Friends and concerned law-enforcement officials, we made it. A few days in the desert and four nights in Vegas…and no fatalities. It was a success.
A buddy and I did some mellow canyoneering in Zion National Park on the way out. We hiked the Narrows and then the first couple miles of Orderville Canyon.
A record snowpack for southern Utah rendered some of the backcountry impassable, so we stuck to the more familiar “Narrows” hike, which departs from the touron-throng at the Temple of Sinawava. We got an early start in 40-degree water, which was a bit high, but still 20 percent below the “no-go” point.
We motored all the way to Big Spring (six miles), then returned to hike the first two miles of the smaller, narrower (more interesting) Orderville Canyon.
The hiking in Orderville requires a few swims and a couple climbs, but it’s generally passable, all the way to Veiled Falls. We turned back at the last problem and waded home to the now-mobbed trailhead. Oh, the humanity!
After that, Vegas. An a-team flew in for the festivities, which concluded with an all-nighter at Bad Boy Bill at the Palms. The night rolled by and despite a near-arrest, an eventual hospital visit, and one guy bailing early, everybody came out the far side (mostly) unscathed.
Ten hours in the car, Monday, had us home for a reasonable bedtime…but it was full suckage on the interstate. Fatigue and fogginess were our shipmates.
But the bachelor party was a success. Legendary party promoter, Billy Hudak, declared it the “funnest night of his life” and I agree. Best of all, the general insanity and the, uh, “cast” of characters in Vegas made me all the more stoked to return to my Rebel.
