Pine Creek Zion Run Through and Anchor Work 09-25-2020

Some Zion canyons opened for business 9-24-2020 and I decided to make a quick dash through Pine Creek on the next day, Friday 9-25.

I had unfinished anchor business in there. The winter before last, the large boulder at the end of the narrows section moved down 6 feet, restoring the rappel that used to be there, now that climbing under was no longer possible. The glue-in bolt Mr. Cabe and I installed circa 2002 was now about 9 feet off the ‘ground’, making it hard to inspect and rig. Summer 2009 I placed one 1/2” stainless steel Powerbolt in this location. I came back a month later to place a second… except - the drilling the first time took so long, the rock was so good, that I decided a 3/8” bolt would work fine. Which was a mistake. The 3/8” I placed did not spin up (thus becoming a “spinner”), but I was able to remove the bolt and all pieces except the cone. The mission was to drill out that hole to 1/2” and fill it with a 1/2” Stainless Powerbolt. Which WE did.

I went in solo late in the day (4:00 pm start) in order to not do “the devil’s work” in the sight of others, but caught up with a 12-person group I’m calling the “Gang of Fun”.

The last 25% of the Shuttle Line at 3:30 PM. Yikes!!!

The visitor center and Parking Lot were a ZOO! Crazy stuff!

Pine Creek Report

It has not really rained for 5 months so I was thinking Pine Creek would be really dry. I almost brought a shortee wetsuit; glad I brought the “full”. There was water before the first rappel though it did not look real deep. I put on my wetsuit. I could hear a group downcanyon making lots of happy noises, and when I looked over at the first rap anchor I saw their rope… then it was gone.

I stemmed down into the water and it was crotch deep. An easy wade over to the first rappel. Water at the bottom of the first rap was waist deep, kinda skanky.

The second rappel, where we used to go under the boulder, was rigged poorly so I re-rigged the webbing on that. The last flood had scoured out the bottom here so it was further down than expected. I caught up with the last of the group ahead at the Cathedral rappel. They politely allowed me to rap on their rope (and waited a few minutes for me to do so - thanks!). The water was low, VERY skanky, and still required a few strokes of swim at the Cathedral. The next feature, the water was 5 feet below normal and the water was waist deep or so.

As found, anchor and rigging for the 2nd rap in Pine Creek.

Forward, the longer corridor that is usually a swim was tip toes wading for me. Then it was dry. And scoured out, so several features were changed. With the trailing couple of peeps from the “Gang of Fun”, we arrived at the place of “work required”. Most everyone went forward while we worked on the anchor. One of the guys was tall and keen to do the work; he was able to remove the webbing from the glue-in bolt, but the Rapide required two hands to remove and two hands were not available from that precarious stance, so the Rapide was left behind.

We, meaning he, reamed the hole out to 1/2” and was able to pull out the remaining piece of the 3/8” bolt, the cone. “We” put in a new 1/2” x 2-3/4” Powers Powerbolt and it tightened up just fine. We rigged it with rapid links (3) and webbing. Finally!!

It was dry and scoured at the bottom of this rappel and I was amazed at how deep this hole is.

We sauntered forward and joined the rest of the Gang of Fun at the penultimate rappel, then at the final rappel. With 12 plus me = 13 people we chose to rig both the old and new raps at the end allowing a couple of people who were cold to avoid the last wetness in the canyon, the spring-fed pool one must enter if doing the ‘new’ inside rappel. I re-rigged the old anchor (which was rather oddly rigged) and encouraged two of the less experienced person in getting over the rather-intimidating edge of that rappel.

The In Situ rigging on the final rappel, old anchor, in Pine Creek.

Old anchor, new rigging. Ultimate rappel in Pine Creek.

By now the light was starting to fade, so we hightailed it down the walkout, soon enough with headlamps. A lot has changed on the walkout, but of course it is hard to tell exactly what in the dark.

The walkout portion of Pine Creek had a heavy accumulation of algal mats / Cyanobacteria mats. WAY WAY more than I have ever seen. We had a few moments of “The Early’s” but eventually found the correct exit. A fun time was had by all.