Weekend at Zion *UPDATE*

by Parker Alec Cross

*See the video from the weekend!*

My friend Jeff Larson is moving to Arkansas this Wednesday, and Blake Nyman and I found it fitting that we should have one-last-hurrah in Zion National Park before he departs on his lonesome door-to-door sales mission in the heartland of America.

We left Provo at about 7:15PM on Friday evening, because we knew that if we wanted to get permits for Mystery Canyon on Sunday, that we would need to be in the permit line pretty early. Mystery is one of the two most popular slot canyon experiences inside the Park (the other being the Subway), and the resulting demand is superseded by the fact that they only give out a total of 12 permits per day, 6 of which are pre-ordered months in advance through the Park’s online registration system, leaving 6 permits for the regular-old-Joe vacationer who isn’t able to plan three months in advance. 

When we arrived just after midnight (we took several long stops on the way down), there were already four people in the line, two of which were aiming for Mystery Canyon permits for their whole group, which left the remaining permit tally at a big fat zero for Jeff, Blake, and myself. After some made-up extremely real and compelling sob stories, we convinced one of the groups ahead of us to let us take three of the Mystery Canyon permits because our group was so small, and theirs so large. Everything was looking up. We still had six hours before the office opened, but we were in good shape. Blake and Jeff went into the bushes to catch some zzz’s and I held down the fort until the office opened. About 4:30AM, the masses started to arrive, and by the time the permit office opened at 7, there were over 30 people in line for Sunday permits. Such a zoo.

We ran down the road to the Spotted Dog Cafe for some all-you-can-eat breakfast then hit the trail to Behunin Canyon shortly thereafter. Anecdotally, we were terribly unprepared for the heat and the approach, and I was out of water by the time we reached the apex of the canyon and started our descent. Heat exhaustion started to set in over the next several hours, but we managed to score some really excellent video footage despite our dilapidated condition, and over-all, we had a very excellent time in the canyon (conditions notwithstanding).

We grabbed some dinner at Oscar’s and crashed on one living room floor of one of Blake’s buddies that lives down in Springdale, then saddled up the next morning for Mystery Canyon. The approach for this one was equally brutal, but we were far more prepared for Sunday’s mission due to proper amounts of sleep and sufficient hydration, and although the slog was long, it was manageable. I, for one, had more trouble with the steep scree slopes nicknamed “The Death Gully” leading down into the canyon than I did with the approach. My legs were a little wobbly by the time we clipped into the first rope.

The trip was one of the more fun weekend trips I’ve had in my life, and we shot a ton of video while we were descending both canyons, and now check out the video that we threw together really quickly documenting a typical Zion Vacation.