The Hike

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGlpqnAfzUM[/embedyt]

I didn’t know at the time, but that was the closest to death I’ve been in a while.

The day started with a few missteps. I forgot about the weird time change from Arizona to Utah, and we made a few u-turn somewhere along the way. By the time we got to Zion, it was already noon, way past when I expected to start our Narrows hike. Since we missed the visitor’s center, we decided to stop by the equipment rental place for some advice. Jonathan was the guru of the day at Zion Guru, and he was super helpful in planning our two-day stay. The rain had subsided for the moment, but it would be too late for the Narrows. We got our equipment set up for the next morning and got an early start on our safety briefing on flash floods and other disasters. He even gave us a quiz at the end to make sure we got the most important things down. Little did we know how quickly these tips would come in handy.

Since Narrows was moved to the next day, we decided on a short hike up to Hidden Canyon Trail and Weeping Rock for the afternoon. These were easy hikes that were expected to take no more than 2-3 hours, and we had plenty of daylight left. We packed lightly and walked leisurely, finding the trail a bit easy and the scenery somewhat repetitive. We stopped to discuss how much the sediment layers looked like a certain Chinese dish, and debated whether the patterns on the tree barks were made by sap or insects (the answer was actually bark beetles, if you were curious). By the time we got to the more interesting part of the trail, where we had move along holding onto chains, the sky was getting a bit dark already.

We heard the first thunder while taking portraits in a cave right outside the mouth of the canyon. We each wanted our own picture of course, and had to make sure it came out exactly to our liking. Shelley’s urge for us to turn back was deemed overly cautious and ignored completely. As we moved further inside the canyon, a few more thunderclaps were heard, but as we hadn’t seen any super impressive views yet, we continued to push forward. The sky had turned ominous by then, but I carelessly attributed it to our location between tall cliffs and lush trees. Finally we ran into a couple of groups returning from the other end of the canyon, and based on their description decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to keep going.

The first raindrop landed on my nose as soon as we turned around. By the time we got back to the mouth of the canyon, it was already pouring. When we reached the chains, the rain drops seemed to hit harder, and it took me a second to recognize their solidified form. I would soon regret the joyous tone I used calling out the hail. The first round wasn’t too bad, the hail was smaller than M&M size and mixed in with rain. We waited for a bit against the wall, then carefully made it down the long stretch of slippery slope with chains followed by a narrow staircase. There was only one more chained section left, and I decided it was worth getting my camera wet to capture some footage of Connie and RJ going across the chained wall. After all, how often can one say they’ve hiked in a hail?

Well, I definitely got more than I wished for. The hail storm came down before they even finished crossing, as if angered by our irreverence. As I shifted my camera towards the now whopper sized hail coming down the hill, I can hear Shelley crying out in the background, and I belatedly realized the same thing — this hail was starting to be painful. I finally turned my camera off and made my first good decision of the day — backtrack uphill to find shelter instead of crossing the chained wall. I frantically looked for any kind of ledge I could hide under, but the only thing I could find was a tree with a nook that I could potentially fit into. I climbed towards the tree, slipping on the hail pellets that covered the ground in what seemed to be seconds. Unfortunately I couldn’t fit my entire body into the nook, so I crouched down and stuck my head inside, letting my back take the brunt of the hits. I wish I could say it felt like a massage.

I was dazed for a few minutes, and finally heard a familiar voice amidst the sound of countless falling pebbles. Shelley and Jason had been behind me and are also stuck on this side of the wall. After some screaming back and forth, they were finally able to join me next to my tiny nook. They weren’t able to find shelter and held up a raincoat as a tent to soften the blow of the hail. With the freezing rain and sudden temperature drop, Jason was already shivering uncontrollably. Fortunately we had a long discussion on hypothermia (along with other morbid topics) on our long car ride into Zion and knew how important it was to keep warm. The three of us huddled together to share our body heat, and with the nook and rain coat tent, braved the hailstorm the best we could.

Between the hail and the cold, we hadn’t had time to think about much else, but just when it seemed like the hail was slowing down, another sound became louder and louder. We peeked our heads out of hiding just in time to see the sludge of muddy water tumble down the staircase at incredible speed, mixed in with layers of debris and topped by a layer of hail pellets. I froze for a second before realizing that this was one of the warning signs Jonathan had mentioned to us a few hours ago. Flash flood. Except at this point it wasn’t really a warning, we were most definitely watching a flash flood take down everything in its path.

Jonathan’s briefing came back to mind and we scrambled to find higher ground. We looked around and realized the only higher ground we can go to without going into the deadly stream is to climb the tree. So we climbed on top of the tree. Not very high up, we could really only get to the top of the nook, but we found some consolation in doing so. The water level didn’t seem to rise higher and the rain was actually dying down a bit. “We should have turned around at the first thunder.” Shelley said somewhat matter-of-factly as we shivered in the rain. I would usually come up with some sarcastic quip at this but at the moment I agreed whole-heartedly. For some reason, up until this point my biggest worry had been whether my camera would still turn on. It finally occurred to me that we might be stuck here for much longer and a dead camera would probably be the least of my worries in another hour.

I watched the stream for what seemed like forever, and noticed the water’s lost the fierceness that scared us to the top of the tree moments ago. The hail had also stopped at some point, and the sky was beginning to shed some of its grimness. I decided to take a peek at the chained wall, the only path back, only to find a giant brown waterfall in its place. As I was shouting back and forth with Shelley and Jason, a couple of hikers emerged above us and yelled for me to go back to higher ground, then disappeared behind the mountain again. Sure enough, another bout of heavy rain came through, although nothing as menacing as we had seem earlier. The thought of knowing there are other hikers close to us and watching out for us was a comforting thought. We waited a bit longer, and the rain stopped almost completely. We still couldn’t get across the wall, but felt safe enough to get up, stretch, and wring out our clothes. Of course, the first thing to do when it seemed like we were going to live is to take a selfie video 😛

The two hikers finally came down and we exchanged stories. They had been in the canyon when the water came down, and where we had been walking on solid ground not too long ago, they had to wade through in waist deep water. They ventured ahead to check the chained wall, and found it safe enough to cross. We followed suit, but only after taking a photo of our beloved shelter, which has now been dubbed as our “tree of life.”

As we walked down the trail, we saw damage from the flood everywhere. A couple of giant brown waterfall came out of nowhere, and despite our still perilous situation we couldn’t resist taking some photos and videos. There were sections of the trail that were taken out by the water, and piles of knee deep hail made it difficult to run down the mountain as fast as we could.

Connie had been wearing a bright teal sweater, so I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the vibrant color down at the bottom of the mountain. We knew they made it across the wall and the rest of the trail was much easier, but it was great to have confirmation. When I finally made it down the mountain, I got the biggest hugs from Connie and RJ, who bursted into tears. Apparently as Shelley, Jason, and I sought shelter, a mudslide came down the chained wall where Connie and RJ had just crossed. Since I was right behind them and then disappeared, they had no idea where I went during the chaos. I had not seen the mudslide myself, but judging from the waterfall I saw later, had I tried to go across the wall, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here writing this blog. So in hindsight, despite all my bad decisions, I had made at least one good one during the day.

We spent the evening watching YouTube videos of flash floods, exchanging stories, and expressing our gratitude at being alive. It occurred to me that this is quite a special group, because instead of talking about how unlucky we were, everyone found something to be grateful for, like how lucky we were to have gone to Zion Guru first and gotten tips from Jonathan, how lucky we were to have found our “tree of life,” and how lucky the other girls were to have found a group of hikers to come down the mountains with. We just got through one of the worst experiences of our lives and there could be so much blaming and whining, but instead we smiled and laughed and celebrated being alive.

Dying in a flash flood is pretty rare. Maybe we were actually not as close to death as we thought, but it certainly felt like it. As I watched the flood ruthlessly devour everything in its way, my fear was somewhat alleviated by my awe. We’ve taken nature for granted for so long we forget how powerful it is and how fragile we are. More than anything else, I’m humbled by my encounter with the crueler side of nature, and even more grateful for the amazing gift of being alive.