The second day of our S Utah Adventure finds us in the early morning hours with Mike, a guide from Zion Rock and Mountain Guides, for a guided family canyoneering adventure. After fitting us all with harnesses, shoes, helmets, and other necessary equipment, we hop in our car and follow him back towards St George to a short slot canyon called Yankee Doodle Slot located at the foot of the Pine Valley Mountains north of St George. Beautiful scenery as we drive through red cliffs, dry juniper forests, and even what appears to be a very old orchard with mostly dead trees, possibly the remains of an old homesteader trying to make it in a very harsh climate.
After spotting his truck at the crossing of a gully and starting to drive down the road, our guide realizes he has left his truck at the wrong out canyon, so we go back and get it and drive a couple miles down the road to position it at the right location (just a trick I'm sure to make the day more exciting by causing us to wonder if he really knows where he's going!). We park a short mile or so down the road, get our gear on, and head for the canyon. A couple hundred yards later, we are on the edge of a narrow canyon cut deeply into the sparsely forested foothills. We sit on a rock ledge above the 30 ft drop into the canyon as Mike instructs us on how to keep from getting hurt while rapelling into the canyon (air - good! rock - bad! It hurts when you run into it). We learn the ropes (literally).
I get to go first, my first time rapelling ever. I get on rope, Mike ties off the safety line, and over the edge I go. Quite exhilirating as you back over the edge and lean back into thin air (air - good!). I walk backwards down the cliff and arrive at the bottom. Off rope, off safety, clear the landing area. Jessica and Sarah proceed to make their way down. Now it is time for Melinda, our timid nine-year old who never does anything risky, who finds a ride on Dad's shoulders nearly more excitement than she can handle. How is she going to do this? We had talked a lot about this in the months before the trip, and she wanted to do it, but now is the moment of truth. How long will Carlynn and the guide have to coax her before she backs over that edge? Will Mike have to come down with her? And then miraculously, she starts coming down, very slowly, very carefully, but no screaming, no whimpering that she doesn't want to do it any more; she just gets on rope, and with Mike's gentle instruction and encouragement, she walks backwards over the edge! And throughout the rest of the day, Mike continued to guide her with firm, but gentle words, to push herself to face her fears and do things that we could hardly believe. Not that she wasn't scared, but Mike somehow got her to do these things in spite of her fear. Seeing Melinda do the things she did was worth the entire trip.
Oh, but wait, there was also incredible scenery, more rapels, and a lot of downclimbing around obstacles and through cracks. All with Mike on the ropes to help each of us according to our needs and to keep us safe. We took a little longer than we were supposed to working our way through the obstacles in the canyon, so we come to the one downside of the day - a 1.4 mile hike up the out canyon in the afternoon sun. In the slot, we were mostly shaded, but here there were just patches of shade as we worked our way up the bottom of the wash. We were down to our last drops of water and close to overheated by the time we made it out to the truck we had spotted. Back in the car with the blessed air conditioning on, we returned to our motel in Sprindale, hot, tired, and scraped up a bit, but reveling in the accomplishments of the day.
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