Tera Grant

Tera Grant

The Subway - Top-Down

02/03/16

Beautiful, incredibly fun hike. I did this last summer (mid-June) and would recommend it to anyone interested in these kinds of excursions. I do a fair bit of hiking and dabble in rock climbing/rappelling, but this was my first canyoneering trip and I would say it's ideal for a beginner. Just challenging enough to keep it interesting while not being too advanced for newbies. Heads up: we did have some difficulty finding the trailhead, and apparently this isn't an uncommon problem - while looking for the trailhead we came upon a group in front of us who had also been searching for some time. We actually looked around for well over an hour before we found it, and during our search drank up most of the water we had on hand. The trailhead begins at the highest point of the hike, hence the top-down designation, and the high desert in June is (you guessed it) hot. Here's my advice to find the trailhead: follow the cairns (duh) down the slickrock, and where there appears to be a fork at the bottom, stay right. There will be another fork a short time later. Take a left here. It's pretty inconspicuous and the cairn is NOT SET UP where the trail branches off, but up a little bit higher on the trail. It's not easy to spot. Trust me, we sent several scouts off in that direction and neither of them found it. One of them had even done this trail already. So, yeah. Keep that in mind. Once you find your way from there it's very straightforward - I mean, once you get down into the canyon there's really only one direction to go. The water in June is COLD but refreshing, and there are several places where you have to full-on jump into the water, there's no other option. Another heads up: one of these water obstacles has a log coming out of two boulders which leads into the water. It would appear that you can use the rope situated nearby to slowly ease into the water. This is not the case. The log is super slippery and you'll end up falling on your ass. You're better off just jumping right in. Don't worry, it's deep enough. Oh, and the hardest part of the entire hike, by far, is the last 200 meters or so, which is pretty much a straight uphill to the parking lot. After that 8.5 mile obstacle course you just completed, it's pretty brutal, but when you get to the top and look down upon what you just completed, it's totally worth it.

5.0