Not Miserable in Misery Canyon

Howells Outdoors

Adventure is my middle name...actually it's Keith.
Joined
Sep 26, 2012
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444
Every time I do this canyon I feel like Mother Nature is calling me overweight…
…Oh well, a place as special as this is worth the struggle.

This was originally posted on www.howellsoutdoors.com.
We couldn’t have possibly picked a hotter time to go through the technical canyon called Fat Man’s Misery near Zion National Park — a high in Springdale of 105 fahrenheit. It was crazy hot!

We chose to take attack the canyon later in the day to have it cool off by the time we started the hike back. I think that was a great plan. Had we started early or at a pretty regular time we would’ve been hiking that long uphill track back in the heat of the day.

It was a nice cool hike back in the sunset and the last stretch in the dark.

As we started up the canyon on the westside of Checkerboard Mesa in Zion, we felt the summer temperature of southern Utah bearing down on us. So much so that Chelsea started to feel nauseous from the exposure.

We stopped and sat in the sun for awhile and poured cold water on her head and fanned her off. When she was feeling better she decided to turn back to the car and pass on doing the canyon.

Excellent Choice!
“Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”
― Ed Viesturs​
We sweated to death hiking into Misery. It was so hot; stupid hot is the only way to describe it.

For us to stay safe in the heat we took rest under most of the large Ponderosa Pines and drank a lot of water. We brought a filter with us to refill in the east fork of the Virgin River.

I think all of us drank something like 3 or 4 liters before reaching the end of Misery and then refilled and drank all that again on the hike out.

This canyon is awesome though. It was worth the sweat, the heat, the blood, the pain and anguish. I love it down there! I’ll let the photos do the talking about the canyon:
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Yikes! I'm not sure I'd survive that exit hike in those temps, evening or not. Way to knock it out and nice photos.
 
Yikes! I'm not sure I'd survive that exit hike in those temps, evening or not. Way to knock it out and nice photos.
It really wasn't bad heat-wise. Just the long, uphill struggle it always is.
 
Ha! 105˚!?!?!?!? It about killed me in May one year! It wasn't anywhere close to 105, but I bonked hard with about 3 miles to go. Ended up all hypothermic and shaking at the end even though it was quite hot out. Second time that's happened to me when I pushed it too hard on a hike. That day was ~15 miles, the first time was an 18+ mile day the year before. Must be getting old... and fat. Haha. :)
 
Ha! 105˚!?!?!?!? It about killed me in May one year! It wasn't anywhere close to 105, but I bonked hard with about 3 miles to go. Ended up all hypothermic and shaking at the end even though it was quite hot out. Second time that's happened to me when I pushed it too hard on a hike. That day was ~15 miles, the first time was an 18+ mile day the year before. Must be getting old... and fat. Haha. :)

I was quite interested to read this. I've never heard anyone else ever talk about having chills on a very hot day. When I was just out of high school I got a job laying railroad track. Some of our activities were physically demanding and even though I was in great shape at the time there many days that I experienced this phenomenon. I knew it to be bad, but I didn't want to lose my job by complaining so I always just gutted it out to quitting time. Nobody else on the crew ever mentioned having chills and I never mentioned it to any of them but I always wondered about it. I've never experienced that since that job.
 
Once you were in the canyon it was nice! The water felt great. Had we not hiked out starting at like 6 pm we would've fried!
 
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