On this year's AFL draft trip, we went on a hike in Zion through the Left Fork of North Creek, aka "The Subway". It's supposedly 8.6 miles top to bottom, but let me tell you with all the criss-crossing and no official trail in some parts, we had to have gone more like 9 or 10 miles. It took Jason and I about 11 hours with stops and photos naturally. I just shake my head at the 6 hours times I see on the web. Those people must just be flying through the canyon - what's the point? I really think these "supermen" do a disservice to the majority of hikers who head out to do trails like this.
The highlights of this route were four "obstacles" requiring short rappels down rope, and a couple of short swims, one of which was through a very narrow section of the canyon. A really enjoyable hike and worthy of the travel and other logistics required to do it. The lowlight was drowning my camera and two lenses, which were supposed to be safe inside my dry bag. The bag is five years old, and I suppose it just doesn't hold water any longer. Major bummer. My video camera survived though, and I was still able to get video from the second half of the route.
On the second day, we both were a little shell shocked and decided to just tour the park on the shuttle. Everytime I visit the scenery is just as spectacular.
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| At the trailhead |
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| The first stretch of the hike is on trail through grass and light forest |
| Quickly a sign sends you off the path across slickrock down besides Russell Gulch. The way is fairly steep and sometimes unclear, but there are sporadic cairns to guide the way. In the distance, the West Rim is visible where Joe and I hiked two years ago. |
| Seems obvious, but this place really is a geology marvel. In this section, there was quite a bit of darker rocks, including some metallic (blues, reds, blacks, and greens) and possibly even igneous rocks littered about. I don't know if they were all eroded around in place or if they fell here. |
| I just cannot capture the scale, but you can get a hint in these wide angle pictures. |
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| The trail takes many turns, sometimes down and in this case down, down. |
| Of course the red sandstone is one of the stars of the show. |
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| First glimpse of the canyon is here, high above where Russell Gulch and the Left Fork meet. |
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| It's a very steep descent maybe 200 feet into the canyon. We picked up a group of 12 hiking in front of us, but they weren't any trouble as we weren't in a hurry. We knew we had an appointment with the sunset. |
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| The first stretch of eroded canyon, pretty neat even though we expect even better to come. |
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| And this was our first obstacle, from the downhill side. The rock is big (about 20 feet tall), so this is taken from a bit of distance. We rappelled down the flat front face, into the knee deep water. |
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| HA. Jason, leading the way bravely, drops off a hidden underwater ledge into waist deep water. Surprised him that's for sure! Backup a bit and put that camera into the dry bag. |
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| No, not that way, run up the incline to the right and walk around a bit to find a spot to climb down. No anchor in the wall or sling means means "find another way". |
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| The work of flash floods |
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| Wading/swimming our way towards the second obstacle. |
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| It's maybe 8 feet or so into a waist deep pool, with a minor waterfall beneath. Very cool spot. Too bad it's a murky, dark, COLD (maybe <60F?) swim for about 40 feet after that. The rock wedged between the walls is called a chockstone, and one of the icons of this hike. |
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| These are taken from beyond the swim, looking backwards. Obviously no photo taking while swimming! |
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| And, the last shots before my camera died for good. Just a few more amazing canyon views, ho hum. |
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| 22m 35s. Video of the Subway hike! Enjoy a short waterfall downclimb (we roped down for practice), the Subway proper, dinosaur tracks, video from our steep climb out of the canyon after I lost my water bottle, and more! |
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| 12m 16s. On Friday, we toured the main canyon along the shuttle route, before heading back to Las Vegas. |