Ryan has always loved Zion's and I think it is safe to say that our trips to Zion's will most likely continue to be an annual thing. We actually took this same trip during Memorial Day weekend of 2012 and loved it so much that we jumped at the chance to go again this year. The first time we took this trip, I knew that Ryan was testing my sense of adventure and endurance. Well obviously I passed the test of our first road trip and our first canyoneering adventure because he didn't send me packing afterwards.
Before we headed down to Zion's this year, we stopped by one my good friend's wedding receptions in Alpine. We ended up getting a later start down to Zion's than we had anticipated. We had been driving for a couple of hours when of course I started getting tired and ended up falling asleep in the passenger seat. It was a little after midnight when I woke up to Ry pulling off to the side of the freeway. "We have a flat," Ry said in a perfectly calm voice. We got out, emptied our trunk to get out our donut tire. We got it on and started driving to the nearest town. Luckily we were only about 10 or 15 miles out of Parowon and found what appeared to be an open tire shop at a truck stop. We pulled off and went in to ask if they could replace our tire, of course it was just a semi-truck tire shop and so we were stuck. Next, we called AAA to see if they could be any help, but then we realized that Ryan's parents had AAA and that they couldn't help us because Ryan wasn't on their plan. The lady was still nice and gave us a phone number to call that may have been helpful. A guy answered who said that he wouldn't be able to replace our tire until 9am the next morning. We were stuck. We decided to drive through Parowon and find a hotel to stay the night.
We woke up bright and early Saturday morning to drive to Cedar City to get our tire replaced. After it was replaced, we were finally headed the rest of the way to Zion's. Our friends had already been there a couple of days and we were worried they would maybe start our hike for the day without us. Luckily when we showed up at the cabin, all of Ryan's friends were just getting out of bed. We ate some breakfast, packed up our gear, and left on our hike. We got a little bit late of a start and the clouds in the distance were threatening rain. The hike is called Birch Hollow and has many repels into slot canyons. There were flash flood warnings for Sunday, but there was still a chance of rain for the day. I have to admit I was a little nervous about the potential for rain, because once you get past the first repel, there is no turning back - you have to go the rest of the way. We started out our first few repels at a slower pace because we had some first timers with us. There were about 14 repels total. When we were about half way through and about to enter a narrow slot canyon with multiple repels, it started raining. We decided to take a break for lunch and wait a little while to see if the rain let up at all. It stopped and Ry started to help people repel down into the slot canyon and I stayed back to wait until he had sent everyone else through. After we got about 7 of our 10 people down, it started raining pretty hard. We looked up above to see if we could see any break in the clouds and couldn't see any. I looked at Ry and he had a worried look on his face. Ryan doesn't get worried over little things, so it scared me when I saw that look on his face. I was petrified! I started imagining the worst: water rushing down the slot canyon, creating mini waterfalls with each drop, where we would be standing and waiting to hook into our next repel. He looked at me and said, "We need to go and get down these last repels NOW!" I was so scared I could barely even move. I stood there for moment and then begged Ry that we say a prayer to help us. We said a quick prayer, begging our Heavenly Father to lighten the rain and then I strapped in and sped down the rope into the slot canyon. Luckily we had 2 ropes and so once Ryan was down we got it ready for the others ahead of us to set up the next repel. It was so muddy everywhere and slippery, I was worried someone was going to slip and maybe fall. After a few minutes that we said our prayer, the rain began to let up. It continued to rain but it had lightened immensely. Even though the rain had let up a little, we continued to keep a steady pace down through the rest of the repels. Luckily by the last repel the rain had let up completely and we were able to take our time on the last repel which is a lot of fun.
On these crazy trips that Ry takes me on, there is always one point when I honestly ask myself "What am I doing here, and why did I ever agree to do this?" This time, it was when the rains began to pour and I was honestly worried that we were going to die. I know that might sound a little extreme, but in that moment I was so petrified. I was so happy to have my wonderful husband there to hold me and comfort me and offer a word of prayer to our Heavenly Father, who was so merciful and blessed us by lessening the rain. We were truly blessed with a miracle.
Of course after we got out of the slot canyon we had a good 5 or more mile hike mostly uphill to where we left our car. We reached our car just as it got dark. We only had one car because we left our other car at the beginning of the hike. We were debating about fitting 10 people in a standard sized Subaru, but then (another miracle) a couple showed up who also had their truck parked there. They were heading back the same direction and were kind enough to give us a ride back to our other car.
We got back to the cabin we were staying at, cooked a very late dinner, where shortly after the power went out. By this time after what we'd already been through with our tire and the crazy rain situation in the slot canyon, I actually wasn't surprised at all when the power went out and it didn't come on again that night. Ry and I were so exhausted that after dinner we went straight to bed, while everyone else (who was single - we were the only married couple) stayed up for another hour or two.
We had originally planned on doing another hike on Sunday that we had a permit for, Pine Creek. But I begged Ry not to go even if some of his other friends wanted to. I didn't want to take the chance of getting caught in a flash flood after our experience we'd already had that day. He willingly agreed to just stay at the cabin and keep it very low key the next day. I was so relieved!
I was nervous to come on this trip before we even left. The fact that we got a flat tire and couldn't get it fixed until morning I thought was a sign that we shouldn't be going on this trip. Despite all of our crazy experiences we had on this trip, I was so glad that we went. It was a reassurance to me that Ry and I can get through scary situations and work together as a team. Not to mention all of the tender mercies we were blessed with by our loving Heavenly Father.
