Misery Canyon

I don’t know how we missed it. With a name like Misery Canyon, you’d think we would do everything we could to avoid it. Instead we sought it out.

10:20 am August 11, 2007. We entered the canyon to the west of Checkerboard Mesa, in Zion National Park to begin our adventure.
10:35 am. We realized we should be in the next canyon over and climbed over the ridge to start our hike anew. It’s a beautiful hike up to the saddle of Checkerboard Mesa, from then on, though, it’s just hot desert.
12:50 pm. We finally found the wash that would lead us to Misery Canyon and followed the stagnant tadpole pools down to the entrance. The slot canyon was fairly simple. It had a series of simple down climbs, some fun stagnant pools to try to avoid and a couple of short rappels. It opened up to a dried river bed where we sat and ate lunch. “I don’t know why they rate these canyons to be so difficult and strenuous,” we said. “That was easy. We didn’t even breach the swimsuit.”
3:10 pm. We walked 20 feet down the dried up river bed to a 35 ft. drop where we realized we were only halfway through the slot canyon. In fact, the lower slots were where things got interesting. The pools were more revolting with every turn until finally we found ourselves in front of a large wildlife sewage pit. The smell was so foul that Jared was dry-heaving in the corner. Can’t go over. Can’t go around it. We had to go straight through it. Devin (being the tallest) was our measuring stick. We’d just drop him in first to see how deep it was. He lowered himself in up to his chest, screaming in disgust while the rest of us roared with laughter. The canyon echoed the screams and laughter as we made our way through SEVERAL nasty pools, swimming sections and passing packs and trying to ignore the fat frogs in the water around us. Eventually we dropped out into the Paranaweap River where we tried (unsuccessfully) to wash the stench from our clothes.
4:50 pm. We began our ascent out of the canyon and the long trek back to our car. The directions back were a little sketchy. We knew we needed to head North West, so we pointed ourselves in that direction and hiked up and over mountains and down into valleys. Unfortunately, I have a knee problem that kicks in after about 5 hours of hiking, so I was already in considerable pain and every left step was excruciating. We all had a rough time with the hike back. It seemed endless. Just when you thought there was just one more hill, you’d find another one.
9:00 pm. We stumbled and limped out of Checkerboard canyon to where our car awaited us with warm bottles of water.
We always joke that there is a spiritual message to be learned from every adventure. This one is, “Now that I have experienced a little bit of Hell, I will never sin again.”