Heaps Canyon

On July 28th I took Eric & Marty down through Heaps Canyon in Zion National Park.  Marty did this canyon with me many years ago when he was just a kid.  This was Eric's first time down the most difficult and demanding of all the canyons in Zion.  We left our home at 6 am and began hiking up the Angels Landing trail at 7:30 am.  In my previous trips through this canyon I generally have made it through in 12-13 hours.  The morning was sunny and hot and we drank most of our water on the grueling hike in over several miles gaining around 3,000 ft in elevation.  Phantom Valley was again beautiful and the terrain some of the best in the Colorado Plateau in my opinion.  Soon we were suited up in our wet suits and harnesses.  The canyon had recently had a good flow through it after a thunderstorm thus the pools were all full.  We enjoyed the canyoneering and we made good progress.  The canyon is definitely demanding and the many log jams in the narrow slot proved strenuous throughout the day.  We arrived at the exit to Heaps in good time and took off the wet suits and got ourselves ready for the technical descent.  The last series of 3 raps dropped us around 500 feet to the Emerald Pools.  The last rap of 300 feet did challenge us as my new ropes become ridiculously tangled.  What should have taken us 45 minutes cost us 2 hours.  For the first time I had to do the final rap in complete darkness and we barely made the last shuttle out of the canyon.  By the time I reached our truck parked at the museum, Debbie had already alerted Zion dispatch that we were overdue!  I quickly called the search off as a ranger drove up checking on our truck.  I explained to them that we were perfectly fine (expect we were tired, thirsty and hungry) and that we simply had some rope trouble on the last rap out of the canyon.  We were tired puppies upon arrival home to St. George but all was well!  Another "awesome" day in Zion.