1. Taking the Subway

    Posted in: Videos on Friday, June 17th, 2011

    Canyoneering in Zion

    I’m going to visit some friends this weekend that I haven’t seen since we were all together in Utah almost two years ago.  Hopefully I won’t have a near death experience this weekend like I did during that trip to Utah.  Back then we met up just outside Zion National Park for three days of canyoneering.  For those who don’t know, canyoneering is a sport where you navigate your way through a series of canyons in a wilderness area by any means possible, climbing, boulder scrambling, rappeling, swimming, and hiking.

    The backcountry around Utah is the perfect place to participate in this activity, with all its dramatic sandstone formations.  I’ve done this before so I wasn’t expecting any problems, but on one rappel for some reason that I still don’t understand, I lost control on the rope and was dropping way too fast.  Trying to do the impossible, that is trying to grip the rope tight enought to stop my fall, I succeeded only in burning the skin off my fingers.  I was headed for a premature rendezvous with the ground and a multitude of broken bones when someone realized I wasn’t just showing off and grabbed the end of the rope, pulled hard and stopped my descent.

    I taped my hands to cover the missing skin and continued on for another day and a half finishing up in an especially beautiful spot called, “The Subway.”  Since I lived to tell the tale, I can now say the experience and scenery were worth the price of a little missing skin.  I’m just hoping this weekend I can have some fun and keep all my skin

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