Zion National Park
Not Imlay Canyon,
March 24, 2022
Going to Zion in March is cold but to avoid the permitting and lottery for popular canyons, you have to be there before April 1st. So, it's the last week of March and we're Zion bound once again. This time with our friends Isaac and Nicole. We met at the Colorado Springs airport and flew to Las Vegas Wednesday. A late bedtime Wednesday night and a few hours of sleep before our 4 am alarm and we were off and rolling Thursday morning. We arrived to Zion at 8 am and secured our permits for Not Imlay canyon. While I filled out the paperwork for the permits, gear was packed and readied by the others. We parked at the visitors center and rode the bus to the Angels Landing trailhead. We were walking up the steep trail at 10 am and quickly made it to our cutoff at Scouts Lookout. Turning off the main trail and onto the West Rim trail, we followed the path for several hours. At one point I saw something carved into the concrete path. It said "ED" and I knew at that point that my late father was watching over us that day. It made me smile and reminded me to be careful in this dangerous canyon today. Climbing over and through some snow along the way, we all arrived at the head of Not Imlay about 2 hours after leaving the bus.
The first rappel was long at almost 300' so we rigged the long rope and Laura went first. Isaac and Nicole followed and I rappelled last, bringing the pull cord with me and being careful to keep the strands separate for an easy pull.
After several more rappels, the canyon narrowed down some. While it was still a very steep descent, water was now running from snow melt. We downclimbed and rappelled several waterfall sections before reaching the final long 270' rappel into the Narrows.
Upon reaching the final rappel, we noticed that the anchor was covered in ice. Rather than tie a new anchor, we chose to put me on belay so I could lower to the edge and chop ice away to uncover the anchor. I grabbed one of Laura's trekking poles and proceeded to chop away at the ice for 30 minutes before successfully uncovering and releasing the anchor. Once again, Laura went first and I went last. The rappel into the narrows is spectacular and is about 150' free hanging. As we all got to the river safely, we pulled the ropes and it was late in the day now, already past 6 pm. We knew we needed to hustle to catch the final bus back to the visitors center by 7 pm. Moving quickly, we descended the narrows to the Temple of Sinawava and out to the bus at 6:50 pm. Phew, that was close but we made it. We headed out of the park, ate some dinner and crashed for another early wake up call the next day. Englestead, here we come!
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