Hidden Canyon July 16

The Imlay hangover continued in the morning. Once again it was up to Aaron to lead the charge. The day was sunny and quickly heated up. Our brains seemed to be only half-running. In a daze we got to the trailhead, geared up, procrastinated some more, then realized we were at the wrong trailhead! Once at the right trailhead (the one that was 5 miles shorter and required the least amount of uphill...), we set out across the flat plateau towards the start of the canyon. Up here it was dry and dusty and there were no hints of a canyon being within 5 miles. Once we found the right drainage and went through some trees and scrub, we found ourselves on the edge of a spectacular cliff looking straight along a V-shaped void hundreds of meters deep. The sight was unexpected and exhilarating. Enthusiasm finally skyrocketed. Maybe it was going to be a good day after all.

The head of the canyon dropped immediately in a large rappel off a tree, and continued to drop ever downward as far as we could see. I used this opportunity to test my new fiddlestick, a clever piece of plastic that can be used to make an anchor without leaving anything behind- it worked great. The canyon never really becomes a true slot until the very end (where it is only about 50 m long) and from the lack of water carved features probably very rarely has water flowing in it. It is more like a steep gully following a vertical fracture in the rock. The entire valley, start to finish, is one straight shot along a single fracture. Collapse of the canyons walls probably plays an important role in this canyon's formation.

Despite these apparent shortcomings, the canyon actually had a lot of interest and was quite different in style to most other Zion canyons. Virtually all of the canyon's drops were formed where chockstones became wedged atop a narrow portion of the canyon. Some of these made interesting cave-like abseils and downclimbs (frontispiece). We found many anchors where people had abseiled what we found to be very fun downclimbs. The canyon had a good mix of abseils and downclimbs. The vantage changed as we descended the canyon; it started as a lofty view looking into the valley's depths from a position even with its rim, but as we descended the shear walls towered up around us and we felt like we were within the gunsight.

Towards the end there is a short section of slot and then we emerged out on a hanging edge of the main Zion canyon where the trail entered. Below were several nice looking potholes and a rather large drop! We followed the blasted trail as it contoured its way back around to the main trail back down the Weeping Rock. I had never been on this part of the trail before and found it much more impressive than I would have guessed. The canyon turned out to be a worthwhile trip in the end, fun, a little challenging, and with different scenery than others. I would not chose to do it again but was very glad we did end up in it for the day. Aaron and I swam in the river at Canyon Junction while Jeff and Ryan retrieved the cars. The forecast still surprisingly good, we headed up to Kolob Reservoir to put ourselves in prime position for another early start for the grand finale of the Zion trip. Kolob Canyon. Sleep came easy in the cool mountain air.