KATIE & DAREN'S TRIP THROUGH THE "SUBWAY" (and not New York's)

Since I don't have any new posts, I borrowed this from Katie's, (A Tale of Two Pickle Faces in Love) just in case you haven't read it.  Enjoy.  It's delightful.  

The Subway '12

Daren and I had the chance to go on a super fun trip this past weekend.
A friend entered a chance to win permits to hike through the "Subway" down in Zion's Slot Canyons. (Only about 80 people a day are permitted to go through the Subway so we felt very lucky to have this opportunity).
It was such an adventure!
We left Thursday evening, hiked Friday and Saturday then came home late Saturday night.
Despite concerns of flash floods, we made it through the entire Subway safely, albeit wet!
From the moment we started hiking on Friday, it started pouring with rain. Through the 9.5-mile, 9 hour hike, we were dry for about 45 minutes of it.
The "Subway" starts off hiking down about 3 miles of red slick rock and sand. The rain made the slick rock slippery which created an extra obstacle for us in the beginning.

Katie & Daren getting ready for a decent down red slick rock
(as you can tell, we are quite wet already)


Once we got to the slots, we were wading through water (sometimes over 6 feet deep!) for the rest of the day.

One of many pools we crossed


Along with wading and swimming, we had many chances to repel down steep rocks. Thank goodness Daren, Craig and Scott are very experienced canyoneers! I was saved quite a few times by all of them.

Craig saving my life down the first repel (thanks Craig!)

Although being wet without worrying about ruining clothes or wet shoes is so fun, it did get quite chilly! So chilly in fact, we had to open up a space blanket for me and Chelsea.

If you look really close, the picture is a little blurry and I think it is because we were shivering!



Hiking the Subway was so much fun! I came home in so much pain, but the kind of hurt that feels good because it reminds me of how much fun the weekend was.
Oh such good memories!