xxnitsuaxx
07-05-2011, 09:55 AM
Any true Led Zeppelin fan will never say that Stairway to Heaven is his favorite song. Even if it's true, you're required to show your knowledge of their lesser-known work and claim that Kashmir or the Gallows Pole is your favorite. I feel like Heaps is that way. I want to say it's my favorite canyon to date but it seems like such an obvious choice I fear I'll be mocked for saying it.
I know I know - my write-up is fairly boring without pictures. I'm trying to get them off my camera and I'll post them up as soon as I do.
Heaps started out well, threatened to turn into an epic, got a lot better, then turned back into an epic. All-in-all it was exactly what I expected\hoped for. We planned on leaving Lava Point at 10 PM Thursday night, hiking to Camp 4, sleeping for 5 hours, then knocking the canyon out. We left at 1:45 Friday morning, hiked just past Potato Hollow, and then tried to get a little sleep. I was perfectly comfortable sleeping on my wetsuit and covering myself with an emergency blanket and I got a good 2 hours of sleep in. My 3 friends didn't fare so well and so they woke me up after 2 hours and wanted to keep going. We braved the fin of death, worked our way up the wash, suited up at the first narrows, and then promptly went into full-on amateur mode.
Seriously - we could have made a video called "Canyoneering - Don't Ever Do It This Way. Ever." At the first rappel my friend started to throw our second rope (still coiled) into the pothole. We had the following exchange. Adam - (starts to throw the rope). Me - "NOOO!!" Adam - "It's dry-treated, it'll float". Me - "Not while it's coileddddd......(rope goes into water, floats for 1 second and then sinks like Congress' approval ratings). Adam - "dangit!". Jason - "son of a b!" My other friend Adam - "crap!". Me - "shit shit sonofabitch!" (I've really been trying to work on my language, to no avail.) Luckily 10 minutes of diving yielded the rope and a massive brain freeze. We moved on, determined to make up for lost time through the next couple of rappels. At the very next rappel, Adam E. came down last but left the pull cord up top. A cold, wet, prusik up the rope didn't help my language much. I sat everyone down and explained to them how crucial it was that we appear in several dozen vacationing Europeans' Facebook albums and that that wouldn't happen unless we stepped up our game and made it to the last rap during the daylight.
It worked. We made great time through the rest of that section, had a quick lunch of canned chili (light and fast, that's our motto) and then started the next section. It was this point that Jason discovered he had gotten food poisoning from Cafe Rio the night before. In case y'all are wondering how long it takes to do a canyon with someone who has to constantly take his wetsuit off, experience the effects of food poisoning, and then put it back on - the correct answer is a long time. Needless to say, the next set of narrows took significantly longer.
We made it to the last rap with about 20 mins of daylight left. Between being tired, being nervous about the sequence, having our walkie talkies die as soon as I hit the bird perch, having a rope get stuck on the pull after the first rappel, and needing to keep an eye on our food-poisoned friend, I didn't hit the bottom until 11:45 and our last guy didn't hit the bottom until 1:15. Don't worry - the story doesn't end there. We wandered in circles around upper Emerald and then in circles on the trail until we finally got back to our car at the Lodge at 3. After an aborted attempt to drive to Provo we pulled into a cabin in New Harmony at 6 in the morning (3 hours for what's normally a 40 minute drive).
In conclusion - I don't care that it's tantamount to claiming Stairway as my favorite song - Heaps has been my favorite canyon to date. Next time I fully intend to break the 20 hour mark too :facepalm1:
I know I know - my write-up is fairly boring without pictures. I'm trying to get them off my camera and I'll post them up as soon as I do.
Heaps started out well, threatened to turn into an epic, got a lot better, then turned back into an epic. All-in-all it was exactly what I expected\hoped for. We planned on leaving Lava Point at 10 PM Thursday night, hiking to Camp 4, sleeping for 5 hours, then knocking the canyon out. We left at 1:45 Friday morning, hiked just past Potato Hollow, and then tried to get a little sleep. I was perfectly comfortable sleeping on my wetsuit and covering myself with an emergency blanket and I got a good 2 hours of sleep in. My 3 friends didn't fare so well and so they woke me up after 2 hours and wanted to keep going. We braved the fin of death, worked our way up the wash, suited up at the first narrows, and then promptly went into full-on amateur mode.
Seriously - we could have made a video called "Canyoneering - Don't Ever Do It This Way. Ever." At the first rappel my friend started to throw our second rope (still coiled) into the pothole. We had the following exchange. Adam - (starts to throw the rope). Me - "NOOO!!" Adam - "It's dry-treated, it'll float". Me - "Not while it's coileddddd......(rope goes into water, floats for 1 second and then sinks like Congress' approval ratings). Adam - "dangit!". Jason - "son of a b!" My other friend Adam - "crap!". Me - "shit shit sonofabitch!" (I've really been trying to work on my language, to no avail.) Luckily 10 minutes of diving yielded the rope and a massive brain freeze. We moved on, determined to make up for lost time through the next couple of rappels. At the very next rappel, Adam E. came down last but left the pull cord up top. A cold, wet, prusik up the rope didn't help my language much. I sat everyone down and explained to them how crucial it was that we appear in several dozen vacationing Europeans' Facebook albums and that that wouldn't happen unless we stepped up our game and made it to the last rap during the daylight.
It worked. We made great time through the rest of that section, had a quick lunch of canned chili (light and fast, that's our motto) and then started the next section. It was this point that Jason discovered he had gotten food poisoning from Cafe Rio the night before. In case y'all are wondering how long it takes to do a canyon with someone who has to constantly take his wetsuit off, experience the effects of food poisoning, and then put it back on - the correct answer is a long time. Needless to say, the next set of narrows took significantly longer.
We made it to the last rap with about 20 mins of daylight left. Between being tired, being nervous about the sequence, having our walkie talkies die as soon as I hit the bird perch, having a rope get stuck on the pull after the first rappel, and needing to keep an eye on our food-poisoned friend, I didn't hit the bottom until 11:45 and our last guy didn't hit the bottom until 1:15. Don't worry - the story doesn't end there. We wandered in circles around upper Emerald and then in circles on the trail until we finally got back to our car at the Lodge at 3. After an aborted attempt to drive to Provo we pulled into a cabin in New Harmony at 6 in the morning (3 hours for what's normally a 40 minute drive).
In conclusion - I don't care that it's tantamount to claiming Stairway as my favorite song - Heaps has been my favorite canyon to date. Next time I fully intend to break the 20 hour mark too :facepalm1: