Pine Creek

So last weekend we headed down to Zion to do a couple of slot canyons. We planned on Pine Creek Canyon on Sunday then Mystery Canyon on Monday. We got to Zion late Saturday and camped then got up early to get a permit for the canyon Sunday morning. We checked out the weather and decided that since the forecast called for thunderstorms off and on all day, we'd rather not risk our lives with a flash flood.
So instead we headed to St George for a little climbing at Black Rocks, my favorite St George climbing spot. I didn't take any climbing pictures. Sorry. But we did see a rare desert tortoise, true story. I took this picture on my phone:



Then we went to Red Cliffs and did some hiking around, it was cloudy and so pretty.





We went back to our campsite and went swimming (this is important later)with our friend Danny, his sister and his wife Erin (my new favorite), and their
adorable little guy, Jude. Ate some extra yummy dutch oven chicken and rice curry. So good. Then to bed, we were getting up at 5 to start hiking ....
5 AM comes along, Luke tells me to go wake up the boys to get ready and starts packing up our tent. I knock on Danny's tent, then Ryan's, then go back to ours to pack up. I look over and here comes Danny, staggering like a full-on drunk towards us. He says he has a problem. He was supposed to wear ear plugs last night in the pool ... he's been puking all night ... he has vertigo and can't walk straight ... he feels totally dizzy and doesn't feel like he should stand at the edge of huge cliffs then lower himself off them. Fair enough. So we decided to do Pine Creek and went back to bed.
Pine Creek was so incredible. I've done it before, but it was both Lucas and Ryan's first canyoneering experience. The canyon had flashed 3 times the day before (if we had tried it we would have for sure been battered to death by rocks), so it was all murky and cold and really wet. There were a lot of sections we had to swim through ... here are some of my favorite shots (sorry there are a million and none of them are awesome, the lighting was awful):

{before shot}

{Luke on the 1st rappel}



{looking straight down - 60 ft rappel}



{cute boys}

{cute helmets}

{setting up the last rappel - 100 ft}

{me on the last rappel}



{the end}