Another year, another Zion Summercamp. Time for a return to Mystery Canyon. Always one of my favorites, I have not done Mystery for a couple of years due to the hassles of getting a permit. Rumors were that the Death Gully approach had gotten horrendous...

Here's Larry Halford from Washington State, visiting the redrock canyons, starting down into Mystery.

Not having been down in a while, I expected a mess. NOT! Actually, it looks really good. With my 'new eyes', it looks to me like a modest amount of work could change this into a reasonable trail.

As part of the ZCC advocacy, I took a series of pictures to 'capture' the descent gully in pixels. This one section of trail has been the object of much derision. My (not unbiased) opinion is that with a little bit of effort, a fine, stabilized, and natural-looking trail could easily be built down this route. Hopefully we can convince the Park that "active management" is a better management tactic than severely limiting access, which is what we have now.

For those interested, a set of 20 pictures of the Mystery Access Trail is available HERE (about 2 MB, in a zip file).

Mystery is always pretty. Here's an art shot for ya.

Here's most of our group, setting up a rap after the dogleg. That'd be Larry Halford, Barb Grover, Roylnn Serati and Judy Seybold threading the rope through those bolts, rather than using that tiny, meaningless log.

Barb Grover rappin' the slabby one at the end of the Narrows.

Barb again, at the rap which is usually 'stinkin' hot'.

Most of my memories of Mystery are from August, when the sun is much higher and hotter. Mystery is so pleasant in late September - even this rap was shaded.