Kolob Canyon (return)

Kolob is a great canyon and worth the trip. The canyon is deep, filled with water, contains 12 fun rappels, hard work and lots of fun. Yes it is dangerous just read anyone's report and they will extol the dangers of this canyon. Yes a scout group encountered a disaster in this canyon that resulted in the death of 2 leaders. I will echo the need for caution and dangerous nature of the canyon. The water levels will make this canyon deadly, the rappels are high. The water is cold and the remoteness of this canyon makes rescue time consuming and if something goes wrong it will take much time and effort to get help. As in any slot canyon the danger of a flash flood is present and real. We traveled Kolob when 3cf/s was being released from the dam, thunderstorms were predicted in the weather (30%) chance of rain and flooding.

Just before we left for Zion I found Eric's blog on his 7/3/2006 trip down Kolob. This was extremely helpful.because the video in his blog showed the water levels in the stream and what to expect in the canyon. The level of water we encountered was less than during his trip.

We left our campsite in Watchman at 6:30am and did not get to the Zion trail head until after 8am. The trail to Kolob is not marked and is not heavily traveled. The ranger told us that Kolob averages 30 groups/year (which is pretty low). I wont venture to guess why more people don't experience this fabulous canyon but I count myself blessed to have seen it's beauty and enjoyed the rappels Using online reference material we determined a route to the canyon head and a description of the rappels through the canyon. Well we managed to take the wrong trail which side tracked us, mislead me and resulted in a 1.2 mile trip taking us about 6 hours (ouch). So much for my wilderness expertise. Still we found the canyon head but decided to delay our decent until morning because of the late start. We spent the night at the canyon head and started the rappel into Kolob at 8am Wednesday morning. The water level dropped overnight and the canyon was perfect for our group of 6. I think that a group of 6 is too big for this canyon. The rappels take too long, as a leader it is difficult to enjoy the trip through the canyon because there are so many people to watch over. The most notable bottleneck for big groups would be the rappel into the last big rap. The group must que up in a small area waiting to go down the last rap (50m). I would recommend a smaller group (3-4 would be ideal). I would recommend no more than 6 down this canyon. It took us about 6 hours to travel through the technical section of the canyon. The guys timed the last rap at 7 minutes per person (x6 that says we spent nearly 1 hour just doing the last rap.

The trek out of the canyon is beautiful. We traveled down the canyon to the Narrows. The trip through the non-technical section of Kolob is filled with slipper rocks (even the dry rocks are slippery), down climbs, swims, drops into pools of cold water and suddenly shortly after the big falls the water disappeared and we were left dry. Camp#6 is the campsite right at the mouth of Kolob as it opens into the Narrows. This looks like a great place for a group to rest and prepare for the next 4-5 hours of hiking through the Narrows.

The Venture crew at the end of the technical canyon	Morning at the head of Kolob and time to tackle the canyon	Looking down the last rap	The last awesome rap	In the waterfall of the last rap
The last rap. 50m of fun	P7190006.JPG	P7190007.JPG	P7190010.JPG	Waterfall into Kolob canyon
P7190018.JPG	walking down Kolob after the technical section	The bottom of the first Rap	rap1.JPG