Hiking the Subway, Part 1

"The hardest part about hiking the Subway is finding it. If you can do that, you'll have no problem doing the rest" --Canyoneering course instructor.



I've thought about doing these posts several ways--humorous, pithy, ironic, in verse to the theme song from Gilligan's Island--but I think doing it in those ways takes a bit away from the abject terror and horror Becky and I faced on that day. I think I would much rather lay it out straight, so that anybody conducting research into the hiking the Subway may someday find this post and be able to take into account all possibililties before attempting what will be a very difficult hike.



First things first--I thought we were going into this knowing what to expect. Ever since I found out about the Subway's existance, I had researched it to the best of my ability. I had read upwards of 10 trip reports of other hikers, I had read detailed route descriptions, studied topographic maps, knew what the obstacles would be, how one traverses these obstacles, was read on timelines and distances involved, and had familiarized myself with the world of canyoneering.



Prior to our entering the Subway, we signed up for a canyoneering course, where we got an excellent instructor, who answered all of our questions, taught us basic canyon safety, turned us into decent rapellers, if I do say so myself (in fact, the rappels were the only thing that went right that day), and told us what he could about the Subway. The quote above was his response to my question of whether he thought we were ready to tackle it.



The Subway is a canyon that is rated 3BIII on the canyoneering scale; more information on the scale can be found here.



For those that don't want to bother, a 3BIII requires a couple rappels, a bit of getting wet and some swimming, and takes between 6 and 12 hours to complete. A 2 on the scale would not require rappels--that's the main difference between a 2 and a 3.



What this translates into is that the Subway, according to everything I had researched, required a rappel down a boulder, a 40 yard swim, a rappel down a small waterfall, and then a 30 foot rappel down a rock face to the lower part of the canyon.



My understanding of the full route, generally speaking (I was using much more specific directions) was this: follow a cairned trail across a slickrock gulch, to a steep gully, which would have a trail leading into the canyon. Continue into the canyon until a boulder was reached. Rappel boulder. Hike further until you reach some potholes about 40 yards long which required a swim. Continue futher into the narrows, where a small downclimb followed by some waste to chest deep wading would be required. After that, rappel a small waterfall. Enter the actual Subway, rappel down into the lower canyon. Wade about 2 to 3 miles through the Left Fork creek, and then a steep hike out of the canyon. Once out, walk about 400 yards to the Grapevine Wash, and then 200 yards to your car.



Before we left, I had detailed descriptions, 2 different sets of GPS coordinates written out, and had studied every resource available to me.



Sounds simple as pie, right? I couldn't have been more wrong.



The hike started innocently enough. We parked our car, hitchhiked up to the trail head, and embarked across some peaceful meadows and horse tracks, until we reached the sign marking the start of the Subway route. That's when things started to get bad.





To be continued....