We left the campground just after 11:00 in the morning and headed to Bull Valley Gorge. According to legend there was a herd of cattle that ranged up there and when they went to round them up there was one bull that didn't want to be caught and so he jumped into the gorge. We are all smiles now but just wait until you see what we get ourselves into.
On this trip was us, Jed's dad Roger, Vicki and Shannon and their kids, Miranda, Rhiley, and Kavon, and Shannon's parents, Guy and Marilyn.Brooklynn was one of the first to be lowered down and the rest of us crawled down in.
Our 1st obstacle was this huge rock that we had to repel (or climb) off of. The tricky part about it was that in concaved in so it scared us because we had to swing underneath it.
Here is Miranda not wanted to go down and after we all got down Jed and Shannon had to try to get it off.
At first we were being really careful of where we were stepping so that we wouldn't get our shoes all muddy and I decided that I didn't want to wear my hiking boots that day because I hate wearing them and we didn't think we were going to get into anything too bad so I just had on my tennis shoes.
Little did I know they were only going to get worse.Our next obstacle that we had to go through was a water puddle. NOTICE THE ICE! Now looking back this should have been the first signal to turn back NOW! But no we decide to just keep going and get through this narrow. Most of the men trudged through first carrying some of the children across.
Roger tried to get big rocks and throw them in so that we could have jumped on them and not walked in the water. But the rocks just sank and splashed back at Roger. 
Jed was trying to be a great husband and wanted to carry me across so that I didn't get my shoes all wet and muddy. I kept telling him that I would just grin and bear it and walk through he really tried to carry me and we just about both went down. I ended up walking through it. 
We love this picture because it still looks like we are having fun with soaking wet shoes and pants up to our calves. 
Our 3rd obstacle was climbing down this huge rock and going through another water hole. This time it was only up to our knees, thank goodness (just kidding) but it was cold. This is a picture of Marilyn going through.
If you look close in this picture you can make out a truck. The story goes that back in 1954 there was a truck that slid down and wedged itself in the walls. Three men were killed. As you can see it is now covered up with rocks, timbers, and other debris that have also fallen. On top of all of this debris is the road over the canyon that is very narrow and rises steeply on both sides. 
Okay by now we have been in the canyon a few hours, we are all soaking wet and we can either choose to walk back the way we came or we can just keep walking and come out on the other side. We decide to just keep walking and try to make it out on the other side. Brooklynn was getting tired and cold and so we were taking turns in carrying her. We came to another water puddle and this was the deepest of them all. Brooklynn was carried by Shannon and after walking through it we were now soaking wet up to the middle of our thighs. Jed and Shannon were so great to have on this hike because they carried most of the children through the water holes so that they wouldn't get too wet. But we all were getting cold, tired and hungry. So we decided to sit and take a break so have a snack. We just sat for a few minutes and decided to keep walking. Pretty soon we got to snow and ice and we had to climb on top of it and walk across it.
This is Rhiley up on the snow. We got to a point that Shannon said that we couldn't get out that way and that we might have to turn back. I thought there is no way that I am going to cross 3 mud holes to get out. So because we were still cold we walked back to a place where it kind up opened up and made a fire so that we could dry out just a little while Shannon and Jed decided to see if we could still make it out of the canyon the way that we were going. 
While sitting around the fire Rhiley was roasting Starburts and Kavon was roasting licorce. After quite a few minutes Jed came back and told us that there is a way out we just have to either walk through more water or repel down another huge boulder and then we could climb up the mountain through a boulder field to get out. We were so excited that we might be out of this hole pretty soon. 
So we again walked on top of the snow and ice here is me tired, cold, and dirty about ready to climb down the rocks. 
This is a picture of Vicki ready to go down. As you can see Jed and Shannon tied the ropes in knots so that we could climb down and have something to hold on to. In someways we were glad that Jed made everyone carry one of these ropes and in someother ways were were mad. If he didn't bring them we wouldn't have gotten past the 1st obstacle and we wouldn't have gotten all wet and muddy but we were also glad that we had them so that we could make it down some of those boulders without killing ourselves. 
The next picture is of Marilyn you can see how tall this boulder was but at least it did have some foot holes for us to use. 
Brooklynn was lowered down and even though she is afraid of heights she did very well. Again thank you Jed and Shannon for getting my family out safe and sound. I have the two best children because they were such troopers to last 6 hours hiking and didn't complain one bit.
Chase was in a backpack that Jed carried all of the way and every time he got set down he would swing his feet and so even his socks and shoes were muddy by the end. Okay by now it has been about 4 1/2 hours that we have been into this slot canyon. We came across 2 men that had walked in from the other way. They said that it would be still about another hour or so to get back from where they started but it would put us about 2 hours away from our truck. We saw a rock field going up the mountain and saw that other people had used this way to get in and out so we started climbing. Jed would lift Brooklynn up on the rocks, climb up them with Chase on his back and lift Brooklynn up to another one. I was just barely making it myself so I couldn't imagine trying to carry both children up the mountain. We had to be really careful of where we stepped because we didn't want to have a rock slide with other people below us. I once was trying a rock to see if it was study and it was but once I put my whole weight on it, it slide and I just about went down with it. It was really scary.
Vicki took this picture of her dad climbing up the mountain. Yeah!!! After 5 hours we finally made it out and I think these were
some happy faces that we finally made it out. This is the view from up top. 
Now we just have to walk a few miles back along the rim of the canyon to get back to our trucks. Roger was so great to carry Brooklynn on his back the whole way.
I think everyone one of us had a shower, ate some dinner and slept really well that night.
what a great trip.... now that it is over!
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