Keyhole Canyon, Zion's NP. | Trip Report

What a fun little canyon! In fact, so fun we ran it twice just to be sure. 7 of us again, with "Expected Flash Flooding" as the Zion's Backcountry desks forecast. Flash flood warnings are not to be taken lightly, and we certainly don't encourage anyone to base your decisions on our good fortune this trip, but we determined we had a good 3 hour window for adventure before the afternoon storms built up, so we gave ourselves a thumbs up on running Keyhole Canyon. The group ahead of us slowed us up tremendously,but we still made the first exit to clear blue skies, so decided to run it again, this time picking up a group of 3 ill-prepared friends we happened upon at the canyon mouth on our first run through. We had offered that if they hung around we would outfit them with harness and belay device, and see them safely through on our second run since they had gone through all the trouble of getting permits without any idea of what really lay ahead of them. Our second time through took the first half of our group 15 minutes, while the larger contingent stayed back and saw our newbies safely through. This time out we saw definite signs of thunderheads building, and decided to head for safer adventures, waiting out the lightening storm, then doing a group attack of Angels Landing. I swear, these youngsters are going to be the death of me...