ED. COMMENT: This was an e-mail sent in mid-2003 to promote a Zion trip that didn't happen until a year later. Still, good stuff about the second Zion trip the week after 9/11 in 2001 (which was our first canyoneering trip), and the planning for the much more ambitious third Zion trip, which lead to the advent of Southern Canyoneers. Also, the links that are left in this edited version are still good or have been updated as of 11/03/05.
Alright guys, who's in? This year's trip will be from Oct. 8 through 13. See Shawn's e-mail below for more basic information.(Incidentally, this is the weekend of the Southern Miss-Alabama game, which marks something like the fourth year in a row Shawn and I have intentionally left the state so we won't have to listen to or watch another Jeff Bower debacle versus the Tide. I wouldn't think you Rebel and Bulldog fans will mind being out of the state either, even though that weekend is homecoming for both schools. Reason being, Ole Miss's delusions of grandeur will have been dispelled by the Gators the weekend before, and based on the last two years, it's hard to imagine that any of you Bulldog fans will still care about football by that point in the season.)
At this point, I'm counting Shawn and myself as "in," which gives room for six more. (More than eight would be too many, and even eight may require splitting into two groups to navigate some of the slot canyons.)
Southern Utah, as those of you who have been know, is awesome. We have the makings of an incredible trip, that will require all of you over-ambitious workaholics to give up only three days of work. Go check out these links to see the possibilities.
Good private site for canyoneering in southern Utah (Tom Jones): http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/index.htm (This page has a map showing the general regions for canyoneering in southern and central Utah, including Zion N.P., San Rafael Swell, Canyonlands N.P., Escalante and Cedar Mesa.)
His Zion N.P. page: http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/index.htm
As Tom says, "This is the place." To give you an idea of the kinds of things we could be doing, on our 9/11 trip, Roy, Will, Shawn and I went down: http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/narrows.htm (We did it in one day, which is an insane experience but quite an accomplishment for four old dudes. This time, if we do it, I think we'll make it an overnight trip, and camp in the canyon.)
http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/key.htm (We made a navigational error and climbed _up_ Upper Keyhole for a few hours--quite a workout--before turning back to enter Lower Keyhole and make a trip to the "center of the earth.")
http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/subway.htm (This was pretty darn cool stuff, all the way through.)
We also went up (and back down): http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/trails.htm#angel
(Mucho demanding on the cardio, and very impressive and thought-provoking with sheer drops on both sides of a knife edge trail at one point.)
For a "break," we went mountain biking at Brianhead: http://www.brianhead.com/summer/trails_maps.html (Scroll down and click on "Right & Left Fork of Bunker Creek (12 Miles) to get an idea of what we did.)
I hope these links will demonstrate to you that old morons can make this trip, do the cool stuff, and have a good time.
His Zion N.P. page: http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/index.htm
As Tom says, "This is the place." To give you an idea of the kinds of things we could be doing, on our 9/11 trip, Roy, Will, Shawn and I went down: http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/narrows.htm (We did it in one day, which is an insane experience but quite an accomplishment for four old dudes. This time, if we do it, I think we'll make it an overnight trip, and camp in the canyon.)
http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/key.htm (We made a navigational error and climbed _up_ Upper Keyhole for a few hours--quite a workout--before turning back to enter Lower Keyhole and make a trip to the "center of the earth.")
http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/subway.htm (This was pretty darn cool stuff, all the way through.)
We also went up (and back down): http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/utah/zion/trails.htm#angel
(Mucho demanding on the cardio, and very impressive and thought-provoking with sheer drops on both sides of a knife edge trail at one point.)
For a "break," we went mountain biking at Brianhead: http://www.brianhead.com/summer/trails_maps.html (Scroll down and click on "Right & Left Fork of Bunker Creek (12 Miles) to get an idea of what we did.)
I hope these links will demonstrate to you that old morons can make this trip, do the cool stuff, and have a good time.
My thinking is that we'll stay in Springdale, and do some or all of (i) checking out a few of Zion's challenges (again for some of us), (ii) going over to Escalante for maybe a canyon or too, and maybe hiking a day in Bryce Canyon N.P. Canyonlands, San Rafael and Cedar Mesa are probably too far apart to integrate into a trip, unless we wanted to spend all of our time at just one of them.
Dale
