Pine Creek

With our rented dry suits handy and our stuff still packed from the day before, we were ready for another day in a technical, wet canyon. We chose to go through Pine Creek in Zion National Park to get a completely different canyoneering experience from The Subway, and different it was!

The whole trip was much shorter, starting with just a five minute approach before our first rappel, and from then on the canyon seemed like one rappel right after another. The amount of vertical movement we did was almost unbelievable, especially compared to the wide and lush expanse of The Subway.

Pine Creek had an extraordinary amount of water, but instead of increasing vegetation within the canyon, the process by which the rock features were formed became much more apparent, and it meant we had plenty of big swims throughout our trip.

The canyon was so narrow and shaded by other land features in the park that even in the middle of the day, the bottom of the canyon was lit dimly in most places, revealing interesting shadows and a beautiful greyscale contrasting the reds and oranges we've seen throughout so much of this desert country.

The final rappel was the most awesome, with a free-hanging drop through what would be a waterfall during a flashflood, down into a large amphitheater, landing near a gorgeous pool collecting all of the water and tiny sediments draining out of the canyon. Its bright turquoise hue was a gorgeous welcome back into the sunshine and a perfect compliment to the subdued shades and greys we saw within the walls of the canyon.

We geared down and hiked out through a highly vegetated area with big boulders to scramble over and got back with plenty of daylight (and plenty of time to finally return our rentals).