dropper". AND has very little water-holding capacity. And two large collection bowls up top. A flash flood would progress very quickly through the canyon, especially leading into the part where the people got caught, near the end.

In heavy rain, places that people do not usually identify as "watercourses" become watercourses, possibly to the point of being untenable as a place to sit or stand, even allowing for some discomfort. Heavy rain also tends to knock rocks off the walls, further limiting choices of what may constitute safe places.

The parties caught were caught at the final rappel sequence. Having not been flashed in the canyon (perhaps Sonny can weigh in, but he was caught somewhat higher up), from my luxurious armchair, it is hard to speculate accurately as to where safe ground would be easy to reach. Sounds like there were two parties involved, and as many as 8 people. Group dynamics and inter-group dynamics in an emergency situation can contribute to making the situation more difficult still. People may make sensible choices about moving to a "safe place", only to find that the magnitude of the flash overwhelms their safe place, and that moving to a better safe place is no longer possible.

Etc.

Sometimes, even when doing a good job of managing risks, an act of God overwhelms. I consider Spry a pretty-good place to go canyoneering in threatening weather, but disaster is still possible, obviously.

But it's OK Ice, I still value your opinion as representing the pompous ass end of the spectrum.

Tom

Wow, Tom being generous to people caught in trouble in a canyon?! Almost implying it was bad luck? That must be a first!

Nice to see the sympathetic, human side.

Nat

[ratagonia]

Wow, Tom being generous to people caught in trouble in a canyon?! Almost implying it was bad luck? That must be a first!

Nice to see the sympathetic, human side.

Nat

Thanks Nat. Just goes to show, even old dogs can learn new tricks...

[thedesertnomad]

I will say that the storms we have been getting have been short lived, but very intense. I originally thought the same thing... Spry, flashed, WTF?!? I have seen Spry go big before, but nothing like that day. I (and many many others) have always thought about running Keyhole during flashy conditions, but after this past Saturday I may be reconsidering... Horrible audio, water spots all over the camera, and the battery died really quickly, but this is video of Keyhole after 7 minutes of light to moderate rain 2 days ago -





Bill

[Cirrus2000]

I will say that the storms we have been getting have been short lived, but very intense. I originally thought the same thing... Spry, flashed, WTF?!? I have seen Spry go big before, but nothing like that day. I (and many many others) have always thought about running Keyhole during flashy conditions, but after this past Saturday I may be reconsidering... Horrible audio, water spots all over the camera, and the battery died really quickly, but this is video of Keyhole after 7 minutes of light to moderate rain 2 days ago -





Bill

Damn, that's cool, Bill! You need to keep the battery charged up better... Where exactly was that, just above the culvert/tunnel? Love the flow/flood videos.