DSTRBD
08-28-2010, 08:50 AM
Seeing as how it was my first time in mystery, I thought I would add my .02 to the trip reports. I met Jeff (p40whk) and his friend Paul at their camp around 7:30, we BS'ed until the road opened at 8.
We were the first vehicle up the canyon so we made good time along the way to the trail head, only stopping for the lights and a nice herd of big horn sheep along the way. We made the trail head by about 9:00, we grabbed our gear and cruised out to the entrance to "death gully".
Looking into mystery was very exciting, We started down the death gully trail and with in about 10 feet Jeff realized with his rope bag on top of his pack that he was destined for a serious header. So we hung his rope bag off the bottom of my pack, I absolutely LOVED the hike down into mystery, the death gully is just my kind of down hilling!
We wandered along the trail making our way around numerous fallen trees and debris, we down climbed the first 6 or 7 bolted "raps" until we got to the one rap that is obviously not to be down climbed, we dropped into the main "narrows" section full of excitement!
What an amazing little section of slot canyon mystery has to offer up! We made our way out the end of the slot section and settled down and grabbed some lunch, after about 30 or so minutes we wandered along the trail wondering if there would be any mud in the "lake" for us to wade through...nope..dry as a bone.
I myself am shocked/amazed at how much rock/sand there is from the landslide, truly amazing to think about the magnitude of that slide. We made our way up the sandpile and scurried down the other side looking for some shade! Soon enough we found shade and the rappel we had all been excited to find....mystery springs..
I rigged the rap and Jeff wanted to go first so he could shoot video of us coming down. So Jeff then Paul then myself worked our way down to the bottom and splashed into the very refreshing mystery spring on such a hot dry day. After a few minutes of relaxing and a couple high 5's, we headed down the "jungle" section of the canyon, a couple down climb's later we were looking into the narrows at all the people whom will probably never get to experience such a wonderful canyon as mystery.
Looking down from the rappel we noticed that there was only one little 4x8 foot area to land our rope bags without them being washed into the river, after a couple of friendly wagers as to if I could hit the sand bar with both bags, I launched the bags out to where I thought they would land on the sand bar.. Both bags landed on the bar within a couple feet of each other.. I wish I would have made those bets 20 bucks each! LOL.
After I rigged the rap I went down followed by Jeff and then Paul. Once we received our standing ovation from the tourists we collected our bags, tucked away our gear and walked down to the shuttle stop for a ride back to canyon junction.
We were the first vehicle up the canyon so we made good time along the way to the trail head, only stopping for the lights and a nice herd of big horn sheep along the way. We made the trail head by about 9:00, we grabbed our gear and cruised out to the entrance to "death gully".
Looking into mystery was very exciting, We started down the death gully trail and with in about 10 feet Jeff realized with his rope bag on top of his pack that he was destined for a serious header. So we hung his rope bag off the bottom of my pack, I absolutely LOVED the hike down into mystery, the death gully is just my kind of down hilling!
We wandered along the trail making our way around numerous fallen trees and debris, we down climbed the first 6 or 7 bolted "raps" until we got to the one rap that is obviously not to be down climbed, we dropped into the main "narrows" section full of excitement!
What an amazing little section of slot canyon mystery has to offer up! We made our way out the end of the slot section and settled down and grabbed some lunch, after about 30 or so minutes we wandered along the trail wondering if there would be any mud in the "lake" for us to wade through...nope..dry as a bone.
I myself am shocked/amazed at how much rock/sand there is from the landslide, truly amazing to think about the magnitude of that slide. We made our way up the sandpile and scurried down the other side looking for some shade! Soon enough we found shade and the rappel we had all been excited to find....mystery springs..
I rigged the rap and Jeff wanted to go first so he could shoot video of us coming down. So Jeff then Paul then myself worked our way down to the bottom and splashed into the very refreshing mystery spring on such a hot dry day. After a few minutes of relaxing and a couple high 5's, we headed down the "jungle" section of the canyon, a couple down climb's later we were looking into the narrows at all the people whom will probably never get to experience such a wonderful canyon as mystery.
Looking down from the rappel we noticed that there was only one little 4x8 foot area to land our rope bags without them being washed into the river, after a couple of friendly wagers as to if I could hit the sand bar with both bags, I launched the bags out to where I thought they would land on the sand bar.. Both bags landed on the bar within a couple feet of each other.. I wish I would have made those bets 20 bucks each! LOL.
After I rigged the rap I went down followed by Jeff and then Paul. Once we received our standing ovation from the tourists we collected our bags, tucked away our gear and walked down to the shuttle stop for a ride back to canyon junction.