The Subway - Zion National Park

I feel like I have been put through the wringer.  I know, I know, but I really can’t think of anything more original to say than that cliché! Every muscle in my body aches.  Not to mention the joints – shoulder sockets, ankles, knees… Never has getting in and out of bed, nor sitting down, nor climbing in an out of our fifth wheel or our truck, been so painful.  But the cause of all this was absolutely worth it.

Now I’ve mentioned before (Rockslicking Granny) that hiking down steep ravines is a challenge for me.  The hikes we recently did that pushed me out of my comfort zone in the Moab and Bryce National Park areas over the past month have been a preparation of sorts for my first attempt at a “strenuous” accredited hike. My husband Richard’s former work colleague Bob Erikson and his wife Debbie talked us into this escapade 6 months ago – because the hike to the Subway on Zion National Park land https://www.nps.gov/zion/planyourvisit/thesubway.htm is a permit only walk.  

In order to limit footfall to delicate environments hosting unusual land formations, located in wilderness areas within the parks (ie areas not managed for daily use by the thousands of visitors that normally visit these parks), only 40 permits a day are issued on a first come first serve basis by National Parks or areas run by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management). Twenty passes are allocated months in advance via an online lottery system, the other 20 are given out either one day before or on the day at the park.  We applied online for a few different hikes and were lucky to get four passes for the Subway.  I was lucky to get three months to get my head around what was going to be expected of me.

The top down hike entails silly stuff like rappelling down cliffs for an hour, and then walking downriver.  Too crazy sounding  for me!  The alternative bottom up hike is billed as being 9 miles round trip walking up the left fork of North Creek, and entails “route finding, creek crossing and scrambling over boulders”.

Bob and Debbie are in their early fifties, and are seasoned hikers.  They live in Park City, Utah and Debbie thinks nothing of walking 8 miles through local ski area for a bit of regular exercise.  In fact, they have trekked across the globe.  In three weeks they are heading to Africa to climb Mt Kilimanjaro.  They agreed to do the bottom up hike for our sakes. 

Now I have to admit that I did warn everyone that I might chicken out at any time and let them all go on without me.  I took a book in my back-pack in case of such an event.  Yes, I even dusted off my back pack (not used since our Ramblers Club days in Scotland), to share the load of carrying sufficient water and food, medical supplies, plus take an extra set of clothing in case I fell in the creek.  Richard took a pair of newly purchased water sandals as well as his walking trainers.  I wore my year old Keen rambling sandals which I had learned to trust for their non slip soles, in and out of water.

So, we arrived at the Trail head at 8am.  Weather was coolish – around 65F (18C) – but temperatures would rise.  We hoped the creek valley would be shaded for most of the morning.  Bob and Debbie wanted to be on the road home (four hour road trip and get ready for work on Monday), by mid afternoon.  They reckoned on completing the hike in about 6-7 hours.

It took us an hour to descend down a mountainside to the creek.  The path was steep and pretty much a rock laden creek bed in itself – a means for flash flood run off down the mountainside.  I gritted my teeth, looked no more than two feet ahead of me to plan each step, and was thankful for the larger rocks on either side of the switchbacks to steady myself. 

Bob leading the way down the canyon

By the time I reached the bottom my legs felt like jelly.

OK! The worst part was over.  Climbing up would be much easier right? Apart from the fact it would be at the end of the walk and our legs would be tired...  

And then we started up the creek. 

North Creek looking deceptively benign as we began

 And yes, there were more rocks, and more boulders, (some over head height which we clambered over and some which we had to walk a distance to find a crumbling trail to negotiate our way around. 

Richard and Bob trying to keep their feet dry

Hmm.. maybe that way might be better?

Every time we crossed the creek and jumped from rock to rock we had to test out their slipperyness.  Progress was much slower than Bob and Debbie had anticipated.  Richard was the first to land in the water – even though it was only on one knee and looked very graceful.  Bob was next, hurting his thumb in the process.  Debbie fell a couple of times and, because she was shorter than everyone, got her shorts soaked. I jarred my ankle, scraped both knees and was stabbed in the arm by a dead limb, but was determined to keep going.  In fact, in some strange way I was heartened by the fact that everyone else was having difficulty with the terrain.  I had been scared that I would have been holding everyone back, and here I was, actually leading the group on a few occasions.  We stopped to eat our sandwiches at midday.  It was not a long break; we were four hours into the walk and the subway was not yet in sight.

We decided it might be faster if we walked in the creek.  Reluctantly Bob and Richard put on their new water shoes – neither of them had worn theirs before and anticipated blisters and discomfort.  Once in the water, they wished they had changed sooner.  The water was refreshing.  The sand was not an issue; the water quickly washed it out through the holes.  Only once did I need to take one shoe off to remove a little pebble.

Debbie leading the way

Within ten minutes the distance between the by now sheer canyon walls became smaller and smaller, yet the creek and the little waterfalls we had encountered broadened out and became more spectacular, and the rock changed to layers of what looked like shale, but was sandstone and easy to walk up.  Occasional growths of moss proved a little slippery but otherwise progress was much quicker. 

Richard was really taken with his water shoes!!

 Faults in the bedrock turned into rivers within rivers.  

  

Suddenly the canyon turned left and there it was ahead of us: The Subway.  

The bottom of the rock walls had been eroded by the water into smooth overhangs, streaked with moss, like the walls of an underground transport system. There were several holes eroded into the river bed, forming green pools that invited some of the younger hikers that had beaten us there or had descended from the top down hike, to take a dip. 

Rappeller who decided to take another plunge bath!

In fact it did get rather slippery as we moved up to the last pool into which the top down hikers were rappelling.  Richard and I stayed back from checking that area out – after I saw both Bob and Debbie sliding and getting soaked.   

We spent a little over 20 minutes there, and at 1.30 we began our trip back.  The euphoria we felt at getting to our destination and witnessing its beauty probably lasted a couple of hours.  By 4pm I was ready to be out of there.  I was already mentally anticipating climbing up that mountain and even though we waded most of the way back through the creek to try to save some time, we were still way behind schedule.  We hit the path that would lead us up and out of the canyon at 5pm.  By 6.10 we were at the car park.  It took slightly more than 10 hours to do the full hike.

I am writing this the day after, knowing that typing is the only thing that doesn’t require moving my sore body parts.  But you know what?  I just completed a walk that younger and more seasoned hikers found as challenging as I did.  I beat my demons.  And you know the best part?  The part I was laughing to myself at, as I lay in bed last night, whilst trying to still my twitching muscles from the endless repetitiveness of climbing up and over things?  

I didn’t even fall once!!!

Subway trekking granny