Desert Southwest - The Checklist Edition - The Subway - Zion National Park - September 2014

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Normally Keyhole Falls is a rappel, and there are a few bolts on the walls above the falls to assist with this. However, standing on the chockstone and looking down, I could see that the floor of the canyon beyond had a lot of sand fill-in, and today it was not a far drop at all - seven, maybe eight feet. One could almost reasonably argue that it might be ok to jump down onto the flat sandy floor below. No rocks or boulders were visible in the two or three inches of clear water that flowed over this floor of sand (note that I'm not advocating doing any jumping; the park highly discourages it in any case).

courtesy RHanel

Rappelling Keyhole Falls

Despite the seemingly trivial drop, we decided to rappel Keyhole Falls anyway. Roland and I set up the ropes while the others finished their lunch nearby (our lunch spot and the top of Keyhole Falls were only a hundred yards or so apart).

We took lots of pictures of our descent (we were doing it at precisely the correct time to allow the sunlight to shine directly down the very narrow canyon walls to illuminate the falls).

Rappelling Keyhole Falls

Keyhole Falls

Pu Rappels Keyhole Falls

courtesy PChen

courtesy RHanel

Almost no drop at all

Packing up the rope

Keyhole Falls

Below Keyhole Falls was a very pleasant stretch of "streambed narrows", roughly four or five feet wide. The entire width of the floor was a flowing streambed, with clear water, about three or four inches deep, and floored entirely in sand (again, these were the conditions during the day we visited. Conditions can change after each significant flooding event).

With the noonday sun making the gently flowing creek glisten and sparkle, we splashed down this happy bit of the Left Fork.

courtesy RHanel

Narrows below Keyhole Falls

Immense Walls

After a few minutes our sunlight vanished under a towering wall of rock that appeared high up ahead of us. The canyon of the Left Fork turned again, away from its southerly course, back towards the west. The walls rose especially high here, as we entered the deepest part of the Left Fork's canyon.

Canyon Intersection

The Left Fork became increasingly more cathedral-like as we walked downstream. The floor continued to be nearly completely flat and sandy, with the flow of the creek winding back and forth along it. We came to a junction in the canyon, where a steep side tributary joined in from straight ahead. The Left Fork made a sharp right-hand turn here.

The North Pole Log

The walls had already started to assume a slight "coke-bottle" shape before we rounded this corner, but afterwards, the effect became much more pronounced. This was the beginning of the erosionary form that resulted in the "Subway" shape further downcanyon - a bulging, rounded overhang of the wall above a streambed-level wider section (of wall).

Around the corner we also encountered a large log, embedded in the sand, angled at a 50-degree angle and resting against the left-hand wall. I remembered this log from fifteen years before, and it had seemingly not changed one bit. This log's longevity here in the depths of the Left Fork has resulted in it becoming a named feature: it is called The North Pole (presumably named after the fact that it was embedded within the Left Fork of North Creek, because it certainly isn't pointing north).

courtesy PChen

North Pole from below

Beyond the north pole, the floor of the canyon was solid bedrock, and we descended a few steps of elevation, rounded a corner, then came to a stretch of narrows deeply incised into the bedrock floor. The walls of this stretch of narrows were vertical and about twenty-five feet deep. There was no way to scramble down into the floor of this stretch of narrows; we had arrived at the final technical descent of the route.

Final Rappel

There were two options for descending into the slot: descend from the near side ledge, or from the far side ledge. Both have double rappel hangars fixed into the bedrock. The far side ledge required a jump over the narrows at a particularly narrow point - perhaps two or three feet. The near side rappel anchors looked perfectly serviceable, though, so we elected to rappel from them.

Final Rappel

As I mentioned earlier, this rappel marked the last technical obstacle along the Left Fork / Subway route. This meant that non-climber visitors who hiked up the route from below could make it up as far as these narrows. And visitors there were - lots of them. The particular group that milled about in the narrows below us seemed to be a German troupe with lots of fancy camera gear.

courtesy PChen

Jenn on final rappel

Stephanie on final rappel

Final Rap from below

One by one, we descended into the slot. One of the German visitors seemingly couldn't get enough of our rappelling; he must have taken about twenty shots of each of us as we descended. Got a bit annoying after a while, actually. Once I got to the bottom, I took some minor pleasure in blocking him to take some of my own shots of our descent.

Brian on final rap

After finishing our rappel, we packed up the rope and started downcanyon again. Immediately we arrived at the pièce de résistance of the route - the Subway section itself.

As mentioned earlier, the walls of the Left Fork's canyon had begun to exhibit a "coke-bottle", or hourglass type of shape. Now the form had reached its pinnacle: for a good fifty yards (metres), the wide point of this hourglass shape was about head-high. Below that and above that, it curved inward. The lower curve merged perfectly into a flat bedrock floor; the upper curve curved symmetrically with the lower curve until it was a nearly horizontal overhang, then abruptly made a right-angle edge and continued up as a normal vertical cliff. On the oppisite wall, a mirror image of this form had also eroded. The overall effect was of a nearly perfect tube with a slot running down the center of the "ceiling" of the tube. And, indeed, the overall effect was much like a 19th-century subway tunnel. An amazing bit of natural erosion.

Photogs in the Subway

The Subway

Capturing the Subway

Along with other day-hikers who had come up from below, we spent a good ten or fifteen minutes admiring and photographing the scenery of The Subway. Adding to the already-cool effect are a set of round potholes, usually filled with clear water and in the reflected and diffuse light of the canyon, usually appearing a blue-green color. Unfortunately these potholes were almost entirely filled in with sand. A pretty amazing scene nevertheless.