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.
A hanging valley is a valley that enters a larger one at a higher elevation giving the appearance that it is hanging.
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.
Short climbing makes hazardous paths less likely to cause substantial damage.The Little Cottonwood Canyon glacier was the largest on the Wasatch Range, taking up 12 miles and spilling five miles out of the canyon into Lake Bonneville.
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.
Granite chiseled by ice and augmented by a mountain environment makes for a charming spot to dangle.
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.
Jason is both curious and daring, the perfect combination of attributes for an adventurer.
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.
This active spout was an alleged “dry” route.
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.
It may seem obvious that waterfall rappelling involves wetness, but currents still surprise.
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.
My family has been going to the Utah Shakespeare Festival off and on for decades. In the summer of 2023, my clan made this outing work again over a long weekend. Family members came and went at an almost comical frequency, and Jason and I were the constants who stayed through their arrivals and departures. From transformative phrasing to transformative proliferation, the two of us relished the unrelated opportunities of the unique surroundings. Here’s a little taste of our relish and spread.
The first group of family who joined us in Cedar City was a sister and two nieces. With them we shared A Midsummer Night’s Dream and pizza. That play is a favorite of mine as it is silly, witty, and full of jackasses.
Double Arch Alcove tempts mindfulness with cooler temperatures and countless rhythmic drips.
The next morning, as family members were traveling back and forth, Jason and I headed to the Kolob Canyons portion of Zion National Park. Zion was the third most visited national park in the U.S. in 2023. However, its Kolob Canyons district, located separately in the northwest corner of the park, sees far less tourists. Kolob is home to a number of box canyons, gorges with only one entrance/exit and walls 2,000 feet high. We journeyed down one of these on the Middle Fork of Taylor Creek Trail.
Taylor Creek is likely the most popular hike in Kolob Canyons. We saw a fair number of people as we headed up but had the alcove and the return route entirely to ourselves. What alcove? Double Arch Alcove is the primary draw for the Taylor Creek Trail. Double Arch Alcove, despite its name, contains no visible arches. Instead, there you will encounter a dramatic grotto with sandstone shelves stacked in towering layers and covered in thick moss. Not only is the scenery captivating, but the moisture and shade create mild temperatures and a melodic stereo of drips, which enrapture other senses.
Fife and Larson worked on their cabins together using materials brought to the area by horses.
Double Arch Alcove is this hike’s endpoint for most people, but we decided to investigate what secrets the canyon beyond might possess. We were rewarded with a waterfall about half a mile upstream in a circular chamber carved by water. As scaling this feature was impossible without gear, it marked the end of our upstream travel.
Although we started hiking around 12:30 and finished up at 4:30, catching much of the August afternoon’s heat, we got sweaty but not sickly. That was thanks to temperature highs that were uncommonly low, just in the mid-80s, a nice treat for Southern Utah in its most searing time of year.
If you are familiar with the Taylor Creek Trail, you may be wondering why it took us four hours to finish about 5.8 miles, especially with an online completion estimate of two hours. Some of the blame for our dillydallying lies in man not nature. This path passes two small historic buildings constructed in the 1930s, the Larson and Fife Cabins. These structures were once owned by Southern Utah State College (now Southern Utah University). Professors used them while grazing sheep or goats in the area before it was a national park. Of course, we had to stop for a closer look not just graze by.
A little dehydrated but otherwise in good shape, we met up with a mostly different group of family that night for Romeo and Juliet. You always hope the ending of that play changes, but it never does.
The next morning, we went to the Festival City Farmers Market. Although this bazaar is tiny compared to Salt Lake City’s, it was still fun to scan and purchase some local wares and grub. Afterward, we held a picnic in a park we often utilized when we came down to Cedar City as youngsters. Then, it was off to Jane Austen’s Emma the Musical. This performance included both beguiling tunes and Mr. Knightley. Need I say more? Macarons and bookshops followed. Then, The Play That Goes Wrong. The Play That Goes Wrong is hilarious and extremely British. It was first performed in London starting in 2012 and has been running there ever since. It’s a whodunit play within a play. Spoiler alert: everything goes wrong.
That was the end of our shows but not the end of our adventures. Jason and I have wanted to see the Pando for a few years, so we decided to make that happen on our return drive. The what, you ask? The Mando? The panda? Pando, the world’s biggest and densest living organism, is comprised of a single quaking aspen’s clones- 40,000 of them. It is spread over more than 100 acres and weighs 6,000 tons. Any gym rat knows that bulking up takes time, and such is the case with Pando. Its age is estimated between 3,000 and 14,000 years making it one of the oldest, if not the oldest, organisms on the planet. Where can you find this dendrophiles’ delight? It is located near the shores of Fish Lake about 45 minutes from both Richfield and Torrey. Acquiring outstanding views of Pando, however, takes a little more effort than just getting to the lake. It can be hard to differentiate Pando from the other aspens around it. Here are the deets on how we remedied that.
Pando is Latin for “I spread.”
We parked our cars on the lake’s south side at Sewer Lagoon Road, just a bit off the main highway (UT-25). Then, we walked down the road about a quarter of a mile to an access point for the Lakeshore National Recreation Trail, which goes around the entire perimeter of the lake. Cars with enough clearance can just drive to this trail access, but one car in our group was too low.
We took the Lakeshore National Recreation Trail to the Rim Overlook, which has a posted sign. Then, we continued for a quarter mile past a gate at the top of the hill until we hit a rock outcropping on the left side of the path (west) with a fantastic prospect of Pando and Fish Lake. If you are looking out from that viewpoint, where can you see Pando? It will be to the southwest with its northeast corner at the campground, just west of the group sites.
This vista was better than others we passed on the way. Though the route was longer than what we found outlined online, the 6.2 miles RT were worth it. The scenery was a beautiful mix of forest, shoreline, and wetland, and we saw no one while hiking. Despite its lack of traffic, the path was well maintained. Overall, I was impressed with Fish Lake, and I’d happily come back. FYI, the trail is mostly flat for about a mile and a half and then heads up a series of switchbacks. My mother, who is in her 70s, made it a mile out without any problems.
Our oversized weekend flew by with a few chaotic moments as family members arrived and left. However, it was less hectic than other years since group numbers were low at any given time. Jason and I didn’t let chaos or cultural masterpieces impede us from appreciating natural wonders. From monologues to monoclones, the outing was anything but monotonous.
Jason and I attended our first San Diego Comic-Con 13 years ago, but when we went in 2023, we hadn’t been since 2019, the last time it was held before COVID shut it down for two years. So, we weren’t sure if lingering crowd evasion would diminish the number of attendees. Then, just days before it started, SAG-AFTRA joined the Writers Guild of America strike. As a result, A-list actors, a massive draw for San Diego Comic-Con, canceled appearances making what to expect at the con even less certain. In the end, all this commotion may have deterred some, but it didn’t fundamentally change our con experience.
Attendees at San Diego Comic-Con in 2023 seemed fewer than normal, but was that due to the strike or the remnants of COVID? Hall H, which holds over 6,000 people, is often the center of the event as its panels feature the biggest stars. At one time, we devoted many hours to waiting in the lines to get into that room, until they became overnight affairs, and we simultaneously realized we don’t find most celebrities that interesting. We’d rather turn our attention to the real stars of the universe, the ones in space, and the scientists that study them. Fortunately, Hollywood’s turmoil is an Earth problem, and it had no effect on the presence of the people who focus beyond the confines of our tiny globe.
Before I move onto the details of the panels hosted by those space rockstars and others, I’d like to mention the key problem with attending con panels not headed by celebrities. Sometimes these non-star panelists act like they are speaking to an audience of rabid fans eager to hear all their personal tidbits with how long they spend relaying stories or credentials that have no bearing on the published topic. These individuals need to have a come-to-Jesus moment and realize that they aren’t Brad Pitt or Timothee Chalamet. (Take your pick of the heartthrob most relevant to your generation.) No one wants to listen to 20 minutes of boring backstory from some unknown person; attendees come to hear about the subject the presentation is supposed to be about. Keep this complaint in mind as it is relevant to my panel discussion below.
The folks from NASA were just as entertaining as any celebrities.
The first panel we attended was Comic Creation: Ask the Pros. Am I planning on designing a comic book you ask? No, but I was planning on attending the panel that came after this panel. Actually, it ended up holding my attention. The synopsis? People want a direct line to creators right now making crowdfunding an excellent way to go if you are attempting an artistic endeavor.
Our next panel, Exploring the Science in Science Fiction, featured my favorite kind of people, scientists. This group of aeronautical engineers, atmosphere experts, and specialists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were passionate and funny as they discussed what is scientifically correct and amiss in sci-fi. What does sci-fi science get wrong? If you got sucked into space, you would not freeze instantly. Without an atmosphere, freezing is an impossibility not an inevitability. However, you would go unconscious in about 10-15 seconds. How could you improve your chances of surviving? Exhale to keep your lungs from exploding under the vacuum. Also, there are way too many asteroids in sci-fi space. Space is mostly empty.
It’s Alive Jim! Evolutionary Biology in Star Trek was our next panel. It included a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and a biochemist. These scientists debated which Star Trek aliens would be considered parasites. They also covered these burning galactic inquiries:
Q: How likely is it that organisms from different planets would all be humanoid?
A: Unknown, not enough data points.
Q: Could there be silicone-based aliens instead of carbon-based ones?
A: Not likely.
Q: Could Vulcans have green blood?
A: Absolutely, we see this on Earth often with insects. It just means blood proteins are bound to copper instead of iron.
Q: What life form is most efficient?
A: Worms are the most efficient life forms. Evolution leads to worms. Life forms that can waste less energy on entropy are the most successful… and that is worms.
In case it wasn’t obvious, we absolutely loved both these science panels that paired our fictional loves with gaining non-fictional knowledge.
The next day, we missed three panels we wanted to see due to crazy lines, rescheduling without notice, etc., but we made it to Girl vs. Boys vs. None of the Above after some time in a packed exhibit hall. This panel was aimed at discussing pop media and how well it currently represents gender expression and sexual orientation. I appreciated the young people on this panel willing to share their viewpoints. They made a lot of thoughtful comments about media only showing the sadness of the LGBT community not the joy or focusing on sexual identity/gender expression as the primary issue facing members of this group instead of portraying it as just one layer of complicated lives.
After another hour in the exhibit hall that afternoon, we went to a couple more panels. The first was Super-Smart Superheroes and Supervillains. This panel was hosted by Mensa, and all the panelists were members. Not familiar with Mensa? Mensa is a high-IQ society. To be eligible to join, your IQ must fall within the top 2% of the population as proven by a test. There is a big difference between an extremely intelligent person and a person who needs to prove they are an extremely intelligent person. The distinction? Ego. The Washington Post aptly stated it this way, “Mensa is not just a society for highly intelligent people; it is a society for people who want to belong to a society that tells them they are highly intelligent.”
While there were some interesting points made during this panel, for instance all villains are the heroes of their own story, it felt like the main objective was to stroke egos. This was apparent when the intros for the panelists took 12 minutes. With only 50 minutes to cover the topic, the panelists wasted nearly 25% of their time laying out in depth their amazingness and accomplishments. Yuck.
Additionally, many of the panelists seemed eager to prove they were the brightest person in the room by talking way too much or trying to sound like experts on everything. In contrast, the scientists we encountered the day before were just as smart (if not smarter), but they seemed passionate about science not themselves. So, while this panel had some intriguing moments, I think I’ll pass next time.
Afterward, we listened to the last half of the Deja Who: Multitasking Actors in Doctor Who. It wasn’t a bad panel, but the Q&A was monopolized by one audience member relaying stories not questions, and not particularly absorbing ones at that.
That brings me to my minuscule advice for panelists and attendees to make conventions as productive and engaging as possible: Panelists, stay on topic. Audience members don’t need to hear your full resume or life story. Attendees, don’t spend Q&A time rambling on about something no one else in the room cares about.
If you go to San Diego and never venture outside the convention center, you miss a lot.
That concludes our con details, but what was our general mindset? As in other recent years, there was no manic urgency to our convention activities. We didn’t have our hearts set on attending any specific panels. If one was full, we just pivoted to another. This made SDCC much less stressful, though sometimes tiring. Changing course on panels often means weaving through mobs from one inconvenient spot to another inconvenient spot.
This mellowing allowed us to spend remorse-free time outside the convention center. We did runs and ate delicious slow-paced meals down by the water and shopped in the Seaport Village. Cali Cream Homemade Ice Cream became an evening ritual. FYI, the best flavor we tried was Graham Central Station with its chocolate-covered honeycomb.
We’ve altered our methods and views about San Diego Comic-Con over our years of attending. While we continue to have an appreciation for the nerdy ambiance, frantic fandom has been replaced by a steady interest in learning from experts and finding unexpected geek heirlooms in the exhibit hall. Therefore, the loss of the A-list didn’t faze us as we prefer the let’s-just-C-list anyway.
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