Growing up and living in Chicago was a flight, a week off of work, and a car rental to the majestic Zion National Park Canyons.  Now living in Vegas, it can be made into a weekend trip! If you know me, you might know that it is important to me to share experiences with people and a unique experience is when people try caving, canyoneering, climbing, or diving out for the first time.  Zion National park has some great options for more straightforward trips. that can be challenging yet a lot of fun.  This time around I took Andy Orr to Fat Mans Misery Canyon 3BIII for a long day on Zion's south end and into a unique canyon.

I met up with Andy on a hidden campsite just outside of Zion where we went through gear and camped for the night.

We woke up early so we could get a morning start from the heat and once we got to the trailhead, there was a party of 9 and a party of 6 working their way up the trail.

Fatman's Misery is technically not in the park so you don't need to get permits but you start off inside the park so it can be done as a day trip.

We hiked past the groups and through the pass of checkerboard hill which took us out into the desert petrified sand hills.

Its a beautiful place with all of the pine trees and different color sandstones that line the walls.

We traverse across a few washes until we get to the west fork drainage and start our descent down the canyon until we get to the first drop.

The drainage is a easy trek down to the first rap and the hike across the desert is pretty straightforward, yet you can get a bit turned around in the heat if you done associate yourself to the terrain.

The first rap was only about 20 feet down into the canyon which was a perfect first drop for Andy.

We got our kits setup and Andy made his first descent down into a technical canyon.

I know this must be an exciting experience for Andy and there is not really any climbing up like in caves, its all down rope and great practice in a straightforward canyon.

After we worked our way down we worked around some logs keyed into a nice molded slot canyon and down climbed a bit until we broke back out into a wash and into the sunlight.

We came up on another section of slot canyon and worked our way down some chimney routes and some stemming spots.

There were some small drops in a slot section and we popped out into open wash once again.

The slot turned into some pot holes that we were able to bypass and the other group caught up to us since we were going a bit slow and taking pictures while moving along.

The other group missed a rap station and set up another rap station in a section where there was a bit of canyon to traverse.

We worked our way down into the main fork and than we got to the last section of narrows.

This was really beautiful as it had a series of natural arches and some beautiful ambient light coming through the ceiling that lit up the place and gave some significant darkness to other places.

This was interesting to see as the water was coming right out of a crack in the rock face.

We hiked a bit more and got to the flowing stream of the Parunuweap canyon narrows.

We took a bit of a break before hiking down stream and into the very impressive corridors of the canyon.

We bypassed the exit and hiked to the falls where it would have been a technical climb to get back out.

This place was beautiful and very impressive as we hiked back to the exit point and prepared for a 4 mile hike up hill in 95 degree heat.

I soaked in the cold water before starting the hike out which helped quite a bit.  I highly recommend bringing your body down a bit before the first segment.

After a few breaks and a swarm of bee's passing by, we made it back to the main trail and hiked out and back to the car.

It was a bit of a push in the heat but we took a few more breaks and took it slow. This canyon is fantastic for beginners and a unique section of narrows for anyone to enjoy.

MORE PHOTOS HERE: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/albums/72157682220357532