Slot Canyoneering

Dropping in on some of the West's grandest slot canyons.


Finally! Our last rappel-right through the middle of a 110-foot waterfall. After rigging the ropes carefully one more time, I eased over slippery rocks,
stepped into air below the lip, and slid down, oblivious to spray in my face and gleeful at having completed such a long and technical slot canyon in one day!

Technically
speaking, “canyoneering” begins where canyon hiking leaves off. Once
you rig rappel ropes to enable you to descend into a slot that you could otherwise
not safely scramble into, you’re no longer canyon “hiking.” And
once you pull those rappel ropes so that you can continue down the slot and
rig the next rappels, you’re committed. There’s no going back the
way you came.

Welcome to slot canyoneering.

It all started years ago when we went to Zion National Park to do some big-wall
climbing. In between these epics, we’d go on hikes (a hiker in Zion is
like a kid in a See’s Candy factory)! Eventually we’d explored all
the beaten paths, so we started edging cross-country into the little side canyons.
We found these big, deep beautiful slot canyons, but didn’t have the gear
and experience to get into them (let alone out)!

All of us were very experienced rock climbers and mountaineers to be sure,
but each new sport has its techniques and rules. So we started nosing around
and found the Zion Adventure Company just outside the park in Springdale. Nice
people, really helpful. I even took a private clinic with Jonathon, one of the
owners. I got up to speed on some adapted techniques and we started exploring
and learning as we went.

I soon discovered something cool about canyoneering: you can choose a canyon
to fit your personal fitness and adventure profile. You want an introductory
canyon with training wheels? Go for “Keyhole”—a short 15-minute
uphill hike to where you begin winding your way through undulating strata of
Navajo sandstone. A few bouldering moves, three short rappels, and a little
bitty swim through a parallel slot and voila`: you’re out and back at the
car.

Step
it up a notch and Pine Creek Canyon becomes a must. With the shortest approach
hike from the car of any slot canyon (a mere 100 feet), you’re in the money
here right quick. The sculpted forms in this magnificent earth gallery are beyond
imagination. Every year when we go back to Zion, we do Pine Creek—like
vitamins for our souls. Be prepared with two full-length ropes and good rappelling
skills: the final rap has you airborne through a kaleidoscope of fluted sandstone
and cathedral rooms. A mile or so down-canyon hike puts you at your shuttle
car. Total time: 4-5 hours (you’ll be back at camp by early afternoon).

Want to go all day and have a serious workout? Mystery Canyon and Behounin
Canyons are hot tickets. So is Misery Canyon to Parunuweap. For all of these,
you need to get up early (3–4:00 a.m.!) and do all the vertical hiking
in the dark so that you’re at first light when you reach the start of the
canyon, thereby maximizing available daylight to safely navigate the slot. These
are good body whomps, so you’ll definitely earn the beers you’ll have
at the Pizza Factory in Springdale (great food, actually), right across from
the Fatali Gallery, which you should definitely see.

Want even longer, more serious canyons? They’re around, but only for real
cowboys and cowgirls. Names like Heaps and Imlay send quivers of nervous anticipation
through the leg muscles of any intermediate-advanced canyoneer. You’ll
be “taking the gloves off” when you confront these slots, so be sure
you know your stuff.

Our waterfall experience that day in October, 2002 was in a canyon called Imlay.
Often Imlay requires two days to complete, but we had a fairly experienced crew
and decided to go for it in a day. We made Angel’s Landing by 5 a.m., then
to the crossing below Heaps by 6 a.m. First light allowed 3 miles of route-finding
through cross-country terrain and we arrived at the start of the canyon by 7
a.m. Then we shifted into high gear, all the while marveling at the size and
scope of this cleft in the earth, where each step descends back in time past
eons of stratified sandstone: twenty-one or more rappels, countless “spill-overs”
and swims, overhung potholes that required swimming or “hooking” to
get out of… we encountered creative problem-solving at each turn.

It
was 4 p.m. when we finally began to hear the roar of the Virgin River in the
Narrows. We’d been going all day with only a couple of rests, so hearing
the "end in sight" brought a communal sigh of relief. I wondered if
this was what adventure racers felt like, but I was very glad there were no
checkpoints, finish lines, or attendant crowds… just wild nature and ourselves.
So much peace and power in one place!

As I stood below that final rappel out of Imlay, a cascade of feelings washed
over me: reverential awe at the place we’d been allowed to visit (summits
aren’t conquered and neither are slots!); deep camaraderie with my fellow
canyoneers; a huge sense of accomplishment at a challenge faced and a job well-done.

A 3-mile hike down the river would put us at the shuttle just at dark—perfect.
Near the end of that hike and almost to the Temple of Sinawava, we came across
a middle-aged couple (no judgment there—I’m 49) from Missouri who,
upon hearing some of our exploits for the day, asked, “Whatever possessed
you to even want to do such a thing?”

I thought of the myriad possible answers and settled on gratitude.

“Because I still can, sir. Because I still can.”

A little later, Mike said to me, “How ‘bout Heaps next year? Might
be a good 50th birthday present to yourself.”

It might indeed.