Semi annual Zion 24 hr with some good friends. We seem to do a couple of these every summer and they are ususally a high light of the season. We left Teusday after work, drove in around midnight, dirt camped on BLM land and woke early to see what canyon we could get a permit for. No plan really, just to have fun and see what we could do. The top couple of choices, Kolob Creek, Echo, Mystery, were either closed (snow belive it or not?) or already sold out, so we eneded up doing an sorta obscure cnayon outside the park called Birch Creek. What an awesome canyon! great canyon, cool narrows, beautiful rappels, and it is an easy out and back from the car, well sorta easy. It dumps out out in Orderville canyon and my buddy Nate was nice enough to hike out to the car while three of us continued down Orderville and out the Narrows to catch the shuttle to meet nate at Zion Lodge. half hour cat nap and some frisbee on the grass and it was back home by bed time. Got some good, tough running in down Orderville for about 4-5 miles. | 