Oct 15: Zion Finish

We finished the Hayduke Trail today.

Got up and hiked down into the East Fork of the Virgin River. Aside from a hunter who was glassing the valley shushing us when we were discussing navigation, we didn't see anyone. (Side note: after discussing it, we think there were two days in which we saw no other humans, but zero days in which we saw no other humans or cars in which a person would probably come back to by the end of the day.)

The East Fork was freezing cold, but the aspen were gorgeous. We entered right about Rock Canyon, and there are some petroglyphs just opposite there. We explored upstream a bit but not too far; adding freezing creek crossings seemed unnecessary.

But descending was of course also cold, we basically had to cross the creek every few minutes. It obviously got warmer as the day went on, so it was fine. We stopped at Poverty Wash, where I went all the way to the grotto and a brief narrows at the end. It's worth checking out, though you just walk in the brushy/cattail-filled creek the whole way up. It's only about a 45 minute roundtrip.

A little bit more and we got to Misery Canyon, which was amazing. Right at the mouth was an emerald pool that required either a swim or a successful rock move to navigate. After that you were immediately in super tight narrows with short pour-offs, level after level, maze after maze. I could only get up two or three, before Nano came to give me a boost. (Yes, ha ha, short joke, you're so funny. Nano wasn't flexible enough to squeeze himself up the one he boosted me up, so only I could go further.) The water got soooo cold and the caves so dark, so after a couple more swims, I turned around once I was blocked--couldn't tread water ferociously enough to propel my whole body 4 feet out of the water. I safely downclimbs/downswam everything to the mouth, and then basically while just standing there, slipped and jammed my shoulder bracing my fall. (Nothing too bad, but now that we're done and my body thinks I might tell it something other than just "STFU and keep moving," it's a bit sore.)

After Misery we hit an amazing section of narrows, with wall to wall creek walking. We explored as far as the top of Labyrinth Falls. There's impassable rapids and it's also an off limits research area. There's a nice plaque commemorating when John Wesley Powell first ran it.

We climbed out of the canyon (DON'T do the authors route, known as Fat Man's Misery, go out by the plaque) and onto the slickrock. Nano briefly saw bighorn (we wanted to actually see some on foot instead of just on a raft). We took a few minutes to enjoy the view at the pass near Checkerboard Mesa, descended to the highway, and were done.

Nano's friend D was there waiting. We got a ride to Springdale, showered, and were back to "normal" things like checking in for flights and not forgetting your mask when you go anywhere.