Catchin' the SUBWAY

Last weekend we hiked through the Left Fork of the North Creek of the Virgin River. A mouthful I know, that's one reason the canyon is more often just simply called "the Subway."

This is a stunning hike, but despite the fact that Zion National Park enacts a 50-people-per-day-quota, expect a lot of company.


The beginning of the hike starts well above the sun-sweltered rock and sand of Virgin, mingling between Ponderosa pine and patches of white and red slickrock.

Once into the bottom of Left Fork, you very quickly encounter a few chilling, deep pools of clear water. A couple of these are too deep to touch and are mandatory swims.


These little toads were everywhere and didn'tseem to mind us at all.
After the deep pools, the canyon narrows and presents a few obstacles to negotiate.

Me and Susie in the narrowest and darkest portion of the canyon.
Keyhole falls (above) is normally a short rappel down into a plunge pool, but somebody had rigged up a log making it an easy down-climb. This was typical at many obstacles along the way.

Below Keyhole falls, the water-sculpted "subway" continues for a few hundred yards.

Once out of the subway, a series of colorful cascades present themselves.

Everyone got a kick out of this little garter snake.
They are a little hard to see in this photo (above), but all of the shadow-filled indentations are tracks of large 3-toed dinosaurs.
The final climb out provided a fantastic view of the Cougar Mtn. Fault. Can you see where it offsets the rock layers?




Click the play button above to see an alternate way down a large cascade.

A big thanks to Millie and her family for letting us tag along!

4 Miles of Agony

It's that time of year again for the Utah Summer Games bicycle hillclimb. 1800 vertical feet in four miles in 90 degree heat. Despite what lay ahead, I managed a smile at the start - it wouldn't last long.


The climb up right hand fork of Cedar Canyon is gorgeous, but I couldn't see too well out of my steam-filled glasses.
Well, I finally made it to the top in 28:30, about 30 seconds faster than last year. I was pretty nauseous most of the way up and nearly up-chucked, but was able to hold it in. But keeping to my true form, I finally puked a few minutes after finishing. Zoe wasn't too sure her dad was going to survive.
Next up, a sixty mile road race on Saturday. I can't wait for this to be over so I can get back to the dirt.

On another note, we hiked the Subway in Zion National Park last weekend, but I'm still working on the pics...