AJ
05-15-2007, 11:47 AM
Photos: (Link good for 90 days.)
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=brainwaves_ap&aid=576460762401620596&pid=&wtok=o9hhOFnTXw92.5GXdKbhXA--&ts=1179251715&.src=ph
Friday 10/20:
Life is hectic. I was planning a canyoneering trip with a friend, Judy, to the Robbers Roost area in Utah. Planning a trip is enough work, planning with someone else just adds more effort. Even worse, was that the area got a huge rainstorm; some say a hundred year storm, just two weeks prior. Some areas got more rain in two days than they usually get all year. Here's a trip report and some pics from some canyoneers that were lucky enough to be in the area during the storm. Make sure you scroll down to see the topo map showing the water. If you aren't familiar with the area, it won't mean as much to you; but that topo gives you a small idea of the flooding. Filling the Escalante wall to wall is insane. Most places, it's around a football field wide, and the normal river usually is around 30-50 feet wide, 3-5 feet deep, with 4-5 foot banks on average. On top of that, most of it is desert climate, which will absorb a lot of water to begin with. You get the idea; here's the pics:
http://uutah.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3719
It's lucky that the storm hit at night, so no canyoneers were killed by it; and equally lucky that the two who gave the trip report decided to camp on Neon's shoulder, as most people camp down near the river...
Anyway, due to that storm, we didn't know how the roads would be; if we would be able to get in to the Roost area or not. Some of the group decided not to chance it, and were going to go to a different area. The rest of us decided to at least give it a shot to try to get in. It would be fun to see these canyons full of water.
On top of all this, my friend RJ e-mailed me after I had already set this trip in motion, and said his wedding was on Friday 10/20. Ugh! I couldn't miss the wedding; so I decided to go to the wedding, and would drive through the night to be ready for canyoneering the next day. Jen was a doll, and went to the wedding with me; braving the long drive at night. Jonas was nice enough to wait as well and meet us so the three of us could ride out there together. Jen and I had a great time at RJ and Janelle's wedding.
During the wedding reception, Ben called me and said that there were storms going over the passes, and that Eastbound I-70 was already closed. So it is possible that I-70 could be completely closed down before long. Lovely. Oh well, I'm not going to leave the wedding, since the roads could possibly be closed by the time we got there anyway. We enjoyed our time at the wedding, and then headed out, hoping for the best.
We met Jonas at the Dinosaur parking lots off I-70 and started our drive out to Utah around 11pm. It was definitely stormy over the passes, with cars and trucks off the roads on both sides and a couple inches of snow accumulation on the roads even though the plows were doing the best they could to keep it clean. East I-70 was still closed, but West was luckily still open. We were in my Jeep, and I had just gotten new tires, so we were doing fine. I was able to go around 50mph for most of the way. No issues except for when I was passing a truck on the right because he wouldn't move over; and then he moved over when I was beside him. Almost drove us into another truck stopped on the shoulder of the road. Exciting.
When we got to the Roost area, there were some huge puddles and road washouts on the road in. Luckily, there were ways around pretty much all of them. We rolled into the Roost area around 7am; and tried to get around an hour of sleep before hitting the first canyons.
Saturday 10/21:
Ugh. I'm tired. We wake up around 8am, have a quick breakfast, and get started. There are 10 of us total. Diane even made it all the way in with a Volkswagen GTI. Amazing! I figure the roads to the canyons will be worse, so we only take the 4wd and high clearance vehicles to them. I was right, there were some rough spots. We drive to the start for Larry canyon, drop everyone off, then shuttle a vehicle to the end. We get ready, and start hiking around 10am. We are prepared for tons of water; all of us have thick wetsuits which we put on near the start of the canyon around 10:30am. Here's more info on Larry canyon:
http://canyoneeringusa.com/utah/roost/larry.php
http://www.climb-utah.com/Roost/larry.htm
Wearing thick wetsuits from the start turned out not to be such a great idea. There was mud, and only shallow water; we were all wearing too much neoprene. I was in a drysuit and was sweating before long. Larry was a fun canyon, though. Lots of variety. We did a lot more stemming than normal to try to avoid the deep mud. I was surprised that there wasn't more water in the canyon; especially after the amount of rain that came down. Oh well, better to be over insulated than hypothermic. The few water sections we had were a welcome way to cool down a little. Too bad the water was so muddy. There was some fun climbing in the canyon, a cool dark rappel, and some big walls. Great views.
We got to an open spot with some sun around 2:30pm, so we stopped there for lunch. We all got out of our wetsuits partially, or fully. It was nice to bask for a bit and share snacks.
We hit the final rappel around 4:15pm. As I expected, pretty much all the anchors were trashed in the canyon, so we had to re-rig them. The last one was the most interesting, as I had to climb out over and around a boulder to secure the line. Quite exposed, but still pretty safe. Got the anchor set, but people would have to downclimb a little before they were on, since the anchor was the boulder people were standing on, so the rap anchor was below the boulder. It would be a little tricky for Jen as she is pretty new. We would do a fireman's belay from below though, so it would be safe. Jen and Chad had a little trouble with the downclimb to the anchor, but nothing serious. Both bonked an elbow on the way down. When we were down, there was a nice open spot to change. Everyone changed and prepared for the hike out.
It was a decent distance out, with some really wild ground. The top layer of ground was solid, but underneath it was saturated. Was like walking on a waterbed at times. There was some good views on the way, but Jen and Chad were definitely getting tired; this was a long day for them. A little encouragement goes a long way, and before long, we were at the crack climb exit. A few people wanted a belay. For good reason too; on the ascent, one of my hand holds blew out. I was still solid with my other holds though, so no worries. Definitely got my attention though as I wasn't on belay (was helping someone who was) so it would have been a bit of a fall. Everyone made it up fine, and we got back to the shuttle vehicles around 7:30pm. On the way back, we retrieved the vehicle from the start, and made our way back to camp at Granary.
It was cold at night. Everyone was wearing down. Would have been nice to have had a fire, but we didn't bring wood in. We all had a good meal, shared some stories from the day; and then headed to bed. Felt great to finally get some sleep.
Sunday 10/22:
Up at 7:30am, and another quick breakfast. A few people didn't feel up to the challenging canyon we had planned for today; Alcatraz. Some info on Alcatraz:
http://www.climb-utah.com/Roost/alcatraz.htm
The roads were again a little challenging to get to the trailhead. Some really huge washout sections that we could skirt around. we tied the rope to my Jeep trailer hitch for the big free hanging entry rappel (165 feet) and started to rap in around 9:30am. Alcatraz is one of my favorite canyons. Relatively short, but full on demanding right from the start.
You make a big, free hanging rappel; and then it slots up right away. From there, you do a steep downclimb. We were all dressed up in full neoprene again today, and today it was worth it. There was a swim even after the first downclimb. The canyon had WAY more water than I had seen in it before. It was so fun! We could stem over some of the water, but there were lots of flooded corridors; wading and swimming. The pothole before the rappel was almost completely full, with mud on the walls. A few people were having trouble trying to climb out of it. I decided to try to climb around it using the small features on the left wall LDC (looking down canyon.) I figured the worst case, I would fall into the muddy swimmer pothole. It was a little challenging with the shoes I had on, but it worked out fine. Val wanted to give it a shot too. About halfway across, her footing slipped. I tried to put pressure on her to slow her fall down. She was going in, there was no way I would have the leverage to stop her. I was able to put enough pressure to make it a controlled slide, rather than a fall; but at the last second, she reached out and grabbed my arm. I just barely avoided going in on top of her, and scraped my elbow from trying to friction the wall to avoid falling in. I helped her out of the pothole and we all finished the rappel around 10:30am.
We then get into the tight and winding narrows. There was still some water in these sections as well. Climbing, squeezing, stemming; fun! It gets pretty dark in spots too. There's a fun little upclimb section where you climb up an off-width spot, which was even more challenging as it was now wet and muddy from the people in front of me. There is then a fairly tight squeeze down too. Val got wedged pretty good there, so I helped from below and Ben helped from above. No worries.
We found a big pothole full of water where we took turns jumping in, doing flips, etc. Near the end, there was a very cold swimmer, that Ben tried to climb around. He could reach out and grab the hold. He couldn't quite stick his feet though, and into the water he went. I tried to reach the hold, and was around a foot or two short. I'd have to dyno it, but the hold didn't look all that solid. I decided to just swim. Chuck went for the dyno and stuck it. Wild! We even got a video of it. Nice move.
There were a few more tight sections, and then a new area of breakdown where it looked like a fresh slab of rock just peeled off the wall and fell down in sections. Very cool. That would be neat to see happen; from a distance of course. We got to the end of the canyon around 1:30pm, and started the hike out. We stopped along the way taking some photos of the great views, and just lounging around in the warm sun. There were even some mud tube formations on the way that were pretty wild. We got back to the cars around 4pm, what an awesome canyon.
We drove back to camp, had dinner, and chatted into the evening. We were going to pack up camp and head out to do Zero Gravity tomorrow. Should be a blast as Zero Gravity normally holds a lot of water. Val, Chuck and Mike would have to head back early, so they couldn't join us. Chad and Jen would see how they felt tomorrow.
Monday 10/23:
We woke up around 7:30am, had a cooked breakfast (ramen) and then packed up camp. On the drive out of the Roost, I tested the Jeep and the depth of the puddles. None were more than two or three feet deep, but were quite a bit of fun. ;) We drove to the trailhead for Zero Gravity which also required 4wd. We had to drop off Diane's car, and put her in the Jeep for the last section. Jen and Chad decided to hike out with us, but just explore a little; so it was Rom, Ben, Diane, Jonas and I that dropped into Zero Gravity around noon. Zero Gravity info:
http://www.climb-utah.com/SRS/zero.htm
We were anticipating lots of water, and it certainly didn't disappoint. There were many wades and swims; some through cool, tight and twisty corridors. There were a few deep spots were we stopped to play around; jumping and flipping into the water. There was a small pothole which wasn't too difficult to climb out of. The final downclimb looked worse than it really was. There was a small drop into a bomb bay (a section of canyon that opens below a tight spot) but you could get your feet out to either side. The entire canyon can be downclimbed. What fun! We exited the canyon around 2:30pm; short and sweet! I really liked this canyon. It's a great one for the drive home day.
we hiked back out, and headed back home. A very fun weekend!
It took forever to wash all the mud off my truck; it was all clumped up in the wheel wells. I spent over $20 at the manual car wash, and still have clumps of mud falling off... Cleaning the gear up wasn't much fun either; but the canyons were well worth it...
I finally had to retire my bike gloves that I had been wearing for canyoneering, as they were pretty well worn now...
Hope you enjoy the pics!
A.J.
Photos: (Link good for 90 days.)
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=brainwaves_ap&aid=576460762401620596&pid=&wtok=o9hhOFnTXw92.5GXdKbhXA--&ts=1179251715&.src=ph
I'm also attaching three videos (in chronological order). The first is Chad walking on the squishy waterbed-like ground after Larry. The second is Chuck sticking the dyno move in Alcatraz. Last and certainly least is my backflip in Zero G.
Well, I tried to attach the videos anyway. It took two of them, then errored out on the third. However, when I submitted after the error; none of them showed up. Tried to re-attach one, got an error. Tried to attach one to a reply, got the same error - "Upload Error: Could not upload Attachment to ./files/20061021d1-93_chad_on_squishy_ground.avi." so I guess I can't attach the vids...
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=brainwaves_ap&aid=576460762401620596&pid=&wtok=o9hhOFnTXw92.5GXdKbhXA--&ts=1179251715&.src=ph
Friday 10/20:
Life is hectic. I was planning a canyoneering trip with a friend, Judy, to the Robbers Roost area in Utah. Planning a trip is enough work, planning with someone else just adds more effort. Even worse, was that the area got a huge rainstorm; some say a hundred year storm, just two weeks prior. Some areas got more rain in two days than they usually get all year. Here's a trip report and some pics from some canyoneers that were lucky enough to be in the area during the storm. Make sure you scroll down to see the topo map showing the water. If you aren't familiar with the area, it won't mean as much to you; but that topo gives you a small idea of the flooding. Filling the Escalante wall to wall is insane. Most places, it's around a football field wide, and the normal river usually is around 30-50 feet wide, 3-5 feet deep, with 4-5 foot banks on average. On top of that, most of it is desert climate, which will absorb a lot of water to begin with. You get the idea; here's the pics:
http://uutah.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3719
It's lucky that the storm hit at night, so no canyoneers were killed by it; and equally lucky that the two who gave the trip report decided to camp on Neon's shoulder, as most people camp down near the river...
Anyway, due to that storm, we didn't know how the roads would be; if we would be able to get in to the Roost area or not. Some of the group decided not to chance it, and were going to go to a different area. The rest of us decided to at least give it a shot to try to get in. It would be fun to see these canyons full of water.
On top of all this, my friend RJ e-mailed me after I had already set this trip in motion, and said his wedding was on Friday 10/20. Ugh! I couldn't miss the wedding; so I decided to go to the wedding, and would drive through the night to be ready for canyoneering the next day. Jen was a doll, and went to the wedding with me; braving the long drive at night. Jonas was nice enough to wait as well and meet us so the three of us could ride out there together. Jen and I had a great time at RJ and Janelle's wedding.
During the wedding reception, Ben called me and said that there were storms going over the passes, and that Eastbound I-70 was already closed. So it is possible that I-70 could be completely closed down before long. Lovely. Oh well, I'm not going to leave the wedding, since the roads could possibly be closed by the time we got there anyway. We enjoyed our time at the wedding, and then headed out, hoping for the best.
We met Jonas at the Dinosaur parking lots off I-70 and started our drive out to Utah around 11pm. It was definitely stormy over the passes, with cars and trucks off the roads on both sides and a couple inches of snow accumulation on the roads even though the plows were doing the best they could to keep it clean. East I-70 was still closed, but West was luckily still open. We were in my Jeep, and I had just gotten new tires, so we were doing fine. I was able to go around 50mph for most of the way. No issues except for when I was passing a truck on the right because he wouldn't move over; and then he moved over when I was beside him. Almost drove us into another truck stopped on the shoulder of the road. Exciting.
When we got to the Roost area, there were some huge puddles and road washouts on the road in. Luckily, there were ways around pretty much all of them. We rolled into the Roost area around 7am; and tried to get around an hour of sleep before hitting the first canyons.
Saturday 10/21:
Ugh. I'm tired. We wake up around 8am, have a quick breakfast, and get started. There are 10 of us total. Diane even made it all the way in with a Volkswagen GTI. Amazing! I figure the roads to the canyons will be worse, so we only take the 4wd and high clearance vehicles to them. I was right, there were some rough spots. We drive to the start for Larry canyon, drop everyone off, then shuttle a vehicle to the end. We get ready, and start hiking around 10am. We are prepared for tons of water; all of us have thick wetsuits which we put on near the start of the canyon around 10:30am. Here's more info on Larry canyon:
http://canyoneeringusa.com/utah/roost/larry.php
http://www.climb-utah.com/Roost/larry.htm
Wearing thick wetsuits from the start turned out not to be such a great idea. There was mud, and only shallow water; we were all wearing too much neoprene. I was in a drysuit and was sweating before long. Larry was a fun canyon, though. Lots of variety. We did a lot more stemming than normal to try to avoid the deep mud. I was surprised that there wasn't more water in the canyon; especially after the amount of rain that came down. Oh well, better to be over insulated than hypothermic. The few water sections we had were a welcome way to cool down a little. Too bad the water was so muddy. There was some fun climbing in the canyon, a cool dark rappel, and some big walls. Great views.
We got to an open spot with some sun around 2:30pm, so we stopped there for lunch. We all got out of our wetsuits partially, or fully. It was nice to bask for a bit and share snacks.
We hit the final rappel around 4:15pm. As I expected, pretty much all the anchors were trashed in the canyon, so we had to re-rig them. The last one was the most interesting, as I had to climb out over and around a boulder to secure the line. Quite exposed, but still pretty safe. Got the anchor set, but people would have to downclimb a little before they were on, since the anchor was the boulder people were standing on, so the rap anchor was below the boulder. It would be a little tricky for Jen as she is pretty new. We would do a fireman's belay from below though, so it would be safe. Jen and Chad had a little trouble with the downclimb to the anchor, but nothing serious. Both bonked an elbow on the way down. When we were down, there was a nice open spot to change. Everyone changed and prepared for the hike out.
It was a decent distance out, with some really wild ground. The top layer of ground was solid, but underneath it was saturated. Was like walking on a waterbed at times. There was some good views on the way, but Jen and Chad were definitely getting tired; this was a long day for them. A little encouragement goes a long way, and before long, we were at the crack climb exit. A few people wanted a belay. For good reason too; on the ascent, one of my hand holds blew out. I was still solid with my other holds though, so no worries. Definitely got my attention though as I wasn't on belay (was helping someone who was) so it would have been a bit of a fall. Everyone made it up fine, and we got back to the shuttle vehicles around 7:30pm. On the way back, we retrieved the vehicle from the start, and made our way back to camp at Granary.
It was cold at night. Everyone was wearing down. Would have been nice to have had a fire, but we didn't bring wood in. We all had a good meal, shared some stories from the day; and then headed to bed. Felt great to finally get some sleep.
Sunday 10/22:
Up at 7:30am, and another quick breakfast. A few people didn't feel up to the challenging canyon we had planned for today; Alcatraz. Some info on Alcatraz:
http://www.climb-utah.com/Roost/alcatraz.htm
The roads were again a little challenging to get to the trailhead. Some really huge washout sections that we could skirt around. we tied the rope to my Jeep trailer hitch for the big free hanging entry rappel (165 feet) and started to rap in around 9:30am. Alcatraz is one of my favorite canyons. Relatively short, but full on demanding right from the start.
You make a big, free hanging rappel; and then it slots up right away. From there, you do a steep downclimb. We were all dressed up in full neoprene again today, and today it was worth it. There was a swim even after the first downclimb. The canyon had WAY more water than I had seen in it before. It was so fun! We could stem over some of the water, but there were lots of flooded corridors; wading and swimming. The pothole before the rappel was almost completely full, with mud on the walls. A few people were having trouble trying to climb out of it. I decided to try to climb around it using the small features on the left wall LDC (looking down canyon.) I figured the worst case, I would fall into the muddy swimmer pothole. It was a little challenging with the shoes I had on, but it worked out fine. Val wanted to give it a shot too. About halfway across, her footing slipped. I tried to put pressure on her to slow her fall down. She was going in, there was no way I would have the leverage to stop her. I was able to put enough pressure to make it a controlled slide, rather than a fall; but at the last second, she reached out and grabbed my arm. I just barely avoided going in on top of her, and scraped my elbow from trying to friction the wall to avoid falling in. I helped her out of the pothole and we all finished the rappel around 10:30am.
We then get into the tight and winding narrows. There was still some water in these sections as well. Climbing, squeezing, stemming; fun! It gets pretty dark in spots too. There's a fun little upclimb section where you climb up an off-width spot, which was even more challenging as it was now wet and muddy from the people in front of me. There is then a fairly tight squeeze down too. Val got wedged pretty good there, so I helped from below and Ben helped from above. No worries.
We found a big pothole full of water where we took turns jumping in, doing flips, etc. Near the end, there was a very cold swimmer, that Ben tried to climb around. He could reach out and grab the hold. He couldn't quite stick his feet though, and into the water he went. I tried to reach the hold, and was around a foot or two short. I'd have to dyno it, but the hold didn't look all that solid. I decided to just swim. Chuck went for the dyno and stuck it. Wild! We even got a video of it. Nice move.
There were a few more tight sections, and then a new area of breakdown where it looked like a fresh slab of rock just peeled off the wall and fell down in sections. Very cool. That would be neat to see happen; from a distance of course. We got to the end of the canyon around 1:30pm, and started the hike out. We stopped along the way taking some photos of the great views, and just lounging around in the warm sun. There were even some mud tube formations on the way that were pretty wild. We got back to the cars around 4pm, what an awesome canyon.
We drove back to camp, had dinner, and chatted into the evening. We were going to pack up camp and head out to do Zero Gravity tomorrow. Should be a blast as Zero Gravity normally holds a lot of water. Val, Chuck and Mike would have to head back early, so they couldn't join us. Chad and Jen would see how they felt tomorrow.
Monday 10/23:
We woke up around 7:30am, had a cooked breakfast (ramen) and then packed up camp. On the drive out of the Roost, I tested the Jeep and the depth of the puddles. None were more than two or three feet deep, but were quite a bit of fun. ;) We drove to the trailhead for Zero Gravity which also required 4wd. We had to drop off Diane's car, and put her in the Jeep for the last section. Jen and Chad decided to hike out with us, but just explore a little; so it was Rom, Ben, Diane, Jonas and I that dropped into Zero Gravity around noon. Zero Gravity info:
http://www.climb-utah.com/SRS/zero.htm
We were anticipating lots of water, and it certainly didn't disappoint. There were many wades and swims; some through cool, tight and twisty corridors. There were a few deep spots were we stopped to play around; jumping and flipping into the water. There was a small pothole which wasn't too difficult to climb out of. The final downclimb looked worse than it really was. There was a small drop into a bomb bay (a section of canyon that opens below a tight spot) but you could get your feet out to either side. The entire canyon can be downclimbed. What fun! We exited the canyon around 2:30pm; short and sweet! I really liked this canyon. It's a great one for the drive home day.
we hiked back out, and headed back home. A very fun weekend!
It took forever to wash all the mud off my truck; it was all clumped up in the wheel wells. I spent over $20 at the manual car wash, and still have clumps of mud falling off... Cleaning the gear up wasn't much fun either; but the canyons were well worth it...
I finally had to retire my bike gloves that I had been wearing for canyoneering, as they were pretty well worn now...
Hope you enjoy the pics!
A.J.
Photos: (Link good for 90 days.)
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=brainwaves_ap&aid=576460762401620596&pid=&wtok=o9hhOFnTXw92.5GXdKbhXA--&ts=1179251715&.src=ph
I'm also attaching three videos (in chronological order). The first is Chad walking on the squishy waterbed-like ground after Larry. The second is Chuck sticking the dyno move in Alcatraz. Last and certainly least is my backflip in Zero G.
Well, I tried to attach the videos anyway. It took two of them, then errored out on the third. However, when I submitted after the error; none of them showed up. Tried to re-attach one, got an error. Tried to attach one to a reply, got the same error - "Upload Error: Could not upload Attachment to ./files/20061021d1-93_chad_on_squishy_ground.avi." so I guess I can't attach the vids...