Freedom

Independence Day means a great deal to me. I am very proud of my country and the values upon which it was built. Ours is a great nation with innumerable freedoms, and I am very grateful for those who founded it and for those who continue to protect it, allowing all of us Americans the independence and freedom to mold our lives in pretty much any way that we choose.

I've been taught to be independent since I was a young child, and I appreciate my parents for allowing me to discover all that the world had to offer. The freedom that America provides and my independent upbringing have shaped the person I am today, and have influenced many of my past adventures. I value my freedom on many different levels: from the privileges outlined in the Bill of Rights, to the ability to carve out a successful life with a bit of hard work, to the vast expanses of public land that traverse the beautiful country from sea to shining sea.

To celebrate the birthday of the United States of America, I saw it fitting that I enjoy the freedom and awe-inspiring country that I so appreciate. When I was given the invitation to join Bill and a few others up in Zion National Park, I knew that I was in for a weekend full of canyoneering and new adventures. What none of us on the trip knew was that we would return from the trip with a new respect for nature, stories and memories that will last us a lifetime, and bonds of friendship formed that will be able to withstand any storm that life brings.

I met Bill at his house just north of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve on Thursday evening, and Bennett, Tyler, Melissa, John, Anna, and Carrie arrived shortly after. We filled Bill's truck with harnesses, helmets, ropes, packs, and other gear in anticipation of a full weekend in the canyons and headed north on I-17. I had just finished with a busy, albeit short, week and once I got a chance to slow down while sitting in the car, I began to feel the full effects of the sleep deprivation. I faded in and out of consciousness in the passenger seat, trying to keep Bill company as he drove the 7 hours up to Hurricane, Utah. Fortunately, he and John shared lots of stories on the way up, and we made it safely to our motel around 2 a.m. I brushed my teeth, babbled a bit incoherently about graduate school trying to get to know my new adventure mates (it turns out that both Tyler and Melissa are also grad students at ASU), and then crashed.

We slept hard and long, and did not end up waking until the sun was well over the horizon and beating down through the motel window. For the first time, I was able to take in our amazing surroundings: rolling desert nestled in towering red rock mesas that stretched to the horizons. It was love at first sight in my affair with Utah. I could not help but smile at the adventures that I knew were waiting within those red walls. After a slow start and accidently leaving Melissa at the McDonalds, our group began to come together. On our drive from Hurricane to Zion, I kept my eyes glued to the scenery and my adrenal glands started gearing themselves up for what lay ahead. Once inside the park, we procured permits for Pine Creek Canyon and Keyhole Canyon, and drove up into the heart of Zion, with Bill blasting Lords of Acid as we approached the tunnel checkpoint, and all of us in the truck laughing at the... let's just say interesting... lyrics and wondering what the rangers would do when they heard the music. Fortunately for all involved, the song ended and the rangers were well away from the checkpoint when we came through. Anna and Carrie would not be joining us for the actual canyoneering, so they helped us shuttle vehicles around so that we could get started. While Bill was parking his truck at the end of the route, Bennett, John, and I started down, as to prevent us from getting too congested in the canyon. We crossed the road and headed down into Pine Creek Canyon. The walls narrowed quite quickly, the layered sandstone beckoning us deeper into its bosom. We came to our first rappel shortly and met two other groups who were also headed down canyon. They graciously let us use their ropes, and we were down the 20' sloping slickrock feet in no time. A nice easy warm-up. We continued down canyon for a bit more, downclimbing a few easy drops until we came to our first awesome rap of the weekend. It was about 50 feet or so that dropped down into a sand pit engulfed in some amazing sandstone carvings. A small owl sat on a ledge, indifferently watching our progress with large black eyes that revealed that he'd seen thousands of people do it before. As John and I stood at the bottom watching Bennett come down, we smiled at each other and the incredible surroundings. We knew from that point on that it was going to be an incredible weekend. We continued on in this fashion for a few more miles and a half dozen rappels through the wide, but varied, slot canyon until it opened up to reveal a majestic view of the canyons below and we came to our longest rappel of the day. For practice, we decided to rig a single rope and waited for Bill, Tyler, and Melissa to join us as we weren't sure how many ropes they had brought for the first canyon. The rappel was well over 100 feet, and was overhanging, making for a fast, frictionless decent on one rope. My hands were burning, and I'll admit, my legs were shaking a little bit, by the time I got to the bottom. I looked up and watched the remainder of the group come down with admiration. We were really canyoneering in Zion. Stoked did not even begin to describe it. The rest of the canyon was a wide boulder field which we enjoyed scrambling and rock hopping through. Like little kids, we bounded along, each of us finding a new, fun, route to get to the bottom. As the canyon became deeper, so did the pools of water, and we rejoiced in jumping from the boulders above into every one. From the fearless John to the first-time jumper, Bill, we all got several refreshing dunks in the clear, cold water. Finally we came out to the end of our first canyon, and while climbing the path to the road, I found a right-hand glove on the trail. After the blisters that I incurred on my first long rap, I was very thankful for this seemingly insignificant piece of equipment.

We caught a ride in the back of a pick-up to Bill's truck and headed up to the trailhead for Keyhole Canyon. The hike up to the canyon was almost as amazing as the canyon itself. Layers and layers of red, yellow, brown, and pink sandstone shone in the late afternoon sun as we climbed up to some hoodoos that marked the trail to the canyon. As soon as we headed down, the canyon instantly turned into a narrow slot. The rappels weren't huge, but the canyon was beautiful, with the sun just trickling in through the narrow passage above us. The only bad part of the canyon was the water. Normally, you would never hear me say that anything pertaining to water being a bad thing, but this wasn't any normal water. The pools looked and smelled like unflushed toilets, and wading through them and pulling ropes out of them was not exactly our idea of a good time. But, the canyon was totally worth it, and towards the end, we made it to a long, deep narrow section where we half-smeared, half-swam our way to the other side, helping each other across as our team really started to bond. We knocked the canyon out in a few hours, and finally scrambled out the other side in the fading evening sun. It had been a full, incredible day in the canyons, and the best part was that we still had two more to go. That evening we enjoyed a nice meal at one of the lodges outside of the park, watched the full array of stars that covered the night-time sky, relaxed a bit in the hot tub at our hotel, and then got a good nights sleep.

We woke up early in the morning, had a good breakfast there at the hotel, repacked our wet ropes and harnesses, and headed back to Zion to tackle Behunin Canyon. At the Visitor Center, we unloaded the truck and hopped on one of the shuttles that took us upcanyon, past the Court of the Patriarchs (which we could hardly see due to our position on the bus) and the Zion Lodge and dropped us off at The Grotto, where we would start our 4-mile hike up to the start of Behunin. It was cloudy and the forecast was for 30% chance rain when we headed out, so we agreed that if it did still look like a storm by the time that we reached the canyon, then we would turn around and not risk getting caught in a flash flood. We crossed the Virgin River and began the long ascent towards Angel's Landing. The trail was very well maintained (read: it was concrete the whole way to the top), and provided magnificent views of the river and surrounding red rock. It was a steep hike, but we were reluctant to take breaks without taking our packs off, and taking our packs off was too much trouble to do very often, so we slogged onwards, past the trail that turned off to ascend Angel's Landing, and finally reached our first high point atop a white rock mesa. The views from up there were majestic, and John, Tyler, and I played and explored for a bit while we waited for the rest of the group to catch up. It did start sprinkling though, and all we could do was hope that the clouds dissipated in the next two miles, otherwise all of our hard work going up would be for nothing. When the entire group caught up, we rested for a little bit and enjoyed the views some more before hiking down and around the mesa into another wide canyon. It was another half mile again up the canyon before John's GPS said that we had finally reached the start of Behunin. Over the course of the 4 mile trek, we had ascended more than 2,000 feet and we rested briefly under a large pine before traversing a long slickrock section and descending into the canyon that was guarded on one side by massive red cliffs towering above us. The first part of the canyon was downclimbing and bushwacking through some more amazing rock formations, but after a bit, the scrub opened up to reveal a 400 foot drop that would be tackled in a series of 4 rappels. Standing on the edge of my first big drop was both nerve-wracking and very exciting. We split again into two groups of three, and Bill, Melissa, and Tyler headed down before us, while another group of six lined up behind us. The first and second raps were fairly easy down the slickrock, and we decided to share ropes with the group that was coming down behind us. We had a bit of a freak accident when Bennett's pocketknife slid out of an unzippered pouch in his pack and bounced down the 100 foot cliff, opening on the way and grazing the side of Tyler's shorts. Safety in our group was paramount, and from then on, we were extremely careful with everything we did, lest a simple misstep become a fatal accident. The third rappel was absolutely awesome - a 100 foot drop into a sandy ledge, followed by a fourth that finally landed us at the bottom of the first part of the canyon, stoked at what we had just done. A bit further downcanyon, we went down one more short rap before the high canyon walls closed in on us. It was a beautiful feeling, trekking through the sand with cliffs stretching above you for hundreds of feet and ferns growing in the cracks.

We leapfrogged with the group behind us for the next few rappels, as they bypassed a few of the rappels and we opted to get our money's worth, rapping into pools of water and into some more carved rock formations (almost dropped into a deep hole cut by the water). Before we knew it, we turned a corner and were in the last of the rappels, looking out of the canyon into the expansive view of the main Zion Canyon. From there, it was one long rappel, followed by the biggest drop of the weekend: a 160 foot rap - the majority of which was free hanging. It was such an incredible feeling to be standing at the top of the cliff and looking out over the entire valley, and then dropping off the edge of the world into nothingness. I will admit that my arms were tired by the time I reached the bottom of the last rap, but despite the long descent, I felt on top of the world. We chatted with the group in front of us for a bit, recapping the highlights of the amazing trip so far, before boulder hopping through the stream down to the small waterfall at the Emerald Pools below. We didn't find Bill and the rest of the group there, so we continued on to the lodge. We saw plenty of deer at the lodge, but not the rest of our group, so after we exhausted our search, we plopped down on the shuttle to the Grotto. Still no sign of the others, we had no choice but to return to the Visitor's Center where we finally found them waiting at the truck.

By that time, it was well past dark and all of were tired, hungry, and beginning to get a little crabby, so we stopped off for some fast food, and brought it back to the hotel where we ate in the hot tub. Happy, nourished, and relaxed again, we climbed into bed with dreams of red rock floating through our heads.

On Sunday, we were all still a bit tired from the previous two days of adventure, but we were still excited as to what the day would bring in Spry Canyon. We drove up again past the tunnel to an area a few hundred meters above the start of the Pine Creek trail. The sun was out in full force as we hiked along for some time in the sandy wash of the dried creekbed. After half a mile, we turned left and made a sharp ascent up some more slickrock. For the next mile or so, we played "find the cairn," as we lost the route several times, searching around like lost ants before we eventually made it to the top of a small pass in the juncture of several canyons. Once again, the view was outstanding and almost magical. As we were the only ones in the canyon and there was no sign of human life as far as we could see, I felt as if we were pioneers looking out among the canyons for the first time. I can't even begin to explain how happy I was, just sitting there and soaking it all up. Once we had all found our way to the top, we headed down into Spry. Tyler was the first to find a way down into the actual canyon, downclimbing some of the slopes at the very head of the canyon, but since I was already a few hundred meters ahead, I simply bushwacked down the scrub and was rewarded with a confetti of dead leaves showering me as I wound in and under the brush. Our path finding quest continued for some time more, with each of us finding our own way deeper into the canyon before all six of us found the solid, sandy bottom of the wash. The trail became more pronounced at this point, as from there on, there was only one way to go: straight through the dry wash. Soon enough, we came to our first rappel of the day, a >100 foot rappel that from a distance looked gnarly, but in reality was a very fun sloping decent on the ever present slickrock. Tyler also found a sweet little sand pit that he dubbed a "vortex," for its unique reverberations when you pounded the sand in the circular pit. At the bottom, Bennett and I went ahead of the rest of the group, getting a head start to set the ropes on the next rappels. Even after three days in the canyons, I was still awed by the beauty of my surroundings, and we spent an enjoyable hike to the next two raps. The first of the two was an easy 15 foot rappel into another unique sand pit, where I climbed up a rock formation to snack on the biggest apple I've ever eaten and waited for the group to catch up. From there, we dropped down a 10' rap that had an awkward start over the roots of an old stump, in which both Bill and I got caught in. It was actually pretty humorous to be suspended upside down, just a few feet above the ground, and it was good practice to get out of that situation in a controlled, fairly safe environment (as opposed to getting caught on one of the long raps). We went along as a group for a little bit, enjoying a few more rappels before the sky started to turn against us. As Bennett and I were pulling the ropes from a medium sized rappel, several menacing-looking clouds started rolling in. A little bit wary of the potential storm, and eager to find some higher ground, the rest of the group headed down the next rap. Just as we got to the rappel, lightning fell from the sky and thunder cracked soon after. I threw a rope down to the rest of the group so they could set the next rappel as Bennett and I made our way across a tricky approach and down a great rappel, which would have been absolutely amazing if it weren’t for the approaching storm. By the time we pulled the ropes from that rap, Bill had already rigged a single rope over a chockstone sling without looking at our directions. When we arrived down at the rappel, Bill was frantically calling to us that there was not another bolt on the second section, and that he was effectively stuck on a small ledge without a rope long enough to get him down. The thunder made everything ominous, and a few sprinkles of rain increased the sense of urgency as Bennett and Bill yelled back and forth at each other in order to correct the situation. We rigged a double rope from a sling higher up on another side of the rappel, and Bill was able to get down to relative safety. Where we were stationed more than a dozen feet above the watercourse, we were safe from a potential flash flood, and we decided to play it safe and wait out the storm while Bill found some higher ground below us. We waited for about 10 minutes until the storm passed. Although the thunder and lightning had made it feel dangerous, only a few drops of rain ended up falling, and as the sun came out and we realized that we were going to be fine, one by one we all dropped over the edge and joined Bill. It took us a little while to get all of us down and set up the next rappel, and by the time that Bill headed down, the skies were clouding up again. John and Tyler went down next, leaving Bennett, Melissa, and me at the top as large drops of rain started falling. Knowing that we didn’t want to get split up in case it really opened up, we hurried down to join the others, being careful on the wet sandstone as we descended. The first of the series of rappels dropped into a narrow slot, traversed a little ledge, and then descended again further into a waist deep pool of water. Once in that part of the canyon, there was no emergency exit, and by the time I waded across the narrow pool of water, the rest of the group was already down the next rappel. Ensuring that the last two would be ok, I rapped down the next 30 feet into a large sand pit and quickly climbed up to a ledge on higher ground as the thunder and lightning commenced once more. As soon as Bennett and Melissa got down, John was there to pull the ropes and we got everyone up to the ledge just as the skies completely opened up. Wind, rain, and hail pelted the canyon while we huddled together underneath a small overhang and watched the monsoon ravage the sand and stone around us. Even as violent as the storm was, it was over soon after it began, and 10 minutes after we had pulled the ropes, the wind and rain subsided and we crawled out of our little shelter. A small waterfall cascaded over a nearby canyon wall and we watched with awe and looked up to the top of the canyon. A strange noise that didn’t quite sound like wind rumbled high above us, though the trees at the top of the canyon weren’t moving. We looked at each other quizzically as the noise grew steadily louder. Before we could even put two and two together, a torrent of foaming water filled with debris rushed out of the small slot where we had just rappelled from and dropped into the sand pit where we had landed 10 minutes earlier. Ten minutes separated our safety from an imminent, violent death being pummeled with the force of the water, logs, and rocks that tumbled over the edge of the cliff. We shuddered as we looked up to the rappels above us. Any number of factors could have delayed us, and we were all ecstatic just to be standing there together. For the first 10 minutes, we hugged and took pictures and thanked God for sparing us as the flow multiplied and grew to be several feet above our bolts at the top and turned the sand pit below into a foaming, churning cauldron. For over an hour, we watched the force of nature do its work, and we were overwhelmingly awed by the sheer amount of water that was making its way down. The skies were blue, and the sun shone across the freshly showered landscape, and eventually the torrent of water diminished to a small muddy waterfall, so Bill decided it was safe to continue on. He led the way, and scouted out potential new trails to return to the truck. One by one, the rest of us followed him down the 60 foot cliff and landed in the stream below. The adjacent waterfall, though still muddy with silt, looked too good to pass up, so at Tyler’s initiation, we all jumped in the freezing water. Our adrenaline was still flowing fast, and all we could do was smile at our situation. The scene was beautiful even without the recent cheating of death, and with the adrenaline still coursing through our veins, the world took on a whole new light. We took the opportunity to rinse the ropes and then began our boulder hopping descent. The stream was flowing just enough to make some incredible waterfalls, and we took great joy splashing through each one and we bounded along with our newfound energy. The canyon stretched out below us, bathed in the most amazing light, and we couldn’t have been happier. But it got even better… Soon we came to our last rappel of the day, a normally dry, 85' rappel over the last cliff before reaching Pine Creek. Now, as we set up the rope to descent, we rapped directly in the water: a 85’ free hanging descent in a waterfall. Words cannot even begin to explain the joy that each of us felt as we were hanging there in the middle of space in the middle of a canyon with people that were now our brothers and sisters. When we all reached the bottom, we hugged again, thankful not only for being alive, but for the experiences that we were having together. We barely felt the packs on our backs as we hiked down the very last stretch to Pine Creek and back to Bill’s truck, where we were joined by Anna and Carrie. We sloughed out of our wet harnesses and clothes, cracked opened a few celebratory beers, and drank to the canyon, to Mother Nature, to each other, and to the foundation of Team Escape.



The energy on the ride home was still electric, with stories of the weekend and other past adventures filling every mile of the road. By the time we arrived back in The Valley in the wee hours of Monday morning, we knew that Team Escape was bonded for life and we all look forward to many more adventures together in the future.