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View Full Version : Trip Report Boss Hog, Black Hole, WF WF Butler



rock_ski_cowboy
10-19-2005, 11:32 AM
OK this one may be more informative than narrative.
Eric can elaborate if he wants. Pictures later, hopefully.

We did Boss Hog, another slot in the area, the Black Hole, and the
West fork of West Butlers AKA Monkey Business last weekend. We camped
at Sandthrax and didn't see anyone until Saturday, and we saw a lot of
people then.

Boss Hog is basically dry, very narrow, and fairly difficult including
stemming and a lot of down climbing. We had a great time, and a long
day starting from the Rest Area and doing two slots. If doing Boss
Hog this way, I would recommend a West Side approach over the death
gully approach on the East. Make sure you drop into the right slot or
you will not have enough rope. We did both approaches that day and the
West Side is more interesting and requires less elevation gain.
However, the route finding is tricky and fun (go high early).

Original plans called for Trail/Maidenwater canyons on Friday, but we
felt like changing the scene a little bit, rather than doing super
narrow slots for three days in a row, so we opted to do the Black Hole.


Black Hole shouldn't be trifled with in its current conditions,
but if you are up to doing canyons like Choprock, Imlay, and Heaps,
you will have an awesome time in there.

If the Sherrif's dept. didn't have the warning signs in the right
place before, they do now. You have to pass two very explicit signs
on your way down into White Canyon telling you DO NOT ATTEMPT THE
DESCENT OF THE BLACK HOLE. We read the fine print and it said "Unless
you think you know more than we do and are invincible" so we decided
to continue on since that seemed to apply to us. None of us had been
into the Black Hole before, and we were in for a treat. It was
amazing-- definitely one of the most beautiful canyons I've been in,
and one of the best canyon experiences I've had. The water was
freezing-- colder than Heaps-- and there was loads of swimming so
thick wetsuits were a must. The first HUGE Log Jam is washed under so
it's now a massive log bridge you walk under. Pretty dang ominous.

The second HUGE log jam is encountered in the narrowest section of
canyon, in mid-swim. Josh and Eric began to stem up to climb over the
30 foot tall 100 foot long log-ness monster, but I decided to poke
around alittle in the soup at the base of the logjam. I had keyed in
to the possible existance of a "Secret passage below" from reading
some Ram reports. Lo and behold, after clearing out a few logs a
small black triangle appeared in one corner of the log jam. It wasn't
big enough to fit my head through with helmet so i took my helmet off
and eased into it. It was pitch black but barely light enough to tell
that it opened up. After swimming under the log jam in the pitch dark
for about 100 feet, the sky finally appeared. I yelled at Josh and
Eric to follow, and they did after Josh got his headlamp out. Did I
mention Josh has a phobia of log jams? Lets just say Choprock scared
the hell out of him. Anyhow, after plowing through a dam of juniper
berries, pine needles, twigs, sticks, logs, and poop, we were through
the second and final significant log jam. Spooky, but amazing.
We took some time finding the exit, it seemed there were
about three possible places you could climb out with exposure but we
decided against them. We went up the canyon to the East, thinking
we'd found the "normal" exit. We were wrong-- I think we found
Kelsey's alternate exit-- but we continued up. The crux of our chosen
exit is about 60 feet of exposed slabby 5.6 ish. Fun. I guess the
real exit is more east.
We hit the road immediately and I decided to do "the
shuttle" which consisted of me running 2 miles up the road to my
truck. I was hoping to hitch-hike, the only people that passed were
an old lexus-driving couple. So much for that idea. I like running,
even in Canyoneers, so it wasn't too bad and was over in about 20
minutes. We headed back to camp and did Lucky Charms. Hmmm.

Day three we did Monkey Business (WF WF Butler). Another classic with
some great problems to solve. (problems as in technical challenges,

not problem problems). It get deep and dark. It gets narrow narrow. It
has a very tricky first rap/pull, and then the keeper pothole. Josh
sent it without aid, i think most. The trick with this pothole is not
only the exit, but the entrance. Your last man can either choose to
rap 25 feet off a 1st rate hook placement as Kelsey reccomends, or
downclimb 15 feet and then jump 10 feet into armpit deep water. We
sequenced everyone down and then I choose to rappel very carefully off
a grappling hook-- prepared for a splashdown should the hook fail.
Now I'm not going to get into hook politics on this one, but this was
a very solid lip, a good hook placement and I felt fine rappelling off
of it in the given circumstances (short,non- overhung rap with medium
deep water at the bottom).

rockgremlin
10-19-2005, 11:44 AM
Nice TR. Our little Black Hole has grown up on us. I haven't done it recently. The last time I did it was a few summers ago, and it was an easy romp - zero logjams. I'd like to see the photos when/if Josh gets around to it. :haha:

shaggy125
10-19-2005, 04:06 PM
I won't add much to Ben's TR. The trip was a blast, everyone who didn't come missed out. Boss Hog was really physical but lots of fun. I swear it started steeply downhill and didn't flatten out once till the end. The Black Hole was quite the adventure since we didn't bring any up-to-date beta, so we really had no idea what to expect. Sure was glad Ben found that secret passage, Josh and I weren't looking forward to climbing that beast of a log jam. Monkey Business will reach classic/popular status as soon as Shane or Tom add it to their sites, it was semi short, but sure was beautiful and fun. If you have a car shuttle you can do one fork of Butler, then one fork of lep (the Butler exit puts you about 300 yards from the head of Leprechaun's Right Fork) we ran out of time for this option, but something to consider if you are ever down there with two cars. If I ever get the pictures from Josh or Ben I will post a nice photo TR to my blog site, but until then Ben's written TR will have to do.

Eric.