Neon & Choprock

[boxbarr]

Hi guys,

We are a couple from Israel, and we sought information on Zion NP slots about a month ago, and indeed we got from you helpful info (we also published a thread with pics from a Jordanian canyon).

We arrived in Zion 8 days ago, and up until now we did 7 WONDERFUL canyons (Echo, The Narrows from the top, Keyhole, Mystery, Ordervile, Pine Creek, Das Boot + Subway). Today we are resting and in the next 2 days we plan to do Spry and Fat man's Misery canyons.

Afterwards we gonna move to Escalante, and we wanted to inquire about the current conditions of Neon & Choprock.

1. Neon - we read above that the KPH is OK now, so we understand that it will stay like that also next week - are we guessing right ?

2. Choprock - (a) is the water level (too) high?
(b) how much time each section (happy / grim / etc.) should take ?

3. We thought about parking our car in Egypt trailhead, and camping for 2 nights in the confluence of Escalante and Fence rivers, while we are doing Neon & Choprock. Is it usually safe to leave our car (at Egypt TH) and our tent (at the confluence) like that ?

Thanks a lot,
Yoram & Michal

[CarpeyBiggs]

1 - KPH should be fine now in neon, yes. but be prepared. water level changes quickly in neon.

2 - Chop is high water, yes. Without knowing your skill level, its hard to say if it will be difficult or not. there is one difficult upclimb that in high water can be very difficult. Also, Ram reports that there is some more floating organic debris in there. No new jams, just stuff to fish through. I would plan on 8-10 hours from fence camp through the canyon and back. I would leave at first light for choprock. the riparian section takes maybe 60-90 minutes. happy takes 120 minutes. grim (if you want to call it that?) will take maybe 2 hours-ish. walk back to camp is maybe an hour. two hours to route find to the top of the slot.

Leaving a car at egypt is safe. just keep valuables out of view. camp will be fine at the confluence.

[ratagonia]

1 - KPH should be fine now in neon, yes. but be prepared. water level changes quickly in neon.

2 - Chop is high water, yes. Without knowing your skill level, its hard to say if it will be difficult or not. there is one difficult upclimb that in high water can be very difficult. Also, Ram reports that there is some more floating organic debris in there. No new jams, just stuff to fish through. I would plan on 8-10 hours from fence camp through the canyon and back. I would leave at first light for choprock. the riparian section takes maybe 60-90 minutes. happy takes 120 minutes. grim (if you want to call it that?) will take maybe 2 hours-ish. walk back to camp is maybe an hour. two hours to route find to the top of the slot.

Leaving a car at egypt is safe. just keep valuables out of view. camp will be fine at the confluence.

Report from Ram last week is that Choprock is in quite difficult conditions - experts only, strong teams. Water levels are high, and much debris in the canyon. Some quite hard upclimbs from swimming. Caution advised, You will also need full wetsuits so to stay warm while trying to accomplish the difficult exits. Neon will indicate water level in Choprock (usually) but does not have the inverted V problems of Choprock. Please see:

http://canyoneeringusa.com/utah/esca/chop.php

Be mighty careful out there!

Tom

[mmac]

Neon was extremely full this past weekend. Both keepers were completely gone (underwater). We could sit on the lip of the first one, the lip of the second was a good 5 feet below the water line (I'm 5'11" and could barely touch it swimming). Very long swims in several places. I was fairly comfortable in a layered 3/2 shorty under another 3/2 full wetsuit.

[boxbarr]

Thank you all, it seems that we'll do Neon but skip Choprock this time...

[jhillock]

Did Neon 9/11 and it was full. All keepers well under water. Road to Egypt trailhead was in good shape. I was able to get my 2 wheel drive saturn out there.