Keyhole Canyon - Zion National Park - Flash flood conditions

Keyhole Canyon - Zion National Park - Flash flood conditions

There were many mistakes made that day, and quite a few lessons learned;

1. Regardless of your tolerance for risk, you should not enter a slot canyon under these conditions.

2. Do not rely on the fact that you made it through without incident before as an indication that you will do the same again. Sure, I'd been through it quickly on previous trips. That didn't mean I might not break an ankle or have some other mishap during this trip.

3. Don't let the fact that you had plans and drove a long way sway your better judgment. Nobody wants to go on vacation and then not doing fun things. But this mindset can push you to take risks that you shouldn't. I've been to Zion several times since this trip. Keyhole canyon was still there each time.

4. Fast groups pass slower groups. Sometimes. While I hold this to be true in most things - hiking, driving, backpacking, canyoneering - it does not ALWAYS hold true. We were all in harms way that day. By passing the larger groups, we slowed them down, making them remain in harms way for even longer. You have a right to go faster, but not at the expense of other people's safety.

Next time I'm in Zion and a storm rolls around, I'll go looking for waterfalls from the safety of the road, or maybe the patio of some bar or restaurant.

Canyoneering can be dangerous. One of the more prevalent dangers is complacency.

Like all skills, you start canyoneering in easy canyons, then do progressively harder and harder canyons, gaining skills and experience along the way. This builds confidence. And as your confidence grows, it's easy to take 'easy' canyons less seriously.

It's a fine line between confidence and complacency.

We were recently in Zion National Park to do several canyons. But the weather had different plans for us. There was rain in the forecast for our first day. The kind of rain that causes canyons to flash flood. We'd had permits for Pine Creek Canyon, but decided it was much too long to do on a day with this type of weather. So we changed our plans to go through Keyhole Canyon. Keyhole Canyon is a very short but beautiful slot canyon inside Zion National Park. Keyhole can be done in well under an hour, with few obstacles and only two short rappels. For this reason, Keyhole Canyon is probably the first choice for beginner canyoneers at Zion National Park.

Keyhole Canyon is also responsible for the largest single event loss of life in Zion National Park.

In 2015, a group of seven descended into Keyhole Canyon. A micro burst hit and caused it to flash flood. All seven died.

Being fully aware of this, Nick and I went in with intentions to go fast. I've been through Keyhole before and knew you could exit between the upper and lower sections of the canyon if things started to go sideways. So off we went. You can see the blue skies as we entered upper keyhole. What the video does not show are the dark clouds to the west that we were keeping an eye on.

This is where I feel it is important to say that you need to know the drainage of a canyon. Sometimes, the drainage is so large that it can rain and flash flood without you ever seeing a cloud. Keyhole Canyon has a much smaller drainage, which is why we picked it. We had also been watching the doppler radar and knew where the clouds were.

We got to the saddle between upper and lower Keyhole, and looked up at the clouds. I'd gone through this section before with a group of 2 and made it out in about 15~20 minutes. We saw the dark clouds west of the ridge leading into Keyhole's drainage. We looked at the ground and saw it was not saturated. And we decided we had time, so in we went.

We overtook two larger groups. One of 4 and another of 12.

The rest speaks for itself.

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