Misery Canyon, Zion NP

The 5 am wake up call came early Saturday morning and it took some motivation to leave the warm sleeping bag. Eventually we did stir with enough time to break down camp and drive from Duck Creek to Zion NP where we had plans to complete Misery Canyon. Our planned group of 7 had dwindled down to 3: Erik, myself, and Stephen. On our way down Stephen asked us, "Do your friends always bail on you?" I guess it just isn't easy to keep up with the Rasmussens.

The canyon took 8 1/2 hours for the three of us to complete.
2 Hours: Approach Hike
3 Hours: Technical Slot sections
1 Hour: Lunch and Swim in Parunuweap Canyon
2 1/2: Brutal Exit Hike in the heat of the day.

Highlights of the canyon included:
Watching the sun come up over Zion's sandstone cliffs
Walking up the steepest longest sand dune of all time
Seeing lots of wildlife
6 fun rappels
Our first rappel off of a dead man's anchor
Building our first anchor (Dead Man's)
Water slides into nice pools
The Indiana Jones swing
Great downclimbing
Wading through a pool with a dead creature with of undetermined species
Getting caught in quicksand
Seeing Stephen get so excited about canyoneering
The Powell Expedition commemorative plaque
Class 3 scramble to get out of Parunuweap
Not seeing anyone all day (We did see 3 backpackers at the very end)
Arriving at the car after 9 intense hours on our feet
Downing a Costa burrito in Cedar City on our drive home

Pretty amazing day, Erik probably said "This is a BLAST!" or "That canyon was a BLAST!" ten times throughout the day, and that makes me very happy!



Here's a map of our route:

And here is the elevation profile: