Hiker Eric Hanson set off on a beautiful sunny day for what was
meant to be an ordinary canyoneering troupe with his
brother and a few friends. But then, out of nowhere, a
freak storm unleashed a massive flash flood.
It's hands down, at the scariest moment of my life, I was.
Terrified for you? I thought you were going to get
washed. Off Zion National Park in the
prime of monsoon season and it just starts to dump on us.
In an instant. Everything changed.
Wall of water comes down on us. Get up the folder.
We are totally pinned, completely stuck.
Were you like in a spot where if you moved, you're going to fall?
Getting swept down Canyon, you would have gone off of another
100 foot Cliff and that would be the end.
The thought that went through my head was this GoPro that I'm
holding on that I'm filming stuff with.
Somebody's going to find this GoPro and my parents are going
to watch how their to sunset. Eric, thank you so much for
being here, man, It's been a it's been a minute.
So Eric is a old friend of mine, hung out many many times.
We, it's, it's funny that, that we're going to be talking about
a, a survival situation where it wasn't your survival, it was my
survival. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If you didn't know, we were in a situation where I had to get
rescued. But Eric, your situation is
pretty, pretty next level. It, it honestly was, it was it's
hands down at the scariest moment of my life.
Like I, I think it was the, the single moment where I fell
closest to death and where they're kind of quintessential,
like all the things are flashing before your eyes and thinking of
like family and parents and loved ones and all those things.
So it was it was full on. Where were you?
So this was in Zion National Park.
I at the time I had been living in St.
George, UT, which is right outside of Zion National Park,
working for a wilderness therapy company and had a ton of
experience going into Zion. And at the time I was guiding
separately and then going in on my free days and free weeks off
in Design National Park. And it was getting really into
canyoneering at the time. It's one of the premier places
in the world for slot canyons and canyoneering.
And so I was getting into it with some buddies and was kind
of at that like really excited beginner stage of, of acquiring
a new skill. So we were going out in a Canyon
called Behunen Canyon. Were you guiding canyoneering
trips too, or were you just learning how to guide at the
same time? No, this was this was like.
Kind of sorry, learning how to canyoneer.
I was learning how to canyoneer. I was definitely not guiding.
Canyoneering was. So you were a new can.
OK, gotcha. So you're with you and who?
Who else were you with? Yeah, so I was with two Co
workers, an old friend of mine who's also named Eric and then a
guy named Ben and my brother Dave who was not, he was out
from out of town and was visiting.
And so part of the reason that got us in trouble in the 1st
place was that my brother was out of town.
I wanted to show him canyoneering.
The only day that he could go was kind of a day with some iffy
weather, and we decided to to push push it in in what
hindsight was a bad pretty bad. If there's anything I know about
Eric, you like to push things. That's it's true.
I, I do have some bad habits or tendencies, I guess, where I, I
do have this like inherent belief that things will end up
for the best. And I and I think that that
quality has mostly served me well in life, except for when it
doesn't. And this was this is one of
those times. Yeah.
So, OK, So take me through that day, take me through the
preparation, take me through the can't, you know, bring me back
to what happened. Yeah, so Zion National Park,
Southwest Utah. It's August.
It is in the prime of monsoon season.
I had been doing a lot of canyoneering in the weeks and
lead up, up up to this had been in the Canyon in the National
Park many, many, many times, including on days when there was
weather forecasts calling for some rain.
So I was kind of like had felt like I was understanding of the
of the location of the kind of the behaviors of these places
when it would get rain and and things like that.
So my brother was coming into town and it was like, let's go
into the National Park and do do a trip.
So we drove really early, super early into the National Park,
picked up our permits. The National Park knew that we
were going to be going canyoneering that day.
So a lot of people in some of the other videos have like
commented as like the National Park would never let you go
canyoneering with weather, and that's actually not true.
They totally still issue permits for for Canyon ring.
So we we go to the, the visitor center, we pick up our permits,
we take the shuttle into the Canyon.
It drops us off at the same trailhead that goes up to
Angel's Landing, which is one of the really famous hikes of
course in in Zion National Park. We get an early start as early
as we can. And our goal for the day, we
knew that there was some weather predicted for like 2:00 to 4:00
PM. We were just thinking like,
yeah, it's not the longest slot Canyon.
I think we can just get in, get the Canyon done, and then be out
of the Canyon before there's any real risk of anything happening.
I was kind of getting new into documentary filmmaking, so I had
camera equipment and stuff like that with me.
And so I was filming stuff which in hindsight also was like
slowing us down and things like that.
But we were moving through our Canyon.
We dropped in and I distinctly remember there was like this
dead deer right at the top of like our first rappel.
And we both, we all are all four of us were kind of like, oh, is
this kind of like an ominous sign?
And we're like, should we do it? And this was this was
essentially the point of no return.
Once we dropped off the Cliff and repelled, the only way to
finish what we were doing is to continue down through the slot
Canyon and and finish up the the hike.
You know, you're in a deep chasm.
There's no escape except to get out, go through.
And so we decide we kind of take inventory of our little group of
four and we decide let's let's go for it, let's go down.
So we set up the rope, rig up the rope and drop down.
It's about 100 foot repel right out, right out of the gates.
And then, and then from there it was about 3 or 4 hour long hike
where we're continually doing the series of of repels and some
of them are really challenging and slow and you know, we get
really slowed down kind of getting through the tangles of
trees and down debris and stuff plus.
You're setting up, you're setting up ropes for what, 6
people, right? Is it 6 of you?
Well, there was four of us in the Canyon, yeah. 404 total.
OK all. Right.
Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's a
lot. Yeah.
So, you know, it just takes a lot of time for four people to
get. I think there is, I think I
recall there being something like 9 repels or something like
that. And to get four people through 9
repels with essentially like one rope.
We, we technically had two ropes, but we were really only
had enough gear to set up for big like one big repel at a
time. So we were just kind of slow.
Like more advanced teams would kind of like hopscotch each
other like setting up repels and stuff like that.
But we weren't that experienced or that good at doing it.
So it was definitely slow and it was a eerie feeling as we were
in like knowing that we were like essentially in the middle
of the Canyon and we're seeing clouds kind of float over.
You only see like this crack, crack of sky.
And seeing the blue sky disappear was was not a good
feeling. I bet.
Yeah. So so we keep going.
We're just trying to move through as fast as we can.
And we're really we're super. OK.
So to go back just to smidge, in our planning, we actually chose
this specific Canyon because of the relatively low flash flood
risk. Anytime when you're going
through these canyons, like say for a place like Buckskin Gulch,
which is a really famous super long Canyon that the drainage
that collects the rainwater is massive.
So it could be raining like 50 miles away and you could get a
flash flood in Buckskin Gulch, the place that we were at, it
really, it only has a tiny, tiny catchment basin, which means the
rainstorm has to be literally on top of you.
It can't be like from something distant like, which definitely
happens in these deserts. But we were like, OK, the the
area of influence is really, really small.
And so we were about 80% of the way done and clouds are moving
overhead. It starts to rain on us.
But this is like the kind of first, it's just getting the
ground wet. Doesn't really seem like that
big of a deal. But this, this particular Canyon
has a huge final repel. It's kind of like the big draw
of the Canyon. It's a 300 foot repel, like 2
stage repel where you set up your rope and you go to this
little ledge in the middle. You're about like 150 feet off
the ground, little space to operate in.
You pull your ropes and then you set up your final free hanging
repel into the main Zion Canyon. It's really spectacular.
So we were like literally right there and it just starts to dump
us on us. It just is dousing us with rain,
like T-shirts, you know, soaking wet and we're just, you know,
trying to get through as fast as we can.
So it's one part exhilaration, one part terror.
But I I one thing that we didn't account for, We we're literally
standing at the very top of the the final repel.
We kind of have this sense of security that was obviously
false. We thought that we were kind of
like, OK, all we have to do is get down here, one more drop and
and we'll be safe. So, but like you said before,
getting four people down like this, like set of repels is
really slow. And so I was actually the first
one to go down. And I'm kind of like, I'm at the
bottom filming and feeling pretty good about everything
'cause I'm waiting, just waiting.
And as soon as the crew's raining down, oh, it's, it's
like raining hard. And the, the weather patterns
that I've been observing, we're nothing compared to what we got.
We ended up in the like storm of the year, like quite literally,
it was like the type of storm that shut down the National
Park. It was not just like your casual
little rainstorm. There was like flash flooding
all over the, all over the national parks, debris washing
out roads like crazy, crazy stuff.
And we were in the literal worst place or close to the worst
place that you could, you could be when the rain was really
pounding down upon us. So I'm watching, I have this
distinct memory of watching this stream of water come down the
cliffs and basically is the very front, the initial wave of of a
flash flood. And there was actually 2.
We're in one little drainage and just for the geology of the way
this place works out, there was another drainage coming out just
like literally 100 yards away from us.
There was like another Canyon coming in from like a different
spot that had like its final waterfall.
That one started flashing while we were rappelling down.
So that one is now got a stream of water coming, coming down.
And for the again, the unique features of the of the this
exact layout, we descend into a, a, a pen of these house sized
boulders. It's kind of like a horseshoe of
boulders. If, if you can kind of picture
we got this giant wall here and then like multiple giant
boulders that have penned us in here and then a waterfall that's
immediately blocking our our path.
And so we finally get the last person down.
He's my buddy. Eric is literally rappelling
down in the onslaught of the flash flood coming down the
drainage, the Canyon that we've been hiking in.
He comes down and we, the four of us are just over the moon.
We think we have made it. You can like, we just like, are
shouting with this relief that that we've made it, which was
premature to to say the least. We are down there under these
boulders and there's a flash flood literally blocking our
exit out of this little pen of boulders.
And so the the four of us are kind of discussing what we
should do. And it's amazing how just like
one minute of indecision changed, changed everything.
Come under here. I don't know what's going to
come down. Yeah, we might be able to get up
and over over there. Yeah, it is.
Yeah. I was terrified for you.
I thought you were going to get washed off.
Holy guys, make sure we're under.
I don't know what's going to come down.
Can we get out over there? You might be about to get dumped
on here. Had we just gone through and
just like pushed it through this much smaller flash flood, we
would have been totally safe. We would have been, we were like
30 yards from pure, from total safety.
But we we hesitated. We were kind of hemmed and hawed
just a little bit about this like little flash flood that was
happening. And then like in an instant,
everything changed, wall of water comes down on us and start
we're started getting like peppered with like rocks and
logs and like little like the initial debris that's often at
the forefront of these flash floods.
So all we can think to do is just duck under these boulders.
There's just like the slightest little overhang that gives us
about 3 or 4 feet of quote UN quote protection.
And so we just like dive under the boulders and our new plan is
just waited out. Lord protect us, God keep us
safe. I pray a hedge of protection
around us right now. Nothing will hit us.
We will not drown, we will not be swept away.
We will be perfectly safe in Jesus name.
This is absolutely insane. We had no idea what was coming
and for the next 45 minutes we are totally pinned, completely
stuck. It's like blackout dark, despite
the fact that it's mid afternoon because the amount of water
coming off of this Cliff, the out of this slot Canyon is so
much volume of water. It's literally coming down,
hitting this humongous house sized boulder like a two-story
house sized boulder and completely enveloping it.
It's just like shrouded in all of this massive volume of water
and we're just like 4 little ants stuck under the boulder
clinging to rocks trying not to get washed away.
And I'm, I have distinct memories of just sitting there
in essentially like pushing against multiple rocks.
Water is at my belly. I'm like hunkered down, just
trying not to get washed away. It's so incredibly loud.
The four of us are right next to each other.
We're shouting at the top of our lungs and we can't tell what the
other people are what like the person right next to us is
saying. So like our ability to
communicate to like make a plan, total, total chaos.
We, we are just trying to hold on for dear life at this at this
point. Are you at a point where you
were you like in a spot where if you moved, you're going to fall?
No, we wouldn't fall. But so the volume of water we
were like right on the edge of where if, if we were to go like
2 feet forward, we would have not only been out of the
protection of this 300 foot waterfall pounding down.
That would probably have just crushed us, but it would also
have just simultaneously swept us down Canyon and which also we
were right above another large waterfall.
So getting swept down Canyon would have been like you would
have gone off of another 100 foot Cliff and you would have
been that would be the end. You'd the survival of that is
almost completely unlikely. What was the temperature of the
water? Do you remember?
It was very cold. So as you can imagine, even
though it's summertime, Zion National Park, Utah, normal
daytime temperature that day was probably like 100°.
The water temperature from this monsoon storm was, was probably
like in the 60s, something like that.
So it was a lot colder. And then so that's where if you
can imagine like 45 minutes of just getting doused with a 60°
water, the next thing, the next thing that's the danger zone is
hypothermia. And so I, I remember like trying
to communicate and like words not coming out of my mouth, the
basically like slurred speech. The, the early onset of
hypothermia was we were, we were definitely getting hypothermic.
So that was my next alert was like, OK, waiting the storm out.
We could be here another three hours.
And if we're in here for three hours, we're going to have
severe hypothermia, probably become unconscious and then get
swept away or something like that.
Like, so then the new thing became we have to get out of
here. We can't just wait.
So I'm like, I'm holding on to my little GoPro.
It's like my only little source of sort of feeling like I have
any sense of control in this experience.
The the four of us are trying to communicate, but it's chaos,
getting hypothermia. It's really, really a dangerous
situation. And this is where like I was,
I'm thinking like, Oh my God, this is how I die.
My brother's with me. It's just me and my brother in
in our family. And the thought that went
through my head was this GoPro that I'm holding on that I'm
filming stuff with. We're going to die.
It's going to get washed away. Somebody's going to find this
GoPro and my parents are going to watch how their two sons
died. And that was 100% what was like
going through going through my head.
So oddly enough, it almost that instead of like despair, it kind
of in a sense like makes you focus it like makes everything
get like a little sharper. And so I knew like we have to
get out of here. So the four of us, we're, we're
trying our best to communicate, but it's not really working that
well. We're kind of just like saying
random things about like what the ropes are doing.
And you know, the ropes are just getting thrashed in the storm.
We didn't have time to pull them down and we notice just the
slightest change in the flow of water where it was like almost
pitch black where we were. It just started to get a little
bit lighter. And so we are starting to think
like, OK, this is it. It could, it could come back at
any minute. We have to, we have to go for
it. We've already been in the in the
water for over 45 minutes, got like 45 minutes of footage of
this GoPro, which is kind of how I know how long it took.
But we're like, we've, we've got to, we've got to just make a
break for it. So we kind of crawl in this tiny
little crack that we were using for safety.
We crawl along right next to this massive flow of water
pinned up against this boulder and we try to make it around.
And like I said a little bit ago the whole time, if we could just
get around the boulder and over a, a flow of flash flood, we'd
be safe. We were literally 30 feet from
safety this this whole time. And so we just were crawling for
it. We're we're making our break and
the, the obstacle that we have to get over is a flash flood.
And there's like a couple of like logs and stuff that have
somewhere in time. I don't think it was from that
flash flood, but had been like washed down and created a really
poor unsafe bridge, if you will. And that was what we had to to
crawl over and cross. And my I, I would been wearing a
backpack the whole time. And the whole time just water
and sand has been coming down and filling up my backpack.
And I didn't realize it until I'm trying to crawl over this
like rickety, this set of logs that could totally just collapse
and I'd be washed away in my backpack has like 3540 lbs of
sand in it. And I'm like hypothermic and
struggling. And my brother had already made
it across and he sees I'm like the last one to go across at
this point. And he sees that I'm like kind
of slipping and struggling. And he just literally like leans
over, grabs me by my backpack and just like pulls me up and
over and like saves me. And then finally we were on the
other side and we, we escaped. We were.
We were able to get out of there.
Did you end up going to a hospital like what?
You could be treated for hypothermia or anything like
that at all. Nope.
So we get we get out and there's a there's a shuttle running and
but the shuttle, we get on the shuttle thinking everything was
normal, but the bus driver was like, we've been looking for you
boys, you guys, you were the crew that was in Bahunin, right?
I was like, yeah, that we're like covered in like debris and
sand and we're just like looking super haggard and crazy.
And he, he, the bus basically like the shuttle drivers had
been looking for hikers and the rate the National Park because
they had a we had a permit. They knew that we had been in
the Canyon. They were looking for us.
And then they like radioed it in.
We got driven back to the visitor center.
We're able to get in a car, crank up the heat, warm up and
we just like. So how long were?
You down there that they started looking for you?
That seems kind of interesting. I mean, well, they didn't mount
a rescue. They were just like they, So it
was, to be clear, it was not a search and rescue thing.
It was just, I think the National Park was aware of like,
OK, we have like 5 parties that have been that registered and
they're like in the canyons today.
Be on the lookout for any straggling hikers because they
closed the park. The park had been closed for
like 3 hours at that point. So the only people running the
shuttles were just evacuating people essentially trying to get
people out of the park. So the drivers knew that there
was still a party of four that they were, they were looking
for. Probably if, if we yeah, I
think, I think we probably would have been like maybe six hours
away from something like maybe a search and rescue getting
getting called and looking, looking for us.
Holy cow. Yeah.
So if if we had been in a like further up in the Canyon, we
would have probably been, had we not been.
The Canyon ring is such a unique thing because like in this
Canyon, there were a dozen places that if we had been when
the flash flood had moved through, we could have just sat
on higher ground and just waited.
And we probably, we probably would have had to wait until
like 9:00 that night or something like a long time.
But we could have just like waited it out.
Also simultaneously, had we been in half a dozen other places,
there'd be just sheer walls and nowhere to go.
And we just would have been swept to the Canyon off the 300
foot Cliff, certain death. And we were just caught in this
like really odd part of the Canyon where we were both at in
grave danger. But we're so close to safety.
And ultimately, even though we were in this flash flood drama
for an hour, we were able to escape with our lives, which is
also like, had we had we literally probably taken 10 more
minutes the whole time, the whole day or just been 10
minutes later, we would have been swept off.
I think the the top repel and are one or all four of us
probably would have died that day.
Oh my gosh, have you been there since?
I've been to Zion. I have not been back through the
Canyon. Have you been canyoneering?
I've done other canyons and that one has it's, it's obviously
like a place where a significant event happened for me in, in my
life. So I, I want to go back.
I actually want to go back with my friend Eric, who's also like
one of my kind of long time adventure buddies and just go
and kind of have that kind of cathartic type of experience of
not doing it in in monsoon season and trying to kind of
like, I don't know, just revisit this place that was a huge part
of our lives. But no, I haven't been back.
How? How do you feel thinking about
it? It's weird, it's been 13 years
and it still brings up emotion for me.
I bet. Yeah.
Do you feel like it's something that you need to go back to?
I've definitely thought about it.
I don't know if I don't know if need is the right word, but I'm
really curious what would I'm open because I actually have no
idea what would even be stirred up for me if I were to go back.
I think to just like go back and like hike to the to the base of
the of the Cliff, I think would be 1 experience and it would be
a whole other experience to actually do the Canyon again and
to go through and kind of put myself in that that risk of
being back in the slot Canyon. I think that I.
Think that would bring up a lot more for me of of like feeling
that like sense of your you don't have control.
If like if another weather thing comes in, you could you could be
again in parallel again. I think that's what would really
kind of maybe not spook me, but probably stir up a lot of the
old emotions that I felt. Well, what, what was it like to
do any Canyon during for you? Was that did that trigger
anything for you? The other canyons that I did, I
got a lot more conservative after doing this, as you can
kind of imagine. So it actually wasn't, oddly
enough, it wasn't a canyoneering event that triggered more things
for me. But I do remember it was not
long after, it was like 2 weeks later, I was in the field
working for my wilderness therapy company backpacking, not
in a slot Canyon. Had a monsoon storm come down
and like rain really heavy on us enough so that like these little
small little rivulets would fill up with water and the, you know,
the desert starts kind of flowing with water again.
And I almost had a panic attack. Like it literally I was not in
any physical danger, but the storm, the, the senses of like
the this like intense monsoon storm coming down and just
seeing water like build up and start flowing made me like seize
up and elevated heart rate started like looking for escapes
and stuff like that. And that was, that was the thing
that was like, whoa, I'm, I think I have a little bit of
trauma about this. Well, you know, I mean, those
are signs of PTSD for sure. I, I had a, the other people
that I've interviewed that I've been through extreme situations.
I, I, I don't know that all of them, but most of them have gone
back and almost all of them that I remember talking to were at
the request of somebody like a counselor or something because
it brought closure. And, you know, you and I went
through our experience at the Grand Canyon and hearing you
talk about that, how your experience and just going to a
different Canyon was exactly how I felt.
Just going back to the Grand Canyon at a totally different
location, completely safe, not nearly the situation that we
were in before, but feeling those exact same emotions.
And it was, but it was like that, that experience where at
least I felt like I had to, I had to, I had to face something
to overcome something that was overcoming me for that year
since because I I yeah, I, I, it was, it was paralyzing to even
drive up to the Grand Canyon for me.
I can't imagine what it would have been like to grab ropes to
head out the door already, even say yes to a Canyon ring trip
again for you. Yeah, that blows my mind that
you're able to do that and you're open to even going back.
Well, you know, I think it's like when like maybe a climber
has like an accident or something like that.
Like for some people it literally will end their
climbing career, but for some people it's like they will still
climb, but it's that the climb that it happened on is where the
sort of trauma was and other climbing isn't necessarily so
traumatic. And I kind of think that that
might be the case for me. Like for some reason, I could go
into other canyons and really enjoy it.
But there's something about like the this Bahunin Canyon, and
it's kind of like got this spook that's like, man, I don't know
if I'm ready for that Canyon. Have you talked to the other
guys since? What's the conversation been
like? You know, you're our brother
you've obviously spoken to, but what are other people feeling or
dealing with and have they can't gone canyoneering?
Have they gone back? Yeah, so, well, I, I know my
buddy Eric, actually, he's somebody that I have done a
number of canyons with. We've continued to go.
He, he lives in Flagstaff where I live and we go out into the
desert and we, we go do do stuff.
So I know that he also, you know, even though he had his own
experience, like we've definitely like gone back into
canyons. My other buddy, Ben, I kind of
have lost touch with him as it's been a decade, but I, I think
he's just living in the Midwest and I don't think he's done.
I don't think he's touched it since.
As for my brother, I know that we both had kind of these like a
bit of an emotional journey, if you will.
And I think that my brother and I have spoken about it a little
bit, not necessarily like a a ton.
I think we had sort of similar, but a little bit of a crossing
experience in that. I think for my brother, it was
one of those types of things where it made him look at some
of his life and reassess what he was doing.
And kind of like was was in a, in one sense, like a little bit
of a wake up call. Whereas for me, my wake up call
was more about I felt guilt around the risk that I put.
I felt like the party leader. I felt like I was guilty of
having put people at risk. But I would say in terms of the
near death experience, an interesting event for me was
that I felt like it was almost reaffirming that I was like, I,
I was guiding in Utah. I was, I had recently gone
through a big life change where I had previously just gotten.
The reason why I was guiding in Utah in the 1st place was
because I was recently divorced at the time.
And I took this job guiding kind of to like heal my soul.
And I felt like I was absolutely in the right place.
I felt like I was doing things for my life that were needed,
that were ultimately like good. And so there was a, a feeling
that happened was like, well, if I die doing what in the
direction that I've going, I feel like I can accept that it
was just my time to go. And I, it almost like gave me
more motivation to keep doing what I was doing it it's kind
of, I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but instead of
hitting like a rock bottom and it being like a wake up call,
like what am I doing with my life?
It was like, oh, I had the sense that if I die, I die.
And I'm doing it. What I'm doing, what I love, I'm
doing it chasing a life that I'm really passionate about.
I'm doing things that I feel like are ultimately meaningful
for me. And so if this is how I go, then
I can accept that. I it's, I'm only laughing
because I, I hearing you say that I'm replaying my own
situation because you were there for, for mine.
And I've, I remember, I, I just remember if I'm going to die,
just just kill. Just let's just do it.
Let's just get it over. Like it was this prolonged
experience for me, like let's just get it over with, man.
Like, and, and I felt what I think is interesting for people
that maybe have had a near death experience.
Everybody's is obviously different, but I think ours may
be similar in that, you know, if you, if you put yourself, you
think, oh, if I had a near death experience, I'd be trying to
call my family and do all these things and blah, blah, blah.
And you're just, it wasn't like that for me.
It was just like, OK, this is it, let's go, let's just do it.
Let's just get it over like, like, I don't want to die like
that. That'd be that'd be nice to not
die, but you know, but if I'm going to go, you know, exactly
like at least I'm not doing something I shouldn't be doing.
You know what I mean? Like I, I'm doing something I
love. I'm in a I'm in a spot with
friends, family, you know, I wasn't robbing a bank or
something, you know, but it was it like that for you?
Did you feel that way at all? I mean, was it?
I, I mean, I guess I would say like in a sense that it wasn't
like a let's get this over with, which I'm not exactly sure if
that's your take away, but it was like there was a kind of I.
Felt I'm like let's just go. That's funny.
That's an interesting reaction. I no, I didn't feel like I think
I felt like this could be all be over like this.
I was in the moment thinking like I could be dead in the next
minute like that is a strange thought.
And that was the only time in my life I've ever had those
feelings, those thoughts. But I also was both, I think, at
peace about it and was kind of like my resolve was like also
kicking in where I was like, no, we're going to figure out a way
to get through this, which ultimately we obviously did.
So it's kind of like almost like a sharpening of everything.
Yeah, I mean that that was there for me too.
I felt like that fight or flight sort of thing was there too, you
know, Otherwise I would have just gave up.
I was just thinking like, well, why hasn't this happened yet?
Yeah. Like, if I'm going to like, just
do it already because this is torture, you know?
So now that you've had this experience, would you remove
this out of your life or has this done OK?
Why? So I would definitely not remove
it from my life. I think if anything it was in a
in a way that I deal. Is it the movie deal?
I mean, no, but it was good for my career, but that's not why I
wouldn't take it out of my life like so as a as a much very
small scale, no book deal, no movie deal, but I was working on
a little documentary, just a little independent film.
And what was from the financial benefit that I had was the
Springdale IMAX movie theater showed my little documentary for
like 8 months every day. And so I ended up making I think
something like $12,000 from this deal that I made with the the
movie theater at the time. That was actually a massive
deal. It was the same thing that
allowed me to go from working in wilderness therapy to become a
free a full time. I quit that job and go full time
freelance. And to do all of the things that
I'm doing now worked in television, the, the, the free,
the, the flash flood didn't directly lead to television, but
it led to the things that have kind of allowed me to do what
I'm doing now, you know, essentially honing my craft as a
filmmaker, photographer now, now YouTube it.
And like I said, it also kind of like steeled my resolve to be
like, I'm doing the right thing. Which Fast forward about a year,
that $12,000 I earned was like literally all I earned for like
a year of my life. I was dirt poor, but I also felt
like I'm doing the thing that I love, the thing that I know that
I and I had this light near death experience and I was like,
wouldn't change it. I it, I think that it's part of
what has given me the like endurance to keep going in this
industry where most people want to be in and start doing, but
then have like a tough year or two or three and are just like,
I'm out. But I felt like I was reassured
that I was doing the right thing.
Wow, holy cow, man. Well, any other cool things come
out of this for you at all? I would say the other big thing
that came out of it for me was a greater respect for nature, risk
taking, leadership, decision making, things that I had been
pretty cavalier about that. I think also without that
experience, I think I could have made other cascading decisions
that would have put me or others at risk to, to greater degrees.
So I think it was a big learning moment for me in terms of risk
management leadership in the outdoors.
And, and just like it was humbling too, Like I totally had
this idea that could just like, we'll be fine, we'll do
anything, no big deal. If it rains, it rains, we'll
just figure it out, which sort of to an extent happened, but it
was it was from a place of kind of like this cavalier almost
needing to be humbled stand like and and Mother Nature definitely
humbled us pretty good. If you could say somebody who's
who's about to do something that maybe they're nervous to do
because of risk involved, what advice would you have for that
person? I think that's tough because a
lot of times I feel like people choose to choose to not do
something because of risk, but the thing actually isn't that
risky or they should trust it and just go for it.
Like trying canyoneering, like go with some guided
professionals. And even if it scares you half
to death, I think it's still worth pushing those risk
boundaries. But at the same time, like, like
I was pushing the risk where I was like, didn't, I didn't
treat, I'd say Mother Nature with the enough respect.
And, and that's where it is like I, I don't, I don't know what
the take away is for, for somebody else, because half the
time I do feel like people are restrained by too much fear in
life, You know, like choosing how, what decisions to make as
risk taking in the, in the outdoors is a, is a fine line,
like what some people are capable of athletes,
Mountaineers. Like, I wouldn't necessarily say
that everybody should be pushing boundaries like that.
But I also think the outdoors, a lot of people have irrationally
high fear of the outdoors where they could go camp or backpack
or go climbing on, on trips and they'd be totally fine.
So it is like, it's kind of like understanding your, your skill
set, I think is a is a big part of it.
Understanding where you're deficient.
In hindsight, I was, I think, the most dangerous level of
competent. And by that I mean I was growing
a skill set. I was not a beginner, but I
wasn't experienced enough to know how much I didn't know.
Sure. And but you.
You didn't do anything. I don't in hearing your story.
There's nothing that I would have pointed at and gone you.
That's where you went wrong. Like, this is the one, you know,
Unless you're talking about some sort of an inexperience in
choosing a Canyon that may have been bigger than what you guys
were ready for, but other than that, it didn't sound like there
was anything you guys did wrong that you could have avoided.
I think we just had a, a, a cavalier approach to the
weather, which I, I had decision.
I think I can rationalize my decisions a lot with like, oh,
I'd been, I'd been in, I knew the place well.
I'd been out there all summer. I'd been watching the storms and
none of them had been like these serious events.
And yeah, there was kind of like a a mix of bad luck where the
what there was weather forecast that in hindsight we shouldn't
have ignored, but the the event ended up being like 10 times
bigger than what anybody had predicted.
And that's what like really got us in trouble.
But I also think in hindsight, it just we shouldn't have been
in the Canyon that day. We we just tried to push it even
though we knew, you know, like Canyon during one O 1 is monsoon
season is the worst time to go Canyon hearing doesn't mean you
can't go canyoneering. It just means if, if you're
going to be in a Canyon with a flash flood potential on a day
with weather, you better really know what you're doing.
And in hindsight, we were just too slow.
We we weren't quick enough with like setting everything up and
we weren't experienced enough where probably a more
experienced person would have either been able to slip through
that Canyon in a just like two or three hours, would have never
been at risk, or they would have said, let's just wait until
tomorrow and it's fine. Like, yeah.
And you know, we should have just waited.
In hindsight, you don't know what you don't know, right?
I mean, you would have gotten through there and never known
that maybe you did do something like not check the weather as
well. You know, you'd have just gone
on with your life and never would have known the wiser.
And I think in our situation with me and the Grand Canyon,
the same thing. Had I made it to the top, I
never would have thought in a million years that I would have
gotten grabbed in my Oasis ever, that it was even a thing.
I would have gone on with my life never knowing about it.
So inside is always 2020, going back into it, into a microscope.
But yeah, well, I'm glad you're here.
I'm glad too. And I, and I think 11 last, I
guess final thought is like for somebody like you and me or, you
know, people who spend 20 years of like consistently being in
the wilderness in the Backcountry, we're going to rack
up some stories of man, the time that things went wrong.
And to like you said, like I don't necessarily always think
that I was just like a total Dumbo out there.
I just think like, like when you, if you spend your whole
life driving a car, you're probably going to have a couple
of car accidents. Exactly.
Amount of time in those places, something might happen.
And I think that is also like the the time in the Grand Canyon
with you and the time in the flash flood in, in Utah.
It's like 20 years of pretty consistently being in in the
wilderness. And I have two pretty serious
like events. But that's also, I think, like,
actually I'd take that trade. Yeah.
It just is like just going to happen.
Stuff will happen at some point. I don't know if that's
comforting. No, I mean it is what it is.
Everything is risky. Being at home is you know you
can. Driving a car is the most
dangerous thing we do in life. This light could fall on my head
and kill me at any moment. That would have been really
cool. That would be good timing.
Yeah. All right.
Well, thanks man. I appreciate you.
Appreciate the your time and hanging out with me today and
any final words, no pun intended.
I'm just thankful to be here. I love, I love being a part of
your your survival series. I think that it's, you know, we
have a fascination with the survival stories and I'm I'm
glad that I could be here to tell the tale to to you.
So thanks for having me. On man appreciate it.