peakbaggers
11-08-2012, 07:03 AM
Last weekend we decided to take advantage of what may very well be the last weekend of moderate weather for some time and do some canyon routes. We left GJ Sat morning and drove out to Goblin Valley planning to visit the Goblin's Lair/Chamber of the Basilisk. We stopped at the park entrance and obtained our permit from a courteous rangerette who also provided a route description (which turned out to be copied from Shane's site). By 10:30 we were underway. Our hope was to arrive at an optimal time for photographs and we were prepared with camera and tripod for the expected low light conditions.
The route was easy enough to locate with plenty of footprints. Along the way, we encountered one couple back in a small cave-like formation who probably thought they had found a great, private place to enhance their romance. (Reminded me of one of your reports, Shane.)
Passing by this couple, we arrived at the base of the upper white cliffs and the beginning of the drainage. We headed down and quickly arrived at the cave entrance. The rappel was anchored by two slings around the horn with a rap ring. The rappel into the chamber was like descending into another world - probably similar to the feeling cavers get. We were impressed by the chamber. The lighting was as we had hoped and we spent 45 minutes taking numerous photos. (See attached below) We found some of the geologic structures interesting such as the popcorn rock (see photo). Was this formed by erosion or accretion?
After the photo session, we hiked on up through the entrance and made the stroll back around to our vehicle.
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From Goblin Valley, we headed on down to the North Wash area and did a quick trip counterclockwise around Lucky Charms. We took a rope and used the direct, watercourse descent in the second drainage to make it more interesting. As usual, there were numerous campers at the Sandthrax campsite and we spent some of the evening visiting with them. Among whom was Rick Thompson with his Wasatch Mountain Club group. They were planning on doing one of the Poison Spring canyons the next day and we settled on trying Arscenic, joined by a friend of ours from GJ who would arrive early morning.
Arscenic turned out to be a nice half day canyon. We left a fixed 200 rope for the initial rappel in and retrieved it on the way back out. After the rappel, the canyon had one fairly descent downclimb and several other smaller obstacles, chockstones, etc. It was a visually nice canyon with a spectacular entrance and a not-too-long hike out for a sandy slog back. It was all dry. We were prepared to find Arscenic Arch which took us by surprise when we did come upon it. We were kind of scouting around on the slickrock and suddenly discovered that the arch was right there, only feet away from us, but because we had approached it on end, did not realize at first that we were standing at the arch. The next group of photos are of Arscenic and the arch.
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After Arscenic, we had just enough time to drive back to North Wash and
show our friend Dan one more quick canyon. We skipped taking the camera so as to keep things moving and hiked up and descended the west fork of Blarney, making a 2 hour round trip to end our weekend. Blarney was all dry as well.
The route was easy enough to locate with plenty of footprints. Along the way, we encountered one couple back in a small cave-like formation who probably thought they had found a great, private place to enhance their romance. (Reminded me of one of your reports, Shane.)
Passing by this couple, we arrived at the base of the upper white cliffs and the beginning of the drainage. We headed down and quickly arrived at the cave entrance. The rappel was anchored by two slings around the horn with a rap ring. The rappel into the chamber was like descending into another world - probably similar to the feeling cavers get. We were impressed by the chamber. The lighting was as we had hoped and we spent 45 minutes taking numerous photos. (See attached below) We found some of the geologic structures interesting such as the popcorn rock (see photo). Was this formed by erosion or accretion?
After the photo session, we hiked on up through the entrance and made the stroll back around to our vehicle.
609836098460985609866098760988
From Goblin Valley, we headed on down to the North Wash area and did a quick trip counterclockwise around Lucky Charms. We took a rope and used the direct, watercourse descent in the second drainage to make it more interesting. As usual, there were numerous campers at the Sandthrax campsite and we spent some of the evening visiting with them. Among whom was Rick Thompson with his Wasatch Mountain Club group. They were planning on doing one of the Poison Spring canyons the next day and we settled on trying Arscenic, joined by a friend of ours from GJ who would arrive early morning.
Arscenic turned out to be a nice half day canyon. We left a fixed 200 rope for the initial rappel in and retrieved it on the way back out. After the rappel, the canyon had one fairly descent downclimb and several other smaller obstacles, chockstones, etc. It was a visually nice canyon with a spectacular entrance and a not-too-long hike out for a sandy slog back. It was all dry. We were prepared to find Arscenic Arch which took us by surprise when we did come upon it. We were kind of scouting around on the slickrock and suddenly discovered that the arch was right there, only feet away from us, but because we had approached it on end, did not realize at first that we were standing at the arch. The next group of photos are of Arscenic and the arch.
60989609906099160992609936099460995609966099760998
After Arscenic, we had just enough time to drive back to North Wash and
show our friend Dan one more quick canyon. We skipped taking the camera so as to keep things moving and hiked up and descended the west fork of Blarney, making a 2 hour round trip to end our weekend. Blarney was all dry as well.