Day 10 — Springdale, UT

The stay at a hotel in Springdale was kind of a last-minute decision. It allowed me to book a full day of guided canyoneering while we’re at Zion National Park. Tonight and tomorrow we’re staying in a rustic yurt about a bazillion miles from nowhere, and It would have been difficult to make our way down to Springdale from there to meet a guide for an expedition that starts at 7 a.m. So our stay at the Desert Pearl Inn was just a matter of convenience and logistics. 

Too bad, because it’s a beautiful hotel with a gorgeous pool in the shadows of these stunning red cliffs. I wish we hadn’t wasted our stay here by rolling in at 10 and leaving first-thing in the morning. 

Our guide with Red Desert Adventures, Joe, was waiting for us in the parking lot at the appointed time. We piled into his Land Cruiser and rode for an hour over roads so rugged I thought my brain was going to shake out of my ears, until we got to the trailhead for Water Canyon. 

It turns out that Joe is a native of Duluth, Minn. He left when he was 17, though, and he’s been in Springdale since ’96, so I don’t think he feels too tethered to his Northwoods heritage. He is so dry and laconic that — as we trotted behind him for 90 minutes up a trail I can only describe as “strenuous” — I wondered if the kids would warm up to him.  

But when we got to the top of the canyon, Joe laid out his equipment and gave us a quick lesson in canyoneering — which is essentially the art of exploring a canyon by rafting, waterfall jumping and, what we would be doing today, rappelling down cliff faces — and pointed out that you can slow your descent by cramming your rope up your “ass crack.” I knew we were all going to get along well.

So, we covered the basics: Rope wedgies can be good. Beyond that, there really wasn’t much instruction to cover. We stepped into our harnesses, which keep our bodies attached to the ropes. And we were introduced to a small piece of metal that clips into each harness and cinches the rope — Joe called it ATC, or “air traffic controller” — and is pretty much the only thing keeping us from free-falling.

And then we jumped right in.

Not an easy hike up to the canyon.

In all, we did six rappels ranging from 35 to about 115 feet. It’s amazing how much control that ATC thing actually gives you over gravity. In some places, it took quite a bit of effort to push our bodies downward, and, if we were doing it right, we were essentially bounding backward down the side of the cliffs. 

On a couple of rappels, the crags fell away under our feet, and we descended through mid-air; the kids called it “James Bonding.” At other times, the rocks on the cliff faces jutted out unexpectedly to thwack our elbows and our shins, which were scraped and bruised by the end of the day.

I'm pretty sure that's Charlie.

Natalie attempts a Tyrollean traverse, which is essentially a zip-line across an open space, although it sounds like it should be a Westeros mountain pass in "Game of Thrones."

Look closely. That's Keith at the top, starting his last rappel.

Through the afternoon, Joe kept us entertained with crude jokes and gruesome stories about rappelling accidents, which were exactly what I wanted to hear while my kids were dangling from a precipice, 100 feet up. 

He delivered us back to our van, which had been parked in the parking lot of the Desert Pearl Inn in Springdale, by about 4 p.m. We braved the traffic and crowds in town in an effort to get gas and groceries, then returned to the parking lot for the trailer — eager to ditch the hordes in Springdale and head about an hour and a half out of town to the remote Zion Backcountry Yurt that we had reserved on AirB&B.

But even with the trailer hitched and properly plugged into the van, the tail lights and turn signals would not light up. It was 100 degrees, we were exhausted and sweaty from our long day of hiking and canyoneering, and we were taking turns lying under the car on the hot asphalt in the hotel parking lot, jigging the wires trying to figure out where the connection had fried. But, neither of us being especially mechanically inclined, we had no idea what we were looking for. 

Only one thing was clear: The work that had been done on the hitch on Day One of our trip was only a temporary fix. The fact that the lights on the trailer wouldn’t turn off at all a few days ago was a clue that something was wrong. We thought we had overcome that problem just by remembering to unplug the trailer every time we turned off the car engine. But now it was obvious that the issue was more complicated.

And at this point, we were stranded. We can’t pull the trailer without tail lights or turn signals. And it’s Saturday night. Who would we get to fix this before Monday morning, in tiny Springdale? And what if we have to backtrack an hour or two to the larger towns of Hurricane or St. George to get it fixed? We have reservations for an overnight kayaking excursion on Lake Powell, and have to meet up with the guides in Page, AZ, about three hours away, at 10 a.m. Monday. We were convinced that we would never make it. I was ready to call the kayak outfitters to cancel that part of our trip. Once again, our carefully planned itinerary was on the verge of derailing.

While I was looking up the number for the kayaking guides in Page, Keith googled auto mechanics in Springdale, but wasn’t very hopeful. He found a name, W.J. Bassett Repair, called the number, and wasn’t surprised that no one picked up. By this time it was almost 6 on a Saturday evening. Keith left a message, anyway. 

Almost immediately, Mr. Bassett called him back. Keith explained the problem, and the guy declared that it shouldn’t be a problem to fix. He asked us to bring the van by first-thing tomorrow; his shop is only about a mile and a half down the road from hotel parking lot, where we were stuck. So pulled some sleeping bags and games out of the back of the trailer, left it parked at the Desert Pearl Inn for the night, and continued on to our yurt. We’ll go back into town for the trailer in the morning.

I’ll chalk this up to serendipity. Because it’s probably a great thing that we couldn’t bring the trailer. It’s only 30 miles from Springdale to the yurt, but took us almost an hour just to cover the last 10 miles, creeping up a winding dirt road studded with boulders and scarred with pot holes and tire ruts. We wouldn’t want to drag the Teardrop along on that ride.

The journey was worth it. The yurt is perched on a mountainside with sweeping views of the valley below. Inside, we have found everything we’ll need; the yurt sleeps 10 and is equipped with a three-burner stove, all kinds of pots, pans and utensils, books, games, even bug spray. There’s no electricity, but there are a few solar-powered lights that we switched on when it got dark. And there are kerosene torches on the a broad deck that encircles the yurt. Across the driveway there’s a separate outbuilding with running water for a toilet, shower and dishwashing station, as well as a fire pit and plenty of firewood.

It was almost dusk by the time we arrived, so we settled for a quick and easy dinner — hot dogs and s’mores on the fire — and the kids played Monopoly outside on a picnic table until it got too dark to see.