Zion Hikers

[zippetydude]

My heart goes out to the victims and their families and friends. I guess they didn't understand the danger level and paid a horrible price for a misjudgment that would be easy to make.

That being said, I wouldn't have set foot in there even with a 1% chance! When I go in the slot canyons out at Mecca, I only go in the winter (no sudden monsoon type storms pop up here in the winter) with the sky clear and no rain forecast for the foreseeable future. The danger once you go in there is obvious. In the grottoes (an area of the slot canyons where the roof has collapsed and thus turned the slot canyon into a two ended cave, or roughly a tunnel) you can point your flashlight up 30 to 40 feet and see where recent flooding (within a year or two) had deposited brush and litter up there - indicating that the flood was 30-40 feet deep in there! They're amazing places to go, but I adhere to strict guidelines to avoid this sort of tragedy. I wish they had known just how great the danger really was. Here's a frightening video that turned out okay but illustrates the sudden, immediate danger that can arise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj7WnkgjhM0

The video that follows this one was too sad for me to watch (I think, the title says they were swept away so I turned it off) but the one where the group escapes still shows how fast it built up. Terrifying, especially since they had their kids along with them. Great places to explore, but they are formed in violence and have deadly potential at certain times.

z

[cynthia23]

Oh my gosh, that video is absolutely spine-chilling, Zip. What's worst for me as a parent is seeing these two young boys who think it's all a great adventure and have no idea of the horrible danger they're in. You wonder what the dads were thinking. If I were those boy's mother, that dad would have some 'splainin" to do.

[Hikin_Jim]

My heart goes out to the victims and their families and friends. I guess they didn't understand the danger level and paid a horrible price for a misjudgment that would be easy to make.

I'm not convinced that a misjudgment per se was clearly made -- unless you consider entering any narrow canyon in Utah in the Summer to be a misjudgment. At the time they left, the flash flood danger was set at "Moderate." It wasn't until after they left that alerts were issued. One of the canyoneers even contacted a family member to get a weather update. Short of just staying out of all canyons all summer, I'm not sure what they would have done differently. Sounds like, based on the timeline in the LA Times article, a case of tragically bad timing. "Less than an hour after the California group received a permit to Keyhole, the weather service raised the chance of rain to 50%." By the time the danger was known, the group was already in the backcountry with no cell phone service.

Now, that said, their tragedy can service as a cautionary tale to others. Maybe a weather radio is worth the investment and weight. I've certainly considered it. True, there aren't a lot of slot canyons where I live in Orange County, but there is another danger -- lightning. Lightning primarily affects high points -- a terrain feature found in abundance in Southern California. I'm sure I've taken risks as a younger person that could have gone very badly. A wx radio could be a very good thing indeed.

HJ

[zippetydude]

I think any kind of advance notice is a great idea. Sometimes even last minute notice can save your life. However, I think the evil Too Much Momentum Problem has risen its ugly head once again, just like when people travel to do Skyline or any other adventure. If the group happened to live 5 minutes from those slot canyons and was familiar with how unpredictable and ferocious the flash floods can be, they probably would have just done something else that day. I wasn't kidding when I said I would not have entered with any chance whatsoever of rain. "Moderate" is way past acceptable in this case. I have been described as a risk-taker by some, which may to a certain extent be true, but I mostly take risks that I can control, like how far I am going to go and how fast, or whether I can find my way in the wilderness without a trail. I can't control the flow of water in a flash flood, so I am very wary of such things. So to me, going on that hike with any forecast of rain, even with a moderate, slight, or very slight chance of rain, was a misjudgment. That being said, I have encountered very dangerous conditions where I slid 30 yards out of control on boilerplate ice on San G despite correctly deploying my ice axe, I almost got trapped by the fire that swept up over Highway 243 a few years ago, and I have just missed being bitten by rattlers several times way out in the desert on runs that took me miles from the nearest road or human being. And I've been lucky. A little luck would have sufficed here for these adventurous souls. A bit of bad luck and (in my mind) a little misjudgment added up to a bigger consequence than the rest of us have encountered despite our human failings.

z

[cynthia23]

I think I'd come down on the side of "It was a momentum problem". They had organized a big group hike to an area that took some time and trouble to get to. Especially when there is a big group, nobody wants to be the wet blanket who says 'I think this is too risky, let's turn around and go home" (a hundred-plus miles.) The fact that somebody, at the last minute, called a relative for a weather update suggests they were nervous. That said, they may have also misunderstood the meaning of 'moderate' and wrongly (wishfully?) interpreted that as meaning rain was pretty unlikely.

I think the safety takeaway for me, in this tragic situation, is to understand when the 'momentum problem' is influencing me, and to try and make sure I fully understand weather-related risks--or if I just think I do.

[drndr]

It would be hard to back out. I am an overly careful adventurer according to most of my companions. I don't do snow and ice trekking because it's another risk I'm not willing to take. But right after I heard of this tragedy I thought to myself I probably would have followed them in. You travel 6-7 hours to Zion, take a canyoneering course, rent the equipment and with a bunch of friends. Hard to back out.

And I think a moderate chance of rain in Riverside has a completely different meaning to a moderate chance of rain where there are slot canyons.

[Wildhorse]

"Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all," Helen Keller wrote.

It is the meaning of this sentence and of the paragraph in which she wrote these words that their deaths and everyone's comments here make me think about.

Daring storms can be life affirming and life giving. At the same time I think that Keller had things other than adventure tourism in mind when she wrote those words.

[KathyW]

It is very sad for the families of those lost. I only knew Muku and she was a special person.

Percent of Precipitation: From what little I understand, a 20% chance of precipitation could meant that there is a 100% chance in 20% of the area.

Confidence Percent X Percent of the Area (C x A)

It oculd also mean there's a 50 percent confidence in 40% of the area.

20% doesn't really mean there's just a slight chance of rain, snow....etc.

[zippetydude]

Hi Kathy. I remember a couple of years ago when you posted that description of how the % is calculated, it made sense to me. I think it is particularly pertinent during the summer monsoon season. The broad frontal systems we get in the winter are probably calculated differently since they are a different animal altogether, but these summer storms are exactly like what you describe. There might be only a small area affected, but the the effect can be dramatic, with crazy downpours, lightning and thunder, hail, etc. It can be deceptive in a simple % given in a forecast.

z

[Wildhorse]

Backpacker.com is reporting that Zion may change its permit system. It also clarifies that under the current system rangers stop issuing permits only when NWS issues a flash flood warning. That happened at 2:22 pm on September 14.