Not Birch Hollow

When I get the itch to go canyoneering, Michelle is often a good enough sport to come along. This year we planned to go down Birch Hollow with our friends Mike (who did Pine Creek with me last year) and Stephanie. The canyon is a technical (meaning it requires rappelling) side canyon of Orderville Gulch, which empties into the Zion Narrows. We planned to take about 12 hours. As the trip drew nearer, Michelle began dreading the trip, and her dreams started featuring falling off cliffs and getting washed away in flash floods and our children growing up orphans. Still, she didn't back out, even when the news reported accident after accident in Birch Hollow.

We drove down to St. George on a Thursday afternoon in August, and my mom was kind enough to watch our kids on her birthday. I watched the weather and the chance of rain jumped from 0% to 40% a few days before, then settled at 30%. We set our alarm clocks for 4:00 am.

And we all woke up about 3:15 to thunder and lightning. Not the best omen, but we figured we'd go up to the canyon and decide what to do when we got there. It took about an hour and a half to get to the parking spot, and then we had an hour hike to the rim of the canyon. There were heavy clouds all around us, but it wasn't raining at all, and I gave us a 50/50 chance of being able to go down. As we hiked, Mike said he hoped it wouldn't be ambiguous what we should do, that the answer would be clear. He got his wish. At almost the exact moment we arrived at the rim of Birch Hollow, it started pouring and little rivers started pouring into the canyon.

(We had lunch at about 8:00 am. Why not?)

Yeah, pretty clear we wouldn't be doing Birch that day. Instead we broke out the emergency ponchos and slogged back to my wee little Honda Civic, which we then proceeded to drive/push/beg/threaten to get us back to the highway. The dirt road had turned into one continuous patch of wet, nasty clay. It took well over an hour to go a couple miles, with the other three pushing with all their might and the tires spinning, then I'd gain traction and gun it for as long as possible, leaving them behind for awhile, then I'd get stuck again and they'd catch up. There were hair-raising moments, like when I would lose control and drift toward the downhill side of the road. Mike spent a lot of time on the inside edge of the road, flinging himself against the car to keep it out of a ditch. We passed abandoned vehicles along the way and when we finally reached the pavement, I felt a little bit awesome that there was a big old pickup parked up there, not daring to venture into the mud.

(Michelle reminded me that at some point along the way she stepped off the road to see a man about a horse, and she found a dollar out in the middle of the woods. A Christmas miracle!)

Mike was worried about the clay drying and wreaking havoc on the underside of the car, so we drove back to the visitor center to asked if they had a hose. They said they didn't and that we'd have to go back to Hurricane. (Hurricane?! There's not a hose in all of Springdale or Rockville OR Virgin OR La Verkin?) We drove into Springdale and noticed a hose in front of the post office. Mike jumped out and started using it to dislodge gallons and gallons of mud from the wheel wells. Meanwhile, the Springdale post office became the most popular place outside a Justin Bieber concert and I was sure we'd get busted. Fortunately the only person who questioned Mike was an old lady concerned that he was making "the water in the ditch brown." Mike put on the charm and send her on her way, and we made a quick getaway.

We ended up going a few miles up the Narrows instead, which was fun if a bit too touristy for true adventurers like ourselves. We did make it to the mouth of Orderville, so at least we stood in the canyon we had permits for.

I admit I thought Mike was a bit irrational in his worry about the mud, but he was vindicated that evening when the Honda started shaking like crazy whenever it topped 45 mph. So after a delicious dinner at Five Guys, we went to the car wash and hosed several more buckets of mud off the wheels and undercarriage. And we didn't get it all - my car is STILL squeaking a bit. That's some nasty mud.