Imlay Canyon - Sneak Route. 3rd time through

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Rick called me on short notice Monday evening to extend an invitation to go down Kolob with him, Steve, and Maria. I accepted.

I am not sure what to attribute it to, but I seem to require less sleep than I used to. I remember, just a few years ago, an overwhelming desire to sleep as much as possible. Now, whether my body chemistry has changed, and my machine does not require extensive amounts of sleep, or if I have trained my body to function on less when an adventure is looming upon me, I am not sure. It is probably a combination of both factors. Regardless of the cause, I woke up this morning at 3:40 am, a full ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off.

4:30 am - Rick and I met at the Farmer's Market parking lot in La Verkin and are now on our way to Steve & Maria's abode in Springdale.

5:30 am - White permit in the dash, we park at the Grotto for the start of the adventure and the chronometer. I can't tell you how many times I have hiked the Angel's Landing Trail in the dark, either descending from a bigwall climb, or approaching a canyon. Next time I may run up it with my eyes closed just for fun.

The approach up the West Rim to the point where we cross Telephone canyon took us just over 2.5 hours, and was 3.5 hours to Imlay. The water was very low, lowest I have ever seen it. We had 3 serious keeper potholes to escape out of. The hook placements are eroding rapidly. I would hate to be the guy who scraped away the holes totally, and was without a drill. Without aiders and hooks, these keepers could be death traps. The canyon was beautiful, yet very dark. We made it safely to the Temple of Sinawava 10 hours after our start. http://www.summitpost.org/canyon/305103/imlay-canyon.html