french_de
03-23-2011, 09:50 AM
Abating weather in Winter’s final hours conceded a striking but windy view of the Saturday night super moon rising and a perfect Sunday for a Hog II descent. We camped at Drill Hole just down the road past the Hog TH and out towards the Trachyte area providing views of North Wash, Butler and Lake Powell area.
Hog II is a fun canyon with more rappels and not quite the stemming challenges or the ball bearing, clothes trashing rock found in Hog I. In his book, M. Kelsey calls Hog II the middle fork and possibly the best of the three Hogs.
Eschewing the crack down climb and the lower canyon drainage entrance, we opted for the 45 meter entrance drop where we pulled the brittle webbing and rebuilt the wedged anchor supporting this rappel that descends past a couple of low angle shallow potholes followed by a vertical 17 meter descent to the bottom of the crack. Further down canyon the two stage rappel requires a beached whale start that everyone seems to have their own way of doing - such fun.
The best rappel in this canyon is a mostly free hang, 20 – 25 meter drop into a circular shaped chamber. The exit down canyon from the bottom of this chamber is across from the far wall and directly below the rappel point – very cool. We used a meat anchored rope hand line for the drop thru the birth canal and into the knee deep pool below and a partner assist for the last person down. The top section of this down climb looks tricky but in practice well formed natural ledges in the sandstone facilitate the approach to the squeeze section.
We chose the Hog I / Hog II rib exit with the somewhat challenging 9 meter slick rock base climb defeated by our best climber and by a thrown hand line for the rest of us.
Thanks to my canyoneering partners Ray, Dave, Monica and Paul for a great time.
Doug French
Hog II is a fun canyon with more rappels and not quite the stemming challenges or the ball bearing, clothes trashing rock found in Hog I. In his book, M. Kelsey calls Hog II the middle fork and possibly the best of the three Hogs.
Eschewing the crack down climb and the lower canyon drainage entrance, we opted for the 45 meter entrance drop where we pulled the brittle webbing and rebuilt the wedged anchor supporting this rappel that descends past a couple of low angle shallow potholes followed by a vertical 17 meter descent to the bottom of the crack. Further down canyon the two stage rappel requires a beached whale start that everyone seems to have their own way of doing - such fun.
The best rappel in this canyon is a mostly free hang, 20 – 25 meter drop into a circular shaped chamber. The exit down canyon from the bottom of this chamber is across from the far wall and directly below the rappel point – very cool. We used a meat anchored rope hand line for the drop thru the birth canal and into the knee deep pool below and a partner assist for the last person down. The top section of this down climb looks tricky but in practice well formed natural ledges in the sandstone facilitate the approach to the squeeze section.
We chose the Hog I / Hog II rib exit with the somewhat challenging 9 meter slick rock base climb defeated by our best climber and by a thrown hand line for the rest of us.
Thanks to my canyoneering partners Ray, Dave, Monica and Paul for a great time.
Doug French