This one makes ten! The question is, will it be my last. Time will tell.
Dick and I navigated the Subway on May 1, 2014. The backdrop to the story is that I had procured a permit and thought that it was for May 8 but it was really for May 1(Yes, it could be old age). The other people signed up for the May 8 trip could not change their plans so Dick and I went down to do it. This early in May requires the use of wet suit to avoid hypothermia and death! We drove down Wednesday and rented the wet suits at Zion Adventure Company. Also, since the last trip, the route has changed. The last rappel required harnessing up and rappelling 30 feet. Dick bought a new rope as he was worried about my 11 mm rope going through the rappel device easily enough to keep us from getting stuck. We didn't want to do it if we could not do it safely.
Let's get hiking! We left Hurricane early and drove to Virgin, Utah and then up Kolob Reservoir road and parked at the lower trailhead where we would leave my car. We checked our gear and loaded our backpacks. They were a bit heavier as we now had to haul full wetsuits. Our plan was to hitchhike up to the upper trailhead. We got lucky and I had my thumb out for 5 seconds before a man in a truck stopped to let us in. We tried to strike up a conversation with him but he seemed to just want to drive us. He dropped us off and we hit the trail. It was cool and crisp as we made our way through the forested section. We soon got to the slick rock of Russell Gulch and began our descent. The park service had been busy establishing a cairned route that kept hikers out of the forest area and more on the slick rock. Things were looking pretty familiar but every time is different. We dropped down through Russell Gulch and headed up to a ridge with a prominent hoodoo. This was reassuring and we then descended the ridge further down into Russell Gulch. We continued following cairns and walked up a plateau that overlooked the confluence of RG and the Left Fork. We descended the cleft chute and got to the pool below where we encountered 4 guys from Denver already putting on their wetsuits. We waded across the pool and started down the Left Fork. A ten minute walk got us to the first obstacle. Of the four options to get past these boulders of epic proportions, we took what turned out to be the easiest. On the right side of the canyon there was an old dead tree propped up between the canyon wall and a boulder. I did not see it right away but when I saw Dick throw his pack down with the rope attached, I gasped and said was that the rope. He then pointed out the dead tree that we could just climb down instead using the rope. Whew! We were now deep in the canyon with towering walls on either side of us. We walked in the watercourse and began to encounter deeper and deeper pools of water. We now put on our wetsuits for we knew a swim was coming up soon. The double or triple pools of water were extremely cold. We swam across, lugging our gear along with us. We stashed the things we wanted to keep dry in our dry bags.We continued down stream in the watercourse and came to another swim where there was a chockstone wedged between the canyon walls. Under the chockstone was a dead tree trunk that prevented one from swimming under the chockstone. We couldn't go under and it was almost too high and without handholds to pull oneself up and over. Dick went first. He struggled with it at first but then found a log floating in the water. He wedged it below the tree trunk and that gave him a step up to where he could climb over the obstacle. Following his lead, I went next bringing along the gear. When we emerged from the water, we realized that this watercourse could have been bypassed by climbing up on a slippery ledge on the left side and carefully making our way along the ledge until we came to a tree to handline down. Like I mentioned, every time is different. We headed downstream and went through some waist deep pools. There was a pour over that we had to lower ourselves slowly down and drop into the stream. Next, was Keyhole Falls. This was only a 10 foot drop but with a rope of 9.7 mm, it could be hard to hold onto to lower yourself. Dick harnessed up and rappelled down. I was wearing gloves so I slid down the rope. We were starting to head down stream when one of the guys from Denver caught up to us and told us that they had lost their rope. It went into one of the pools and try as they could, they could not find it. They asked if they could go with us and use our rope. We had little choice. We were in a deep canyon in waist deep water and even though we had wet suits, we began to get cold, especially our hands as we waited for the four person group rappel down. We suddenly went from a two person group to a six person group and this slowed us down considerably. We entered the "Subway" section and took pictures by the famous north pole tree trunk. We hiked together until we came to the final rappel. This part of the route has changed. One used to be able to walk across some logs to get to the other side of canyon and rappel down there. The logs have washed away and the park service advises against jumping the chasm. Instead, they have put in anchors and bolts on the near side where a harnessed rappel will take you 30 feet down to the canyon floor. The gang of six all got down. I went last. This is where we encountered permit holders who hiked the subway from the bottom up. They miss all the fun part I just described but they are treated to a wonderful view of the subway tunnels and red ledge cascades as they hike up. The hike out consists of many stream crossings and hiking in the watercourse. The cascades are beautiful but can sometimes be slippery. They were not this time. After about an hour of hiking, we looked on the right side of the canyon for dinosaur tracks that were laid down in a fossilized lake bed. We found them and pointed them out to some Japanese hikers who marveled at the sight and thanked us profusely for pointing them out. The hike out is pretty grueling. We removed our wetsuits, ate some food and drank some water. We found the hike out spot and began our 400 foot ascent to the Kolob plateau. After several rest stops, we leveled out and finished the last mile with a jaunty pace. The cold brewskis were a welcomed sight after our adventure in the wilderness.
