Jason and I gave my family members their pick between four potential activities as their birthday presents in 2023. A morning of rappelling down waterfalls was the wildest of these alternatives. In August, the brave individuals who chose this option headed into the mountains with a few canyoneering guides. Here is the synopsis of that soggy and slippery adventure.

Our group started on some 35-foot cliffs in Big Cottonwood Canyon to improve our minimal rappelling skills. Then, we moved over to Little Cottonwood and the Lisa Falls Trail. Lisa Falls is a popular destination as the hike to it is extremely short, and it tumbles at an unusual askew angle over imposing granite blocks. Although Jason and I had been to the waterfall before, we’d never explored the elevations above it. As we discovered, what’s beyond is even more impressive.

Lisa Falls extends out of a hanging valley formed by a glacier tributary. This valley is distinctly U-shaped and once held heavy ice that flowed into Little Cottonwood Canyon’s larger glacier. That greater glacier covered 12 miles of the canyon in ice up to 850 feet deep at one time.

We used short climbing to get up this hanging valley. For those unfamiliar, short climbing is a technique used to make difficult terrain safer to scale. It involves linking multiple people together via rope to decrease the chances of any of them falling unhindered.

After we had climbed this attractive crevice, we rappelled down. We did five rappels, three of which were slick and drenching. When rappelling a waterfall, you must face away from the rock and only use one hand to descend. Otherwise, the force of the water combined with the slippery surface may turn you upside down and/or cause significant rock whackings. Asking the inexperienced to do one-handed, front-facing rappels is asking a lot. Apparently, most of the waterfall sections in this canyon are classified as 3C, with the last of those being 197 feet long. I’m too inexperienced to fully understand the substance of those ratings.

However, although our route was sometimes tricky, the views distracted us from being intimidated. The area was beautiful beyond our expectations. We had no idea Lisa Falls extends so far up the mountain on a path that is exceptionally gorgeous. The scenery also distracted us from our sogginess. It turns out, waterfalls are wet. Everyone returned sopping and nearly all returned with scrapes. Our niece received the most significant abrasions of the outing when both her knees banged against a rock during a descent. Still, no one was complaining. On the contrary, the magnitude of one nephew’s smiles increased in proportion to the magnitude of the soaking he was presently receiving. Unlike him, I elected to take two of the optional “dry” routes instead of going down the area with the heaviest current. One of these was far from dry, and I got thoroughly re-drenched from the waist down.

What an awesome adventure! Our clothes came back smelling of pine and mountain mint, the scents that permeated that alpine water. Like our fits, our bodies too returned refreshed.