Zion National Park/Yankee Doodle Canyon - Day 2
Yankee Doodle Canyon
Zion National Park
We breakfasted that morning on a cliffside porch overlooking a small town outside Zion. The food was as delicious as the view, my fresh veggie sandwich quite satisfying. Still, something went horribly wrong in my tummy, and I left the boys (see my blog entitled “A Character Study” for my heavily-biased appraisals of the rest of our crew) to their overindulgences and sat by the car, worried I would lose that yummy breakfast. I do not know what made me so sick, but it passed before we got to Yankee Doodle, thankfully. Still, I slept through much of the drive, waking when we were nearly to our drop-in point for my first-ever canyoneering experience. I am still kicking myself for missing that drive—what I did see was so beautiful and unique that I know (and Joshua made sure that I knew) how much I missed during my nap.
Thankfully, I would soon experience much of it close-up.
I hate to be cold, so I tend toward overdressing and always regret it once I am moving a bit.
As we arrived at the drop-in for Yankee Doodle, the temperature hovered just at chilly—in that confusing place where one is unsure about how many layers to wear. I hate to be cold, so I tend toward overdressing and always regret it once I am moving a bit. Whatever we chose to layer with, we would have to wear our canyoneering dry-suits, which were, of course, wet. I delayed as long as I could, helping with pack organization and other details before forcing myself into that damp blue Spock suit, harness, and helmet. Once it was on, I did some calisthenics and stretching to warm up and anxiously awaited our first rappel.
I had rappelled only once before and it was a doozy of a drop. Josh and I went to Neversink, a 162-foot Alabama sink hole, with a couple who were also inexperienced but had rope skills and the proper gear. It became immediately obvious that the toughest part of any rappel is that first step down, and the lip of Neversink is an immediate 90-degree step down followed by 162 feet of helicopter rappelling into a damp, dark pit. It took a few false starts before I made myself take that step, but once I did and was airborne, my heart slowed a bit and I could keep my mind on proper rappel technique. Joshua had drilled into my mind the importance of keeping my bottom hand on the rope at all times as I descended, and I told myself that so many times that it is a rule of rappelling I am not likely to forget. Just in case, though, he was on fireman’s belay below me to catch any accidental falls should I release the bottom hand.
At the lip of Yankee Doodle, I was nervous about that first step again. However, as is true in the many frightful situations I find myself in these days, all I had to do was say to myself, “Self, if you can drop into Neversink, you can drop into this canyon!” And drop I did.
It was strange dropping into a random roadside canyon and roaming at random—I half expected a Gomer-ish deputy to pop out from behind a rock wall curvature and demand proof of…what? Rope skills? Canyoneering experience? That someone on the outside knew of our location and would send out Search and Rescue if we did not contact them by some predetermined time? Thankfully, that never happened, and the most stressful part of the whole experience would not come until the exit.
That first rappel was maybe twenty feet or so; the second would be sixty. Joshua, of course, was giddy at the opportunity to attack the drop. He made it down safely and again held the rope at the bottom in a fireman’s belay to ensure the safety of the rest of us noobs. I made it down fine as well despite that initial intimidation, and the success brought with it redemption: it reminded me of the sixty-foot vertical waterslide at Atlantis in the Bahamas. The one I chickened out on just a few years ago. The one at the bottom of which a zitty tween pointed me out to his father and said, “That’s the woman who cried!” If only that twelve year old could see me now, regaining my dignity in a way much more original that sliding down The Leap of Faith into shark-infested waters. Like, everybody does that. This sixty-footer redeemed me in my own mind, although I would definitely face down that slide these days and, at the bottom, stick my tongue out at some unsuspecting twelve year old. Guess I will have to book a Bahamian cruise sometime soon…
Exploring the canyons involved hiking, butt-sliding, and stemming precariously across stagnant pools. The warning resonating in my mind was a worrisome one—so many people had told me that stagnant canyon pools have given people flesh-eating bacteria that I was not touching that water!
Exploring the canyons involved hiking, butt-sliding, and stemming precariously across stagnant pools. The warning resonating in my mind was a worrisome one—so many people had told me that stagnant canyon pools have given people flesh-eating bacteria that I was not touching that water! Of course, canyoneers swim through it and rarely have problems, but knowing my luck and my fledgling immune system…
Dawood, putting his rope skills to use.
Speaking of canyoneers, we had a great one leading us. Dawood is a knowledgeable, encouraging, and super fun adventure buddy. On this trip, he balanced his goofiness with a serious attention to rope skills and an easy demeanor that made taking risks less intimidating. He led me, Joshua, Reuben, David, and Michael through Yankee Doodle, along the serpentine wind- and water-polished passageways, across those stagnant pools, and out to a large spillway and back up to the car.
Along the way, we enjoyed the many features of Yankee Doodle. One was this rock platform we played around on for a bit. The yoga trick pictures did not turn out quite as cool as I expected they would, but we had fun posing for them! I did not pull off anything more than the crow pose, so I went with what I will call a crooked flying star instead. Afterward, our exploration continued with another short drop down under the platform and through the final drops and passages Yankee Doodle had to offer us.
The intensity of the water that must have flooded through, polishing these walls and creating miles of masterpiece!
We had to photograph this beautiful spot.
I just love the colors! The intensity of the water that must have flooded through, polishing these walls and creating miles of masterpiece! I would both love and hate to be in the canyon when those waters came rushing through—flood waters have always intrigued me, rolling and swirling as they do like a cement mixer of debris and destruction. My mind sometimes wanders through cartoonish surf-board rides atop such a flood, but alas, I am only human and not protected by plot armor. As much as it would thrill me to see such flooding in person, I will be sticking to YouTube videos, I think.
Those waters carved out odd caves as well, the Navajo sandstone stripping away under the water’s force. I disturbed as little of what remained as possible while exploring its nooks and crannies. It was lovely to not find any graffiti there—despite Yankee Doodle being relatively well-known, its random roadside drop-in and actual rope skill requirement, it seems, keeps out the riffraff.
Had the beginning been as precarious as the exit, I might have been left at the top with the riffraff. I do a lot of rock climbing indoors–weekly even. The exit scramble here was less difficult than much of what I can do indoors, but there was no padded floor or mat to save my ankles should I lose my grip here. Instead, there were smooth and slight indentions in the rock face that people more used to this terrain than I am used as comfortable footing. I freaked out–hyperventilated, cried, panicked much like I did at the top of Atlantis’s Leap of Faith. Dawood was soothing, convincing me to breathe and that he and Joshua would assist me across the worst of it. They roped me up, and as I made my hesitant way across, a shaggy guy in sneakers jogged his way out and past me, having led a tour group through the canyon behind us. I would catch what I consider to be too much flack for that over the next few days, but hey—I only had two options: wait out the panic attack and hold up the crew, or cross the scramble on rope and face the boys’ ridicule. They both kinda sucked, so safety and ridicule it was.
Perhaps they are still there, skeletons in the desert breeze, waiting to be washed down through Yankee Doodle canyon and out into that spillway, never to nonchalantly skip out of it again.
Karma would then laugh at the sneaker-shod tour leader, though. He may have made it up the scramble faster than I did, but he also lost his keys. That meant I made it back toward Zion and our perfect campsite long before he left Yankee Doodle, and that I enjoyed a hot dinner and moonlit desert night shortly thereafter while he continued his confused scramble to get his tour group back to civilization. I cannot say I wasn’t mildly amused by this turn of events, though I do hope it worked out well for him in the end. He would not accept our offers of help, though, so who knows? Perhaps they are still there, skeletons in the desert breeze, waiting to be washed down through Yankee Doodle canyon and out into that spillway, never to nonchalantly skip out of it again.
Shanna Irving is a guest blogger here. She is also a mother, a lover, a teacher, and in all things an adventurer. Her recent adventures have taken her backpacking and hiking throughout the US, and this year will begin her international adventuring with a trip to the glaciers and ice caves of Iceland and to the mountains and plains of South Africa. Writing about it all, too, is an adventure in itself.
The advice to get an early start on Angels Landing is no joke. By the time we worked our way down from the phenomenal views of the painted cliffs and meandering valley, we were facing down a long line of terrified hikers just inches apart and clinging to the chains. They were packed too tightly to move out of the way for people descending, despite the obvious truth that the more people that descend, the fewer people in their way and the less time they’d have to cling to the chains in deadstop traffic. Irony doesn’t affect physics, though, and we were all, those ascending and us on the descent, left with few options…