The Golden Cathedral

On the fourth of July, Chase and I, and Chase's dad, Mike, took off for Escalante Grand Staircase to hike Neon Canyon and see the Golden Cathedral. It was quite an eventful trip. After the 6 hour drive down, we started the 4 mile hike down into Escalante. It was blazing hot when we started, and even the water in our water bottles was actually HOT after the first 45 minutes or so. Luckily, a great big cloud came over and shaded us for most of the hike.



The trailhead where we started was called Egypt, which I thought was kind of funny because it was nothing but sand and barren desert, and I guess I have always kind of pictured Egypt to be like that. I'm probably wrong, but I thought it was amusing. There actually turned out to be great desert scenery, and we even found those pretty little flowers growing right out of the sand!




After we made the hike in and set up camp, we swam in the river for a bit, cooked our dinner, and went to bed. Not that we actually slept...the mosquitoes, wind, and rock-hard ground kept us awake most of the night. The next morning we set out for the top of Neon Canyon, then dropped in by rappel and enjoyed hiking through the beautiful slot canyon. We knew there would be a couple tricky spots, such as this "keeper pothole" (meaning if you fall in and you're alone, it will keep you there - the odds of you ever getting out are almost none). But we didn't count on the trouble we were going to have coming down the last rappel, on the Golden Cathedral itself.


Chase in the keeper pothole...luckily we all got out!

The Golden Cathedral is beautiful...at least in these pictures. I didn't really take time to look at it while we were in there because of what happened...I was a little nervous about the 80' rappel down because you couldn't see over the edge, and I knew there was a pool of water at the bottom. I just don't like not being able to see what I'm getting into! So I made Chase say a prayer for us before I dropped down, and I'm glad we did. When I got to the end of the wall of rock, just before the free fall, my prussic knot got stuck on a piece of tape that was around the rappel rope, marking the middle. I couldn't go back up the rope, but the farther the prussic slid down, the tighter it held around the rope and wouldn't let me go down either. I was stuck, dangling about 60' in the air. It was one of the scariest things that's happened to me, because we knew there were no other people out there in the event we needed to be rescued, and there was no way I was going to be able to make that knot move. I didn't have anything to cut it off with, and I had no way to move anywhere. Chase eventually had to descend the same rope to where I was and try to rescue me. We tried a few things that didn't work, and after about an hour of hanging there we were able to get me free and we slid down. He had left his pack at the top, so he ended up having to hike back around to the top of the canyon and drop down again to get it. Meanwhile, Chase's dad and I hiked back to camp through the river (and got about 150 horsefly bites on the way - not joking). We were all exhausted after that, but still had to make the 4 mile hike back to the top of Egypt trailhead. Then we still had a 6 hour drive back to Woodland Hills, and another hour to our house. We didn't get home until after 4 in the morning! I told Chase I think I'd need a break before doing any serious rappelling again for a while.


Me as I was getting stuck on my descent


Chase on his way down to rescue me



Us, trying to untie the knot. So glad we finally got it free! Thanks for saving me, Chase! And thanks to Mike for driving us down there, and taking these pictures!