goldboat83
01-25-2007, 01:44 PM
Well this is my first real trip report but here goes.. I posted pics as well.. although i wasn't able to get as many as I hoped because of camera problems, but enjoy :) I don't post a whole lot and Oh this is Josh By the way..
Jan. 24 2007 We arrive at the trail head for the black hole. It was a bright beautiful day temperature around 40 which we were loving especially coming from the north where we had been in the sub-zero temps for the last couple weeks. We assembled all the gear and set out for what we hoped to be a delightfully cold stroll through the black hole. We decided it would be wise to bring rope and webbing in case something did come up where we would need it, even though the TR we had read said everything was clear down there. As we made our way down the small side canyon into the main canyon there was nothing but excitementt in the air. We had both wanted to hit up the black hole with the freeze festers but were unable to this year, But we had our chance now and we were pumped!! As we neared the main part of the canyon we noticed that everything was frozen, but we disregarded it figuring the bigger pools wouldn't be frozen. As we arrived to the point where the year before we had suited up, we noticed there was way less water then had been there before, and that all the water was still frozen! So we continued on, delaying putting on our wet suites for as long as possible, until finally we hit a pool of ice and figured it was time.
After suiting up Eric tromped through the first short pool, it broke about midway through but was only thigh deep. I followed and soon we beheld an even bigger pool that had potential to be quite deep, I said "i'll take this one" and headed out on my belly to avoid falling though as much as possible. while I crossed i could see that the ice was a good 4 inches thick and felt fairly safe on it even thought there was small amounts of water flowing up from the sides of the ice. A little nervous of what we might encounter next we trekked on.. still saying to one another do you think it was like this when Ram and them did it? Neither of us recalled seeing any ice from the pictures posted and we were both a little stumped. As we weaved our way though a couple of big boulder fields and a few more pools we came up on a nasty looking pool which looked unstable and deep then headed around a corner of twisting tight narrows with no ledge or anything above it. So Eric bravely and cautiously crossed the pool, he arrives at the point were he would have to go up though the smaller part of the narrows. While this is going on I'm watching water coming up from all around the pool onto the ice and I'm waiting, rope in hand, for eric to suddenly plunge into the icy depths... he looks back at me as says "I don't know about this, it looks pretty sketchy" I was in total agreement with him at that point, because it just looked deep and nasty as all get out.. So we decided it would be best to head back and be on the safe side.. the canyon will be here next year and we will live to see another day..
Oh on another random side note me and eric had some crazy funny conspiracies we came up with, One included, at the top of the trail we saw a jackrabbit and we dubbed that he was a scout working for the rattlesnake/scorpion coalition that was out to get us.. the plan was that there would be an ambush on us while inside the canyon, and we laughed that at any minute we would hear the sound of a roaring flash flood coming right for us, but it would turn out to be a thousand rabbits with snakes on there backs charging right at us with a great deal of speed.. then we would look up to the sky to see that the birds were in on the plan too and they were dive bombing us, dropping scorpions everywhere in a plot to end our lives!!!!
Jan. 24 2007 We arrive at the trail head for the black hole. It was a bright beautiful day temperature around 40 which we were loving especially coming from the north where we had been in the sub-zero temps for the last couple weeks. We assembled all the gear and set out for what we hoped to be a delightfully cold stroll through the black hole. We decided it would be wise to bring rope and webbing in case something did come up where we would need it, even though the TR we had read said everything was clear down there. As we made our way down the small side canyon into the main canyon there was nothing but excitementt in the air. We had both wanted to hit up the black hole with the freeze festers but were unable to this year, But we had our chance now and we were pumped!! As we neared the main part of the canyon we noticed that everything was frozen, but we disregarded it figuring the bigger pools wouldn't be frozen. As we arrived to the point where the year before we had suited up, we noticed there was way less water then had been there before, and that all the water was still frozen! So we continued on, delaying putting on our wet suites for as long as possible, until finally we hit a pool of ice and figured it was time.
After suiting up Eric tromped through the first short pool, it broke about midway through but was only thigh deep. I followed and soon we beheld an even bigger pool that had potential to be quite deep, I said "i'll take this one" and headed out on my belly to avoid falling though as much as possible. while I crossed i could see that the ice was a good 4 inches thick and felt fairly safe on it even thought there was small amounts of water flowing up from the sides of the ice. A little nervous of what we might encounter next we trekked on.. still saying to one another do you think it was like this when Ram and them did it? Neither of us recalled seeing any ice from the pictures posted and we were both a little stumped. As we weaved our way though a couple of big boulder fields and a few more pools we came up on a nasty looking pool which looked unstable and deep then headed around a corner of twisting tight narrows with no ledge or anything above it. So Eric bravely and cautiously crossed the pool, he arrives at the point were he would have to go up though the smaller part of the narrows. While this is going on I'm watching water coming up from all around the pool onto the ice and I'm waiting, rope in hand, for eric to suddenly plunge into the icy depths... he looks back at me as says "I don't know about this, it looks pretty sketchy" I was in total agreement with him at that point, because it just looked deep and nasty as all get out.. So we decided it would be best to head back and be on the safe side.. the canyon will be here next year and we will live to see another day..
Oh on another random side note me and eric had some crazy funny conspiracies we came up with, One included, at the top of the trail we saw a jackrabbit and we dubbed that he was a scout working for the rattlesnake/scorpion coalition that was out to get us.. the plan was that there would be an ambush on us while inside the canyon, and we laughed that at any minute we would hear the sound of a roaring flash flood coming right for us, but it would turn out to be a thousand rabbits with snakes on there backs charging right at us with a great deal of speed.. then we would look up to the sky to see that the birds were in on the plan too and they were dive bombing us, dropping scorpions everywhere in a plot to end our lives!!!!