Improvisation Day
Saturday, March 25
1. Keyhole Canyon Recon
With our team outings complete, Arn and I had two days more to explore. I wanted to use the time to explore corners of Zion and the surrounding area that were new to me. I'd been to all of the high-runner places - Angels Landing, Observation Point, the Watchman Trail, the Emerald Pools, the Subway, the Zion Narrows - and it was time to explore more of the hidden, quiet corners of the park.
Originally I had planned a long off-route adventure to a feature called Bridge Mountain Arch today, but the forecast.... well, it wasn't looking so great. The morning and early afternoon called for unsettled, possibly rainy weather, and a new (to us) cross-country route on slickrock, including in places some scrambling and climbing, seemed like something iffy to do if the weather turned for the worse. We thought back and forth about this over breakfast, and even though the time-packaging for the Bridge Mountain Arch route worked much better today than it did for the following day, we decided to push it off and do something else today.
Windy UT-9
So, what to do? Arn and I had talked about exploring the various slot canyon opportunities in and around Zion, and I had selected about five or so that looked both fairly short and fairly promising. We decided to visit a few of them today, walking through them if they were dry or just scouting them out if they were too wet for passage (we weren't up for any wading today).
The first slot we explored is known as Keyhole Canyon. It is a short but popular intro canyoneering route just off of UT-9, the highway that runs through eastern Zion National Park. We drove up the switchbacks and through the historic tunnel, then partway through the slickrock backcountry until my GPS indicated our closest approach. We then got out and angled for a small dry wash on the left hand side of the road (see map).
Climbing swooshy slickrock
A short, steep climb up some grippy layered slickrock brought us to a small saddle, beyond which a steep and somewhat dirty descent brought us into the bottom of Middle Keyhole. Both above and below us the drainage narrowed into a tight slot - both looked quite scenic. In both directions, however, the slots were filled with water (it had apparently rained earlier in the week), so we didn't proceed any farther. I also know that sections of Keyhole require some rappelling, and we didn't have that gear with us at the moment.
So, that was the end of our recon visit, and we quickly climbed back up and over the saddle and descended back to UT-9. I think I'd like to come back properly equipped and do all parts of the accessible and interesting-looking slot.
Interactive trackmap with photo points - Keyhole recon - click map to view
