North Wash conditions - Nov 30th

[ratagonia]

It rained a lot down there, Nov 26th and 27th.

Nov 28th, Alicia, Hank and I did Hogwarts Canyon, Nov 29th Tik Tok
Arch, Nov 30th Ramble up to Hog 2, then ramble down the ridge.

The rock is still very wet. Many rock steps that are normally easy
and sticky are slippery and crumbly. Anything with lichen on it is
slippery. Holds break easily.

Even with a lot of wind, the area seems to be drying out very
slowly. Even today, the 30th, lots of sections of rock that are in
the sun are still saturated. And weak, and breaking.

Caution advised.

My expectations is that North Wash canyons will be "wet" for 3-8
weeks, and that the rock will probably be weak for at least 2
weeks. Folks planning on going down next weekend might want to be
extra-cautious, and ramp down their plans somewhat. Expect swims
even in usually-dry canyons.

Tom

[CarpeyBiggs]

damn! we had 8 days scheduled down there starting tomorrow... sunnuva.

So, now's a good time to discuss a freeze fest roll call, right?

[DWayne27]

We planned for 4 canyons in the North Wash area, and ended up doing only 1. Blarney was very wet. Lots and lots of sections full of wading- and few about up to armpit deep for me (i am 6'1)

[CarpeyBiggs]

DWayne, what day did you do blarney?

We ran Boss Hawg today, avoided water completely. Couple of pools that were easy to stem. Hoping for Shenanigans tomorrow.

[DWayne27]

Blarney was friday- late afternoon to evening. There was only one deep pool- up to my armpits, but there were lots of them. Most would probably have been easily avoidable- but do to a combination of other factors, we didnt start till rather late, and the sun had gone done, so we didnt want to take forever getting our group over all of them. Spent about 2 hours in there by light of headlamps. It was a good time

[mrbrejcha]

Went through Shenany yesterday. A little more water than usual but nothing more than waist deep. I stemmed over the deep pool (BARLEY!) but others in the group were not so lucky!

Little Wildhorse has more water in it than I've seen before, I sent the dog in to see how deep it was, then turned atound because he was swimming.

[Jaxx]

Another great reason why dogs are better than cats. You could never have your cat test for water depths. :haha:

Went through little blue john. was totally dry. The very last narrows that lead to the last big rap into horse shoe canyon had ankle deep water that was all stemmed over.

[CarpeyBiggs]

Here's a few photos from the last week.

http://picasaweb.google.com/danransom/NorthWashDec08#

[Jaxx]

oh very cool. that looks way tight in there. How did you guys stay warm at night. We had every heater and blanket we could find.

[CarpeyBiggs]

Chambers seems tighter now than it used to be. I think the flood scoured out the bottom in the first part, and it is maybe an inch tighter. I didn't struggle fitting in October, but had a couple of really tight squeezes this time. Strange.

We stayed warm with a fire, and warm sleeping bags. Either moving around, or sleeping. Just sitting was cold. Daytime temps were beautiful though.

[DWayne27]

What were the water levels like in arscenic and how long did it take you?

That was on our list, but i hadnt done that before and we had a big and fairly inexperienced group, so i didnt want to take people through it not knowing how much water would be in it or how long it would take our group...

[CarpeyBiggs]

Arscenic had water, but we stemmed all of it. It took us maybe 3 hours? It is short. We left a 200 foot rope at the head and retrieved it on the way back. Fun little downclimbs in a few spots, but so stinkin' short.