My wife and I decided the day before to book this experience to rappel in Stone Canyon. We went on September 18th. The website did not allow us to access the system directly the day before so I made the phone call. The person who answered the phone was very helpful and she took our credit card information by phone and we booked it. We drove from Springdale to be there at 7:30 for an 8:00 AM start. We left our hotel at 6:45 to be sure we would be on time and we were. We arrived. The facility at East Zion is a nice one at the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort. They have bathroom facilities, free parking and a place to wait. Our guide, Brandy, was late. She said that she had forgotten her shoes and had to drive back to get them. We probably finally left around 8:30. We then drove to the trailhead and it was a hike to the canyon where we did a number of rappels (I think it was nine total) through the canyon.
We were novices and we told Brandy. We felt safe with her. She offered us basic guidance on how to safely make our way down the canyon and what to do. She made the friction on the system such that it was nearly impossible to "slide" down the rope. But our overall experience w/ Brandy was a bit on the negative side. She walked way ahead of the group. She never really walked with us during the hiking portions of the trip. I mean she walked so far ahead of us on the trails that there were times when the rest of the group couldn't even see her. During the times that we were rappelling she wasn't particularly supportive. She gave good instructions but it seemed as if she was annoyed with us often, as if we were a bother to her because we were either novices or because she just didn't want to be doing the work. When another group came through, she did become much more animated and she was excited to talk to the other group leader about some of her experiences there and even was networking for other jobs. But when it came to us, she didn't seem to "like us" all much. Not that we're looking for someone to be our bestie or anything like that. But her attitude with us was just very distant and the fact that she didn't even want to walk with us much seemed to imply she was either just having a bad day or just didn't want to interact with us much. We could have used a little more guidance on some of the rappels, too. I got pretty banged up because of I was a novice and the rocks were slippery and maybe a little more guidance might have helped. Another member of our group had a lot of pain with his harness and it needed adjusting which she did. I had some issues with that too and learned that the harness can be adjusted to avoid the pain. But I did that on my own without asking Brandy.
A few more comments. Just before we left, Brandy mentioned that there would be a place where we would need to trek through water up to our waist. There is nothing on the initial description of the experience that said we had to do that. It was awkward at the point of starting to say, "no", in doing that, but one of us did need to wade through waste deep water. Had I known before I left the hotel I would have prepared with a change of clothes or maybe worn different clothes and shoes.
Finally, Brandy really didn't offer many breaks. We took a few 2-3 minute breaks but we certainly didn't take a lunch break. Our lunch was left uneaten. We felt uncomfortable asking her for a break for lunch and in the end we hiked and rappelled a total of 5 miles and never took a lunch break and took a few water breaks. Brandy just seemed to want to "get it over with" and move through the experience fairly quickly. That opinion again is based on her walking way ahead of us, barely taking any time for breaks, little conversation, and no lunch break. We eventually made it back around 4:30. There was a car staged for us for the ride back.
Overall, we had a good experience. We never felt unsafe at all. She met her responsibilities when it comes to safety. But we seemed to be a burden to Brandy rather than a pleasure and that feeling is not a good one for us. She did seem like the type of person that could be very friendly and personable. But she wasn't that way during our hike.
We would probably do this again. But we'd either want Brandy to be a little happier or have another guide who walked with us, talked more w/ us, guided us a little more and made it a more group friendly experience. We wanted the kind of thing where we would have taken a group pic at the end to remember it as a nice group experience. We settled for a technically safe experience where we relied upon ourselves and got a little banged up doing so. Maybe that's just the way it is sometimes.