TL;DR
Looking to avoid the crowds of the Narrows and have a little added spice (repelling) to the journey? Then you should try out Orderville Canyon. Orderville is a 12 mile technical canyon that includes 2-3 repels (depending on conditions) and various water and non-water obstacles to get past. You should know how to repel safely, take all the necessary gear, and be able to assess conditions. Do not jump off anything! And don't underestimate how long this route will take, the back half is all through water. It took us 10 hours and we did this route in early October.
Thoughts
Its been a while since I've done something completely new. The night before I had a bit of anxiety over everything. Waking up on time, making our shuttle on time, getting through the route, enjoying it, getting through fast enough to make the canyon shuttle before the last bus, not getting hurt, whether I'd be warm enough, the list goes on. So at a very early 4:45am we woke up to tear down camp and move the cars to the Zion visitor center parking lot. There our shuttle driver greeted us and off we went to the eastern side of the park. It was still dark when we reached the intersection of the trailhead 4wd road. The shuttle won't take you down it but the 12 miles starts from that intersection. Our drop off was brief and it settled in that this was it, we're going, there was no going back now. The dim light of dawn slowly grew as we made our way down to the trailhead proper. The air was brisk and frost coated more and more of the vegetation as we descended. You know the saying, be bold, start cold.
We arrived as the dry fall and a momentary freak out thinking that was something we had to repel down. After contemplating the area, we finally found the trail winding down the side of the canyon to the left of the dry fall. We made our way down to the bottom and were quickly greeted to some spectacular fall colors. It had slipped my mind in planning this trip, but we got to see peak leaf peeping. With every bend, the walls grew taller, the leaves more vibrant. The interplay of light with a slot canyon will never be anything less than ephemeral.
It felt like no time at all before we were at the first repel, border boulder. It was still dry so we didn't put on our wetsuits yet. The repel went smooth, and we were off again in no time at all. Soon the trail grew wetter and wetter. We got to a point where there was no chance of staying dry, so we rolled up our pants and walked on through. Good bye dry feet. Even that soon grew to be not enough as we reached the second repel, guillotine. At the bottom was a pool of water of unknown depth. It was about lunch time so we decided to stop there, eat, and suit up. The pool ended up being not very deep but the amount of space to put on wetsuit was quickly decreasing anyway.
We were in and out of water for the remainder of the hike. Some spots were deep and others more shallow. It was hard to tell since the water looked like chocolate milk because of the recent rain 2 days prior. We then reached a spot that wasn't noted in our overview. In between Guillotine and Veiled Falls was another smaller water fall that has a hidden anchor on the right side. It was impossible to tell how deep the pool at the bottom was and I'm not a big risk taker, especially from heights. So we did a third surprise repel down a waterfall and into a somewhat deep pool at the bottom. The repels on this trip weren't bad at all. It was actually the last obstacle that I found to be the worst. The Moki steps. The entire area around the Veiled Falls was wet making it a little slick. Once again, we couldn't determine how deep the pool at the bottom was. It actually ended up being only waist deep which wouldn't have been great to jump into. Off on the left side, barely noticeable, are a few steps carved into the rock. These are the Moki steps. They were wet and the only hand holds available were 2 left hand crimps. It was essentially a slab boulder problem that I was pretty unhappy about. D and F were able to downclimb successfully. I needed a ton of help to make it down and not totally slip off and eat it. A got about half way down but ended up sliding off and landing in the water. Fortunately everyone was safe and uninjured.
A little past the Moki steps you hit the Narrows. And with the Narrows comes the crowds. This part was a bit of a slog which is unfortunate since the Narrows are supposed to be beautiful, but after having all of Orderville to ourselves for the day, it was a harsh reality to be in a herd of people. So if you want a chance for some solitude, with the beauty of the narrows, and the fun of repelling, check out Orderville.
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