Conditions:Refrigerator Canyon (Lower)-20181008071942

Latest:	5 Oct 2018 (6 yrs, 7 mos ago)

Reported by:	AmandaC (40 reports)
Quality:	Good
Waterflow:	Very Low
Wetsuit:	None
Water temperature:
Difficulty:	Normal
Time:

Team: 2 people with experience level Beginner to Expert

Trip report URL:

Comments: First run after the flood closure. Used existing webbing on down climb, R1 and R2 removed old webbing and placed single quick link on bolt. R3 added new webbing on the good bolts.

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
15 Mar 2025	Poor	High	Full wetsuit	Advanced	2 hours	2 people Intermediate to Beginner	Canyondozer (8 reports)
Comment: Attempted Lower Refrigerator early afternoon. Spent at least an hour looking for first anchors, including lowering on a rope from near the trail. "Downclimb" to first anchor would have been through heavy flow and first anchor was submerged. Rock that some have reported to use as a natural anchor was not there, the slot section was clear and have to assume that the lodged rock was blown out and is somewhere on the valley floor. Flow was too high to consider.
11 Jun 2024	Great	Dry	None	Normal	6 hours	4 people Brand new to Intermediate	BryceM777 (14 reports)
Comment: Lower Fridge seems to get a bad rap either because of the poison ivy at the bottom of the final rappel, the heat, or trash in the surrounding area. I think fridge deserves a little more attention than it gets as the issues mentioned above were not as prevalent as everyone makes it out to be. Overall this is a really great canyon to lead beginners down and coupling this with angels landing for an extra workout can really make for an incredible day. After running this canyon, the ivy is completely avoidable by pushing off a tree branch before descending the final 5 feet of the final rappel. Unless you happen to have a strong rope pull, the rope will most likely get caught in the ivy so gloves should be worn when bagging the rope. If you are running this in summer I would highly recommend to be on the shuttle as early as you can. For the busy season summer months, Zion offers the first shuttle ride starting at 6 am which is the shuttle our group took. After taking the group up angels landing, we came down scouts lookout then down the wiggles and onto the canyon. Refrigerator canyon descends down the west side of angels landing which means this canyon is completely shaded until about 12-1 pm. Our group stayed cool almost the entire time with the exception of the hike out in the sun. Overall, no trash was observed except for an old crusty piece of underwear on a log. The ledge on the second to last rap is a beautiful location to take a break and chances are you will have this ledge all to yourself and away from the rest of the tourists hiking up angels. Ropewiki mentions that there are only 3 rappels but from what I observed there are actually 4. The first I will call R0. R0 is a bit of an awkward start from a piece of webbing slung around a jammed rock. Unless you are experienced, I would highly recommend not down climbing this as it looks pretty scary and probably doesn’t save you that much time. The rap is roughly 40’ or so and this leads you into R1 which consists of 2 bolts LDC. Rap off this for about 20-30’ and you make it to the ledge where R2 and R3 make up the final glorious 2 stage rappel. All the anchors were in great condition and I didn’t have to replace anything. My final thoughts: Don’t sleep on this canyon. I think it’s well worth the run especially for people newer to the sport. One group member after running keyhole and pine creek in the same trip actually thought this was the best canyon out of the 3 which shocked me. Just goes to show that fridge shouldn’t be skipped just because it has a low amount of stars.
12 Jun 2023	Amazing	Dry	None	Special challenges	3 hours	6 people Intermediate to Advanced	Llamafilm (12 reports)
Comment: A short trip with amazing views. The approach is steep and mostly paved. Lots of tourist hikers leaning dangerously over the edge to watch us setting up the first rappel. R1 anchor is a rock that needs to be loaded carefully to avoid the webbing slipping off. The exposure at R2 anchor may be scary for some people. The ledge at R3 anchor is only big enough for 2 people, so make sure you have enough rope to rig R2 and R3 at the same time. We used one 100ft and two 200ft, so careful sequencing was required to tie ropes together. The ledge at R2 anchor is a great place to stop for lunch.
25 Oct 2020	Great	Dry	None	Normal	3 hours	6 people Beginner to Advanced	Toddk (16 reports)
Comment: Great weather and a nice short canyon to round out a weekend leaving plenty of drive time to get back home. We rapped #1 (optional downclimb) for those with less experience. Rap #2 is a little tricky to get on to. Very exposed area. Be sure to safety in. There's only room for about 3 people on the ledge for rap station #3, but we sequenced well. The last rap, about 190' & mostly freehanging) is beautiful. A little tricky finding the trail out, but easy once we got it. A great confidence-building canyon. Has just enough challenges to make it interesting.
5 Oct 2018	Good	Very Low	None	Normal		2 people Beginner to Expert	AmandaC (40 reports)
Comment: First run after the flood closure. Used existing webbing on down climb, R1 and R2 removed old webbing and placed single quick link on bolt. R3 added new webbing on the good bolts.
25 Jun 2017? Trip report							TerryAmundson@Facebook (12 reports)
Comment: extracts from Facebook posts, click link for full details (privacy restrictions may apply) " This was Day 4 of our 4 day Canyoneering Adventures in Zion. We were pretty wiped out, so opted for a really short one! It was also very smokey from the forest fires up north. Refrigerator Canyon is a short hitter with a really neat final 2 stage rappel. We finished early, went back to camp for..." Zion - Refrigerator Canyon (2017-06-25)