My fiance and I have a month to explore the South and East of Utah leaving here in a couple of days and planning on staying through around the end of November.

We haven't done much hiking in the desert/canyon environment (just rain, rain, rain up in the PNW : ) ). and would love to pick the brains of you Southwesterners.

Gear Questions:

1) For slot canyon hikes with intermittent wading (i.e. Zion Narrows) what would you recommend for footwear in November (I am always warm but my fiance has very cold feet) - we've read that av. water temp is 45-55 deg F.

2) What is common practice as far as bag liners / waterproof drysacks for canyon hikes with wading? with some intermittent swimming? Do you go beyond a well-sealed trash compactor bag?

3) Are scree gaiters absolutely necessary in this area? We have no problem stopping once in a while to pull out a few rocks, but don't want to be debilitated every 5 minutes : ) If they are a must, any myog ideas? (we don't have time to buy anything off the internet)

As well, any links to good shoulder (oct/nov) SW gear lists would be a HUGE help. - we are still trying to get a handle on what is necessary vs overkill as far as insulation / rainwear.


Weather:

1) Thunderstorms/Flash Floods - we've been told that late October/November is low risk time for both, but any links to great weather sites / f. flood predictors would be super helpful.

Must see spots?

So far we have been looking into the following hikes but have plenty of time and would LOVE any favorites/suggestions!

Angels Landing
Zion Narrows
Little Horse and Bell Canyons
Buckskin Gulch / Paria River Semi-Loop - Paria Canyon/Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness
Upper Muley Twist Canyon Semi-Loop
Grand Canyon - S. Rim


Cheers in advance! If any of you dryland southwesterners need any advice on how to hike through a week of rain in november out in the Cascades feel free to hit me up : )


-Brendan

Edited by dools009 on 10/15/2010 20:22:09 MDT.

We were there last October for a short trip. Incredible. We did the Narrows bottom-up to Orderville Canyon. We both got the booties/shoes, and my wife also got the pants, as she is typically cold as well. I had some chilly times in the morning with the cool water temps, cool ambient temps, and shady canyons. Dare I even say possibly borderline hypothermic.

We also scored a permit to "The Wave" in Paria Canyon by the mail-in lottery system. If you want, to can try and get a permit at their office by the next-day in-person lottery permitting system. I also hear that the Paria Canyon is an excellent slot canyon to do (read: remote). http://www.utahwild.com/desert_canyon/paria_canyon.phtml

Lastly, if I were to be able to get back to that area again, I'd probably do the East Rim trail in Zion, explore Kolob Canyons section, head out to Strawberry Point, and go to Cedar Breaks.

thanks for the input mate,

We will definitely be trying to get a pass for Paria as well. We have plenty of time so hopefully the day-before lottery will work out for us (I'm sure its not a horrible place to spend a few days camping and reading waiting for our chance to "win" haha. Thanks for the direction on the other hikes as well, so many options! I'll have to sit down and redouble my planning efforts.

Did you guys end up renting the neoprene booties from Zion Adventure for the Paria Wave hike as well? It almost gets to the point where it would pay to buy something similar (even beefy soled dive shoes?) if we are trying to multiple slot canyon wading hikes.


Cheers,
Brendan

also thanks for the redirect from my other thread. I originally posted here in Trip Announcements and then realized that my questions where more gear related than they were an "announcement" of sorts. Apologies for the double-up.

Use real dry bags for swims, with important stuff double bagged. That info is generally correct about the weather. Best info is at NOAA. Gaiters are not a must but shoes that don't collect sand are nice. I'll keep mum about good hikes.. Have fun!

Yes, we went early and rented the booties, shoes, river stick (and pants for my wife) from ZAC for the Narrows hike. Well worth the $.

Our trip to the Wave was strictly overland. The Paria Canyon section requires a different permit (and equipment and skillset), and we didn't have those nor the time to do it. Knowing that, our hike into the Wave was sand and sandstone. I tried gaiters in the early going, but gave up on them. Turns out that the sand intruded into my shoe/sock through the mesh in my hikers, so the gaiters were useless for me. My wife wore low, full-leather Merrels, and only experienced a little sand.

cheers guys, I really appreciate the input.

I can't wait! This is going to be an unreal trip down through your neck of the woods.

-Brendan

Oh, and my profile pic. It's from Canyon Overlook.

If you are going to do Paria Canyon and your wife tends to get cold, you may be better off buying some neoprene shoes and saving the cost of rental since I don't know if it will be easy to find them to rent in that area. If you are just doing the wave and not Paria Canyon itself, I would just rent an outfit in Zion. That is what we did during our fall hike last year. I tend to get cold easily so I rented the full pants and shoe setup. It was worth the cost to avoid getting cold. We went on a weekend in October and they were running out of sizes of pants by mid-morning so keep that in mind if you are doing the narrows on the weekend. If you go early or reserve your stuff in advance you should be fine, but we arrived late on Friday and took a while to get started on Saturday morning. You should have a great time, there are many amazing places to see in those areas.

Liz,

How was your experience with the pant/boot combo? We are considering buying some 18in high 3mm thick neoprene socks and wearing them under our trail runners. As a person that normally has cold feet do you think that that would have been bearable for you? (obviously depends upon the air/water temps that you had while you were there in october - would love to know that as well to put your experience in perspective).

Were there many people hiking with just thick woolies? I have heard from several members that they have just "toughed it out" with wool socks and trail runners in october but I'm pretty sure that they all naturally had pretty warm feet.

Thanks in advance,
Brendan