Today was the highlight of the trip for me. After some early morning setbacks, we strolled down overgrown logging roads in the bottom of a drainage to where the whole world falls out and the dramatic Boundary Canyon abruptly begins. It's beautiful rappel after beautiful rappel as we seemingly spiraled our way down into deep, sculpted slots. Nine rapid fire rappels to the valley floor, then some boulder hopping to reach Kolob Canyon. Kolob Creek was flowing until shortly after the MIA exit (only exit to the canyon other than down). We continued down canyon enjoying a great variety of narrows from dark, 10-foot wide sculpted narrows to straight, fracture-controlled narrows to wider stretches with towering cliffs. We waded through a pool with our packs on our head, then not too much later we encountered the first major obstacle: a 20-foot wide swimming pool spanning the canyon bottom. Here we decided the best course of action was to disassemble our packs and toss everything across individually. Thanks to the fine throwing of Jeff and great catching/deflecting by Ben, there were no casualties and all gear made it across dry. We on the other hand...had to strip down and suffer the icy water. Some great narrows led to the biggest obstacle to overcome- this deep, blue pool was about 60 feet across with a 10-foot jump to get in. If possible, this pool was significantly colder than the first one. The length of this pool demanded a new strategy. We rigged a zip line across the pool using one of our ropes and two existing pitons. After some experimenting, we then used our second rope so that we could haul gear across the fixed rope. At its lowest point the heaviest pack sagged mere inches above the water. This pool took us about 45 minutes to rig, send gear across, cross, and clothe up again. Once reassembled we strolled on, enjoying the scenery, but living in fear of more time/energy-consuming obstacles (and cold!). It was at this point I had a strong sense of how isolated we were- we had passed the point of no return and were committed to hiking out the bottom of the Narrows. We were very surprised to find smoking logs in the valley floor that had evidently careened down the 1000-foot cliffs from the prescribed burn high above. Shortly before dark we found a suitable place to camp, under an overhanging cliff and well above the canyon bottom so that we were safe from flash floods and rain (forecast was possible rain overnight). It was a nice spot, with towering cliffs and an impressive echo. I slept restlessly due to the strange noises (bird calls, falling logs, exploding rocks) echoing through the canyon.
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