Arterial

The Subway wasn’t the plan. My buddy and I have a standing tradition of a backpacking trip every other year, and when I was living in St. George we built one around Zion: the Narrows, top-down, camping halfway. We had the permit and the campsite. Then October brought water levels high enough that the through-hike stopped being sensible, and we bailed on it.

What saved the trip was the backup permit. I’d also drawn one for the Left Fork of North Creek, almost as an afterthought, and it turned the week around.

We went bottom-up — none of us had rappelled and this wasn’t the day to learn. Three of us: my buddy and my wife with day packs, and me with the camera gear. There is no consistent trail once you’re in the canyon. You’re over boulders, in and out of the creek, crossing to the left bank, crossing back, and the descent in and the climb out at either end are their own separate ordeal.

We saw nobody for the first eighty percent of it. Three small groups were resting near the Subway itself and we outlasted all of them, then had the walk out to ourselves.

The Crack sits just before the Subway, near the turnaround. It’s a narrow channel cut straight through the rock with clear blue water running down it — the reason for the title is that it reminded me of the veins in the inside of your arm. That October the ledges either side were covered in fallen maple and cottonwood leaves, red and yellow all through the frame.

I’d managed to keep my feet dry the whole way in. I lost that getting into position for the Subway shot, and after that I stopped caring and walked the creek most of the way home.

This was the same permitted day as Subway Station and Archangel Glow — the Subway itself on the way in, then the cascades caught on the way back down.