New Mexico
04-08-2011, 06:14 PM
Last weekend was our first canyoneering adventure that was both fun and exciting. We drove down on Thursday and found a camp spot not too far from the parking area for Little Wild horse canyon. On Saturday morning we started our first trip at 8:00 into Little Wild Horse. Since this was our first trip into a slot we had lots of stops and took lots of pictures along the way and we thought the canyon was amazing. We continued past Little Wild horse into Bells canyon and again stopping and taking pictures along the way. According to my gps we had walked a total of 11.3 miles when we got back to the parking area.
After taking a break we decided to drive down the road and do Ding and Dang. We started this trip at 2:00pm thinking it would be just a short hike. Well there was definitely more scrambling than we thought there would be going up Ding canyon. The pot holes were amazing to see and again the canyon was amazing. We noticed that everyone going up was coming back down and not making the loop to Dang.
After starting down Dang canyon we realized why. The first obstacle we came to was going to require some rappelling since we are not 5.8 class climbers. The sad part was I didn't bring our harnesses, 9mm rope or helmets. They were left in the truck since this wasn't supposed to be a technical canyon. I did have 60' of webbing and 120' of 6mm rope and two carabiners. I made us a couple of harnesses out of the webbing and used the carabiners for our belay device using a munter hitch. There was a rapid link attached to a bolt in the rock that I could pass the 6mm rope through for the rappell.I know I shouldnt have used this small of a rope but it was all I had.
We rappelled off that section with no problem and thought that would be it. Wrong
The next 3 obsticals were about 10-15 ft drops into the slots which my wife had to use me as an anchor and rappelled off. I was able to scramble down them without to much trouble.
When we finially got out and back to the truck it was 7:25 at 12.6 miles later. So much for a short hike. We did have gear to safely spend the night in case we got into trouble which I'm glad that we didn't.
We learned a lot by doing these 4 canyons in one day and the next time we will have our harnesses and our 8mm emergency rope for the non technical canyons.
After taking a break we decided to drive down the road and do Ding and Dang. We started this trip at 2:00pm thinking it would be just a short hike. Well there was definitely more scrambling than we thought there would be going up Ding canyon. The pot holes were amazing to see and again the canyon was amazing. We noticed that everyone going up was coming back down and not making the loop to Dang.
After starting down Dang canyon we realized why. The first obstacle we came to was going to require some rappelling since we are not 5.8 class climbers. The sad part was I didn't bring our harnesses, 9mm rope or helmets. They were left in the truck since this wasn't supposed to be a technical canyon. I did have 60' of webbing and 120' of 6mm rope and two carabiners. I made us a couple of harnesses out of the webbing and used the carabiners for our belay device using a munter hitch. There was a rapid link attached to a bolt in the rock that I could pass the 6mm rope through for the rappell.I know I shouldnt have used this small of a rope but it was all I had.
We rappelled off that section with no problem and thought that would be it. Wrong
The next 3 obsticals were about 10-15 ft drops into the slots which my wife had to use me as an anchor and rappelled off. I was able to scramble down them without to much trouble.
When we finially got out and back to the truck it was 7:25 at 12.6 miles later. So much for a short hike. We did have gear to safely spend the night in case we got into trouble which I'm glad that we didn't.
We learned a lot by doing these 4 canyons in one day and the next time we will have our harnesses and our 8mm emergency rope for the non technical canyons.