Echo canyon - ZION

[nkanarik]

Six of us did Echo canyon on 5/28/14. All the pools were cold and dirty. Wet suits are highly recommended, but not a must. I've done most of the canyon without wet suit, but had to put one towards the end, since the group was moving slowly. I thought the canyon was beautiful, and was interesting from a team work and basic problem solving perspective. Canyon description calls for a 30' longest rappel, but we had one that was ~40' (maybe because we entered in a different spot?)...anyhow...we were happy we carried our 100' rope :).

Side note...one of our guys broke his fibula bone ~20 minutes from the end of the narrow canyon, as we were in between three adjacent potholes and the third pothole had a nasty dead rabbit/opossum in it. My friend was there for about a minute or two trying to figure out how to enter the pothole (swimmer), and I was right behind him shivering...I told him that I'm counting to 10 and one way or another he's going to be in the water by the time I'm done counting...he then jumped to the edge of the pothole instead of towards the middle in order to bypass the dead animal, and when doing so he twisted his ankle and broke his fibula bone (the wall on the edge of the pothole was straight above water, but curved inwards in ~45d underwater, where he couldn't see it). We immediately switched to emergency mode...at the time, we didn't know if it was a broken bone or not...we splinted his leg with a SAM splint, a few runners, and a duct tape. Two of us went ahead to scout the canyon (had to kill one snake on their way), and two of us helped carrying our wounded friend under our shoulders. we also found two thick branches, which were used as crutches, combination of the two above and our friend carrying himself at times (as well as one downclimb with meat anchor) got us out of the canyon in ~1.5 hrs from when he was injured. It took us ~4 hrs. to go down the weeping rock trail-head, and then we drove (the two guys managed to get white pass so we can park our truck at the trail-head) to Dixie medical center at St. George...as soon as they saw him (a week long beard, wet suit, SAM splint with runners and duct tape), they asked us if we were canyoneering :)

Our friend is well, and is waiting for the swelling to go down for further evaluation.
Be safe out there and come prepared!!!
...
Moral of the story

[skunkteeth]

Nice job with the self rescue!

[TommyBoy]

Moral, don't ever jump until you have at least one down to check out whats under the water. Even if you've done the canyon before and "know" that its a jumper. A flash flood could have washed a log down that is just waiting to skewer the unwary jumper.

[2065toyota]

X2


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Brian in SLC]

Two of us went ahead to scout the canyon (had to kill one snake on their way)...

Sorry to hear about...








...the snake!

Ha ha.

Good story. Except for the murdering of the innocent...

Way to self rescue!

[Scott P]

Why did you have to kill the snake? Was it a rattler and you couldn't get around it?

[Bootboy]

A countdown? "You're going in either way." That seems like an effective way to approach canyon obstacles...

Killing snakes, pressuring friends into bad decisions... Sounds a bit canyonista to me.


LNT

[ratagonia]

Wow! Lots of "Don't Do This" in this TR - but the unforgivable is killing a snake. WTF? Makes me very sad.

And you left his wetsuit on for the whole ordeal? THAT is crazy.

Maybe you guys should take up... water polo? Facebooking? Competitive pie-eating???

[WorkBad]

Thanks for the courage to talk about your bad decisions on an online forum. I hope your companion has a speedy recovery. With that said, it sounds like more preparation for this canyon was needed. Maybe selecting a better suited canyon tailored to the groups abilities? If you are leading canyons, take a group that is more manageable in size so that time is less of an issue. Also I think gaining a respect for nature is a good thing for everyone to have, killing animals in a canyon isn't cool. Echo holds some of the coldest water in all of Zion. I believe bringing better exposure suits would have been a good idea allowing everyone time to slow down and enjoy the experience, not leap from heights into the unknown. I've made my mistakes but echo isn't that extreme, people shouldn't be breaking their legs in there. A good learning experience, thanks for sharing.

[hank moon]

we also found two thick branches, which were used as crutches

Echo Game Tip #22: find thick branch to move dead animal before counting to 10 and killing the innocent serpent in a National Park.

Great story and thanks for posting. No rescue pix?

[ratagonia]

Thanks for the courage to talk about your bad decisions on an online forum. I hope your companion has a speedy recovery. With that said, it sounds like more preparation for this canyon was needed. Maybe selecting a better suited canyon tailored to the groups abilities? If you are leading canyons, take a group that is more manageable in size so that time is less of an issue. Also I think gaining a respect for nature is a good thing for everyone to have, killing animals in a canyon isn't cool. Echo holds some of the coldest water in all of Zion. I believe bringing better exposure suits would have been a good idea allowing everyone time to slow down and enjoy the experience, not leap from heights into the unknown. I've made my mistakes but echo isn't that extreme, people shouldn't be breaking their legs in there. A good learning experience, thanks for sharing.

Except that Middle Echo is very much a beginner canyon.

less snarky / more serious comments:

- many injuries occur with people trying to stay dry or out of icky water. See recent trip report regarding people who almost rapped off a twig in Orderville to avoid a pool...

Near the end of Orderville there is a awkward DC into a deep pool. While I was being the meat anchor to let my friends down easy, one of the daughters was getting hypothermic and I guess she told her dad, “I would rather die than swim through another pool". So they had climbed the slope on canyon left looking for a way around. My friend spotted him getting ready to lower her approx 30ft off a dead small tree. He stopped them and told them to wait. I then climbed up to assist. When I got there they had found a nice anchor already rigged on a tree. The slope was steep and loose, but not vertical. So again, the lowering was mostly an assist and also spotted them from below.

Canyoneering involves getting wet and wading through icky water.

- as an impatient person, I can empathize with you. I too am especially grumpy when cold. But peer-pressuring some dude into doing something stupid is not cool.

- killing snakes, again, not cool. I have no idea why someone would be so douchey as to do that.

(Many, many facepalms...)

You do, however, demonstrate my thesis that people bring accidents upon themselves (rather than "that poop just happens").

[Taylor]

Ouch! Stop pushing your friends into potholes.

You do, however, demonstrate my thesis that people bring accidents upon themselves (rather than "that poop just happens").

Agreed. This is why we need to eradicate the word "accident" from our language and replace it with "mistakes were made".

[ratagonia]

Agreed. This is why we need to eradicate the word "accident" from our language and replace it with "mistakes were made".

"mistakes were made" - the ultimate avoidance of responsibility.

"I made a mistake" = manning up.

T

[hikster11]

I went through over memorial weekend and there is no way I would consider doing this canyon without a wetsuit. That water is very cold and your in and out of it often. When I saw that dead rabbit I used a stick to push it away. Hope your friend as a quick recovery.

[nkanarik]

Some clarifications...
1. The jump was a 1' jump from a sitting position, nothing big, and he was the 4th in line to jump...just took a different angle than others (which was a mistake, and I take full responsibility for him rushing the entry to the water).
2. all of us had 5mm wetsuits, so cold wasn't a real issue.
3. Group size and time - also wasn't an issue as we we started the hike early that morning, and we were going in a fairly fast pace until the injury (there was another 4 person group that we met near the technical canyon entry point, and they caught up with us right at the end of the slot canyon.)
4. About the snake, while I agree with the comment about not having to kill it...the two folks who scouted the canyon for us, were not familiar with the type of snake, and didn't want us to deal with it when we have an injured person through that narrow section, so made a "better safe than sorry" decision, which I stand behind it in this circumstances.


I believe we have some pictures from the go pro...will wait until I have them to post.

I do appreciate all the feedback, and take responsibility for unnecessary countdown! (...a habit I have from pressuring my kids to complete something after asking them a 100 times (at their age, counting still works...for those of you who have young kids :)))

[whansen]

It really doesn't take much to break an ankle. My first canyon back from breaking my fibula was Echo on Memorial weekend. It was a great canyon. That rabbit was pretty stinky. Hope he can avoid surgery and have a fast recovery.

[Scott P]

About the snake, while I agree with the comment about not having to kill it...the two folks who scouted the canyon for us, were not familiar with the type of snake, and didn't want us to deal with it when we have an injured person through that narrow section, so made a "better safe than sorry" decision, which I stand behind it in this circumstances.

If it was a rattlesnake, it would have been very obvious and rattlesnakes are the only potentially dangerous snake in the park. In other words, whatever your party killed was a completely harmless snake. Absolutely deplorable and disgusting.

Perhaps some might not be sympathetic towards snakes, but if you are in a national park, you should really leave the wildlife alone and should definitely not kill it. This is true of bighorn sheep, and even "lesser" animals such as squirrels and snakes. Sorry, but this is not appropriate national park behavior.

[Iceaxe]

I've done Echo at least 25 times and always carried a 60' rope, which was more than enough for all the rappels in the canyon. I'd be interested in knowing where you encountered a 40' rappel?

Tap'n on my Galaxy G3

[nkanarik]

I don't have coordinates of the 40' rappel. The ~40' rappel was right at the beginning and I might have pictures of it (will know in ~a week). At the ledge of the drop, there were two jammed rocks, which we used for anchor; below the rappel there was a small puddle and a fork to the right. The other party came from the right fork. Also, before the 40' drop there was a deep dry pothole, which we could have continued straight/right through a very narrow crack with a jammed log, but instead chose to use partner assist and take the left option to get out of the pothole.

[Iceaxe]

Did you actually measure or are you just guessing? As I mentioned, I've done that canyon over two dozen times in every configuration and option imaginable and never carry anything other than a 60' rope.

Here is a video of the full Echo with every rappel shown.



I know Tom and I have both had this canyon beta'd since the 90's and both of us list 30' max rappel. I'm guessing we would have caught hell at some point if our beta was wrong.