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

Return to alavigne.net home

NOTE: You have javascript disabled in your browser. This presentation will continue to function, but with only basic capabilities. In order to view this presentation will full capabilities, please enable javascript in your browser, then refresh this page.

[< Previous Page]

[page 1] [page 2] [page 3] [page 4] [page 5] [page 6]

[Next Page >]

Tearing ourselves away from the Subway, we moved downstream. Immediately the narrows ended and the canyon opened up, transforming from a dark and shady cave-like place into a bright, sunny canyon with soaring walls of red sandstone and patches of greenery and trees along the base of the walls and up on high terraces.

Beautiful Sunlit Canyon

The Left Fork wasn't done giving us some unique things to experience, however. The floor of the creek here was very strange and very interesting. Instead of becoming a sandy or a boulder-choked streambed, it became a wide, flat expanse of bedrock. It was clean and flat, and the flow of water was spread entirely evenly across its surface, such that it appeared very much like red pavement that had been wet with a garden hose. In fact, you could have easily driven a regular two-wheel drive vehicle along this stretch. In fact, two lanes of traffic could have driven along this stretch. Very weird, but also very cool.

courtesy RHanel

Smooth-bottomed streambed

More jointing

Watery Joint

courtesy RHanel

Watery Joint

The unbroken road-like section didn't last all that long; soon the streambed began to flow over rounded ledges, forming very interesting wide, thinly-flowing water cascades. The spread-out nature of the water flow allowed the deep red of the underlying bedrock to be especially visible. A very unique look that I've never seen on any other streambed.

Ledges and Flumes

Red Ledges Shot

Hanel and Dusablon

With all of the technical bits of the route now past, we stopped and put away all of our climbing gear. Then we posed for a few long-exposure shots against the incredible combination of red rock, delicate flumes, bright greenery, soaring walls and blue sky.

Smooth Flume

More flat bedrock streambed

Amazing Canyon

The next twenty minutes of walking consisted of the most delightful combination of easy terrain and fabulous scenery. The wide flat slabby bedrock of the creekbed continued, providing nearly sidewalk-like walking conditions. Every so often there would be a delightful little waterfall or cascade. The walls alternated between overhanging alcoves and soaring cliff. Accompanying all of this was a clear sky and a perfect sunny, warm afternoon.

Another smooth flume

Nature's Theatre

Cleansing Cascade

Verdant Creekside

Steps of Stone

Streambed Walking

Eventually the smooth walking conditions started to become interrupted by rougher sections of streambed, where blocks and boulders choked the waterway. These often required short detours on the banks or a bit of minor scrambling. Pu chose to return to using his hiking shoes and spent the remainder of the hike avoiding water. The rest of us were enjoying the creek's now-warm water and continued trying to find a way to splash our way downstream (this often made passage easier, in any case).

Getting Rougher

In and Out

A nice respite

After a few more stretches of wide pavement-like streambed, the watercourse became more consistently rough. It started to become tedious and tiring, actually, and we were glad when snippets of trailside herd paths allowed us to hike with relative ease.

A nice respite

Clean Pools

Streamside trail

Two more hours of boulder-hopping along, beside and across the Left Fork of North Creek brought us to the signed post that indicated the ascent out of the canyon. I think it is probably safe to say that this two-hour stretch was the most tedious and least enjoyable portion of the whole route.