May 6, 2012

Sleep was great last night. It was cool out, a light breeze blowing, and the sound of the East Fork of the Virgin river put me at ease. Perhaps falsely though. We were camped deep in the depths of the gorge, a mere 3 feet above river level. We did have an escape route though, a little gorge going up from thee river. If it were to start raining, we would quickly retreat up the gorge.
  We didn’t have any rain, or floods. We were up and hiking by 7. The waterfall was still there, and there was still no easy way down. So I tried to rappel down the fall. The webbing harness scared me. It felt really loose and insecure. I decided to tie the rope to a tree, and downclimb, with the rope to keep me from falling. It worked well. I was soaked at the bottom, but alive. D=rt then lowered me the packs, and I ferried them through the plunge pool at the bottom. D=rt decided to downclimb as well. At the bottom he could not free the rope. We tried for awhile, eventually I climbed back up, unsnagged the rope then climbed down. We were both soaked and at 8 am, this water wasn’t warm! Glad our moms did not see this.
 The next challenge was "fat man’s misery". It was an extremely steep climb out of the river bottom. Fun for us though, just happy to have the waterfall out of the way. This lead us to sandstone walks, again very colorful, up to the highway and entrance station.
  About this time we decided that the webbing harness was to sketchy to take into Orderville Canyon. We also figured out that we would need to get to the permit office, 12 miles away, to make Orderville happen. We talked about it for hours. Finally decided to skip Orderville, camp out tonight, then head to the main part of Zion tomorrow, for a couple short day hikes. Then we will try to hitch to St. George.
 We hiked 8 more miles and are camping without a permit in Echo canyon. Its beautiful here. We have about 2 miles left of the Hayduke Trail tomorrow. Then 10 miles of other trails that we want to hike. Its bitter sweet ending this journey, but exciting to start another one soon! Plus, I get to be homeless and jobless for awhile. Can’t wait to get out on my bikes.