Larry Canyon Debrief Part II: wakeup, go, in-canyon events

[ratagonia]

Our story to date:

[quote=Chungy22]
We were planning on heading out at about 9 AM on Saturday, but we didn

[ratagonia]

Chungy, TNT - looking for you to have first crack at this, if'n I haven't scared you off entirely at this point.

T

[ratagonia]

Chungy, TNT - looking for you to have first crack at this, if'n I haven't scared you off entirely at this point.

T

Well, I probably have scared you off...

I have little in the way of criticism for the day-of. Yeah, get up earlier, eat a good breakfast... some obvious canards like that.

You made good time in the canyon, sounds like.

You misjudged a downclimb. Heck, I do that all the time. Best to decide to turn it into a rappel before you get too committed... but I bet you already know that.

Here's a few pointers in pack management on downclimbs. It's largely a matter of personal taste, but it's good to have a couple of options. BEST and fastest if you can leave your pack on, but if you need your back for climbing, best to take it off. I put two over-the-shoulder slings on my pack, and have a way of clipping it to my waist. For moderate downclimbs, especially short ones, I lower it ahead of me, and have the slings long enough that it is below my feet. If the downclimb looks hard, I just leave the pack at the top and downclimb without, then my partner can lower my pack, then her pack.

After the tumble, you guys did an outstanding job of getting to a place where the SPOT would work, and getting to a place you could be rescued from. Also a good call on finding a sheltered place up on the ledge. Usually it is good to get as far as possible, but shelter was a very high priority, and taking a good spot at hand was an excellent choice.

Tom :moses:

[Chungy22]

You don't scare us too bad Tom, just a little!! ;) I actually love getting advice...... maybe not in some of the ways that you like giving it, but that just makes me suck down my pride and take it because I know that you are much more experienced than I! Thanks for all your input Tom! :nod:

[Chungy22]

Well, our plan for this canyon was to start at 9AM. That would give us 8-9 hours of light. We woke up at about 8:45 AM..... which was later than we were wanting, but we just grabbed a couple packets of oatmeal and headed out. Our goal was to get at the first rappel at about 10 AM. We got there at about 10:15AM, which is pretty close. We could have started earlier, but if you know our family we don't start early!! LOL Maybe we should start. Anyway....... I think that having a little more time and a good breakfast would have helped because we were rushing a little through the canyon and could have used the time to settle us down. That is one of the main reasons that my Dad decided to try and down-climb that rappel because we were in a hurry (Go figure)! I think that those times are correct. Tntrebel will have to verify that though. I am not 100% sure that was the times.