Echo Canyon

One thing I've learned about Nate is that he's got to get his outdoors fix. He loves to be outside "puttering around" in the yard, as he puts it. Also, he really enjoys running, and is persistent at it. That's all pretty normal, I think. But Nate, as in most areas of life, goes above and beyond when it comes to the out-of-doors. He's gotta get his adventure on every so often in order to be a cheerful human being. He has a long, long list of death-defying outdoor adventures he wants to do, and is always scheming up plans to knock one or another of them out.

Echo Canyon in Zion has been on his list for the last couple of years, ever since he hiked above it to Observation Point. And 4th of July weekend, by some miracle, the stars aligned and he and I got to go do it with Bri and Mason.

Ready for the hike in!

Bri's copious back sweat. (We all matched.)

Lunch #1 at like 10:00. There's nothing more tasty than smushed pbjs on a big hike, I tell ya.

This was Bri and Mason's first canyon and they did great! Here's Bri's first time stemming.

It was so many things. Beautiful, mysterious, relatively clean thanks to a rainstorm a day or two before. Also scary and dicey. There were like a billion rappels, and pretty much all of the anchor points stunk. On one of them, Mason went down first, aided by Nate and I (how he managed, I'm still not sure.) And then had the privilege of saving each of our lives one by one as the rest of us all fell over the edge. It was terrifying! Nate somehow ended up dangling upside down in the air when Mason caught him on belay. And I had a midnight-black bruise exactly the size and shape of my harness for weeks thereafter.

Another really scary part was when we simply couldn't find an anchor point on one of the longer rappels. So me, Bri and Mason rappelled off Nate, and he was pretty much left high and dry, trying to scramble down a sheer slickrock wall that we'd gotten nice and wet for him with our shoes. We tried everything we could think of to help him get down and stay calm, and then he finally found an anchor point quite a ways behind him.

Bri and Mason trying to get Nate down

Nate jammed himself in that little notch for quite a while as he tried to find a way down. So scary!

You just don't get views like this anywhere other than a slot canyon. It's a unique kind of beauty.

Wetsuits! Nate was the only one who'd ever worn one, so the rest of us felt so cool.

Me and Nate

Bri and Mason

Bri and I discovered that wetsuits are quite flattering, so we were eager to pose for lots of pictures.

Mason scrambling like a boss.

A cold, dark swim.

By far the scariest part was the three-in-a row pothole obstacle. I will mention on the positive side, Nate, that it was also so pretty. So remote-feeling and surreal. We dropped into one that was dry, then were easily able to climb over the lip into the next one, and then the real fun began. Over the next ledge, into the third pothole. Nate hooked himself in on an anchor and helped the rest of us up and over onto a tiny little landing that made us feel really friendly and cozy because we were all right in each others' faces. Then was a cold swim in a pothole that seemed to have no bottom. At the end of a swim there was a ledge a few feet above the water that was the exit point. The only problem was that there was no place to put your feet to get to it! So cold, so scary. To make a long story short, Nate did a pack toss, and stood on Bri's shoulders while she submerged herself for a really long time and got out. Then, one by one, the rest of us left the ledge, made the swim, and hoisted ourselves into an inflatable dinghy and pulled ourselves out with Nate's help. You'll notice there are no pictures of pothole #3. We were all pretty spooked.

Bri rappelling into pothole #1

Coolest picture EVER! (Thanks, Mason.) I'm on the lip between potholes 1 and 2. You can see the lip between 2 and 3 just past me.

Bri in pothole #2, Nate on the lip between 2 and 3.

After that, we booked it to the end. There were a few more rappels and obstacles, but we were running behind, and Nate's poor parents have surely already lost years of their lives worrying about  us in canyons.

Bri and Mason

Michelle and Nate

 I love this little group of photos. We were relieved to be done. There's nothing that'll bring a group together like defying death together. It's amazing what four people can do when they trust each other.

So relieved to see daylight!