Friday- The Subway

So here is why our week/weekend was a little busy...
We acquired tickets to Brian Regan months ago. He was performing on Saturday, the 9th in Saint to the George. At the time, no problem- nothing was scheduled. Fast forward a couple of months. The ward Father & Sons outing gets planned for Friday, the 8th through the morning of the 9th. So no problem. He'll take Luke to that and we'll join our friends on Saturday for the show. Scott had planned a trip for the scouts in late July to hike the famous Subway in Zions. Since he was going to go, now I wanted to go (uh, not with the scouts). And my friend Erica, Ms. Outdoor girl extraordinaire, was more than willing to take me through, so I asked her to tour me on Friday, the 8th. Upon hearing I was going, Scott wanted to join us so he could know what was in store for the scouts. Following all this? So here we are. All three, bright and early Friday morning to hike the Subway. Planning to whip through and be done early afternoon so Scott can meet Luke at the Father/Sons and join us the next day. Don't we look bright eyed and bushy tailed? Are you giggling yet?
It was a stunning descent. Great open slick rock trails through, as the map so quaintly declared, "delightful" forestry. Here are Scott and I on our perky start. Erica and I stopped to take a photo at one of the first steep downgrades (you can tell because the mountain horizon behind us keeps getting higher). We go a couple of miles through all this before a very steep and sketchy descent to the start of the Subway. Perhaps this is well illustrated in the photo of Scott showing us his fine rear view.
Here we are at the base, ready to begin. The map said that the beginning was the opening behind us, a "dry river bed". Well, as you can see, there is water. Lots of it. Already a couple of inches. It's cold. We laugh it off hoping it won't be too bad, even though this is evident it's in vain.
We go a bit through ankle deep areas and I slip while stepping on a mossy rock and ram my right knee 90 degrees into a boulder. I tried to walk it off but could feel the nausea coming so I quickly laid down to recover. What fun! I tried to walk it off and was able to manage well enough, but had a nice goose-egg cartoon knee the rest of the way. The lame thing about it was I felt very tenacious the rest of the way, something you can't really afford to feel when hiking this gnarly thing, but whatever. We trudged on and I was glad to be in good, fighting company. You can't be a wimp doing this because... here come the deep pools.
It's May. The winter run off is a bit COLD. I was at Target earlier in the week and had, what I thought was, a nifty plan. I purchased a cheap inflatable water floaty donut thing. Figured- hey! If we come to any deep pools, we can just float across the top on our donuts! I'm a genius! I grab three and we each had one. Well, here we are, facing the pools and no one will use my brilliant idea except me. So I did it. I blew one up as Scott and Erica snickered at me across the way. "Just you wait and see!" I says to them I says. I wade over where it drops to a deep pool where Scott has already crossed and is shivering. We sent him with the cameras so he takes this picture of me poised and ready to beach myself on my blue device. One... two.... and whoop! The small waterfall forces the tube right out from under me and halfway to Scott. I was deflated and laughing too hard at myself at the same time and tried to jump on it, landing short and COMPLETELY in the water. Ohmygoshitssooocooooldswimswimswimswim.....!!! Did you read a curse word in there? We would never! (Okay, fine. I'd like to see YOU do it explicitive-free.)
So there we stood. Barely beginning our adventure on a shallow rocky shore, dripping, freezing, shivering, laughing and wanting to cry a little. Packs are all wet, our garbage bags didn't keep the water out and therefore, did not keep our cameras dry. So it's like the Blair Witch project. I can prove we were there, but the darkest, most crazy moments, most beautiful places, were never captured. But we did it! We had to rapel 4 different times, amid waterfalls and uneven walls, we had to hike slippery, mossy tiers covered in bugs, we had to try and warm up in occasional spots of sun and put on wet 'layers' of warmer clothing that was supposed to be dry for those very moments. But we did it. It was hard and it doesn't let you off easy, either. The 2+ miles out of there make you work the whole way, climaxing with an incredibly vertical climb to your car. But I was so glad to be with strong people. Scott and Erica are tough cookies and were great teammates. Thanks, Erica, for taking us through (And John for babysitting so she could go)! Scott made it off to his scout camp just in time. Poor guy was wasted, though, but they ended up having a really great time.
Hope this wasn't too wordy (if you even read it all) but I didn't want to forget these few details. Have any of you done it? Would you do it again?
And PS- My blue donut ended up being a hero by the end of the day! Go blue.