Archangel Cascades

Zion National Park / Washington County, Utah, USA
Rating: 1     Difficulty: 4 The Archangel Cascades are a series of cascades sheeting their way down the hard sandstone bedrock as the Left Fork North Creek continued its way further downstream. Like other similar pages in the Utah region, the waterfalls here were really my excuse at sharing the more epic adventure most people would come here for. In this particular instance, it was the Subway (also known as Left Fork of North Creek).

In case you don't know what the Subway is, it is a spectacular semi-technical slot canyon in the Kolob Terrace section of Zion National Park. They call it the Subway because the slot canyon featured sections that were hollowed out by flash floods into a tubular passage that very much would resemble a metropolitan subway. The cascades featured on this page were merely side attractions to the funky formations that have made this slot somewhat famous amongst canyoneers.

Within the Subway formation, we needed to secure permits (which we obtained at the Watchman Campground's Backcountry Office). Actually, the hike was not easy as it was about 8 miles out-and-back including a steep descent down into the canyon carved out by the Left Fork of North Creek. Plus, following the trail was not obvious at the river level because we had frequently lost the faint paths or the spots we were supposed to have crossed the creek. On top of all that, we had to make the steep ascent up the same path that we had gone down earlier to get into the canyon. But at least the trail was a bit more obvious to follow on the way back.

During the long hike and route-finding within the Left Fork of North Creek, we noticed some slabs of rock that had dinosaur tracks on them! That was really cool! The constant presence of water also helped us deal with some of the warm temperatures during our April 2003 visit. I can't imagine how much more unbearable the conditions would be deeper in the Summer months.

We didn't get to experience much of the Subway's scenic features outside of its lowest extremes because we needed to have canyoneering gear. That was too bad because I understand that the most scenic part of the Subway was a little further upstream from where we had to turn around.

As for the Archangel Cascades themselves, they were located a few minutes before the mouth of the Subway. Although they weren't terribly impressive, we did have to climb around and through parts of the cascades in order to keep going upstream.

Once we were inside the Subway slot canyon, that was when we found out that we needed some canyoneering gear to keep going upstream shortly after rounding the first bend within the slot. Even if we had gotten into canyoneering, a good deal of preparation would be required as most canyoneers would've done this as a one-way through hike going in the other direction.

Directions: Trailhead access to either of the two ends of this excursion is via the Kolob Terrace Road (or Kolob Reservoir Road), which branches north of the town of Virgin along State Highway 9 (around 8 miles or slightly less). We did the out-and-back option from the bottom so we parked at the Left Fork Trailhead instead of the Wildcat Canyon Trailhead (for canyoneers).




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PHOTO JOURNAL

Some dome near the trailhead. Our Topo map labeled one of the domes here as "Molly's Nipple." I'm not sure if this one was it.

Looking down into the canyon carved out by the Left Fork of North Creek. Yep, we'd have to descend into this canyon!

Descending down the steep cliff to get down to the river level

We spotted some dinosaur tracks along the trail

The lowermost of the cascades

Facing the Subway

Pools and mini cascades within the Subway

The pool obstacle that turned us around. There's a waterfall at the other side of this deep and frigid pool

Walking towards the top of Archangel Falls on the return hike


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VIDEOS OF THE FALLS

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MAP OF THE FALLS

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TRIP REPORTS

For more information about our experiences with this waterfall, check out the following travel stories.

• April 26, 2003

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GUIDEBOOKS / OTHER RESOURCES

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NEARBY WATERFALLS

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