Echo Canyon

In early September, Dad, Elizabeth, Matt, and me took on a crazy adventure -- hiking through Echo Canyon in Zion's National Park. It was more of an slot canyon obstacle course than a hike. Once you reach the top of the mountain, you leave the path and trek over the slickrock to a place where you can drop down into the canyon itself and go through a series of rappels. There are about 6 to 8 rappels and each one drops into a pool of water so there were no good places to take pictures of people rappelling. We took this hike kind of on a whim, so we didn't bring helmets or harnesses (which I would recommend), but we did have the proper wetsuits for the cold temperatures of the canyon. Luckily, we found a few guys who were willing to show us the path off the trail to get into the canyon. They underestimated Elizabeth and were afraid she wouldn't make it, but Elizabeth did better on the rappels than I did! Elizabeth took some of the pictures I show here. For anyone who is taking this hike in the future, I would recommend a forty foot rope, helmets, gloves, wetsuits, harnesses, wet-dry bags, and a group of three to four people.