jman
08-24-2013, 09:45 AM
After hiking Upper Greasewood Canyon (TR to come in the next week or two) the previous day, we headed out to the Upper Black Box in the Swell. Neither Jeff (the one filming in the green shorts) or myself have done it and thought it would be a fun excursion. Our buddy Josh tagged along as well.
Exit 130 from I-70 (or 131) heading south takes you to Upper Greasewood and Upper Three Fingers, but heading North (for 20miles) from that junction takes you the San Rafael Bridge, Mexican Hat, and then our destination Upper Black Box. The last stretch of 13 miles on Mexican Hat Road to the trailhead is a long one! Lots of curves and washout roads and even in my truck it still took us 30-40 minutes just for the 13miles.
We followed AJ Roadtrips beta for it and it was spot-on (like always). It was great hiking for maybe 15minutes from the truck to reach the first rappel. The Upper Black Box gorge is something else! Gorgeous! Deep slot (250+ft) with the San Rafael River running through it. I failed to mention earlier that according to the USGS, the river gauge was about 20 CFS that day. AJ, recommends less than 50 CFS and I can understand why. There are some tight restrictions in some areas, plus that's just a lot of water of channel through some of those narrow areas.
Anywho - if you like hiking the Narrows - you will throughly enjoy this hike! Now Jeff (The one filming) wasn't a huge fan of the hike, but that's because he hates hiking (go figure right)! Even a hike where his home is near Park City - is against his religion. He hates the no destination hikes. So I have to coerce him basically to tag along, but his GoPro video collection (He tries to capture the entire canyon from start to finish so people have an idea of what to expect, compared to other videos that just cherry pick the fun areas...) is starting to be motivation enough. And on a sidenote - I'm building him a website which hosts his video collection and how-tos, and other adventures, and hopefully that will be finished in the next month or two (along with my other 1000+ projects).
Once you reach the canyon entrance, there is a large cairn of where you can downclimb to make the rap 120ft compared to 220ft (which is on the canyon rim). I believe Kuya has a TR of that and his scouts down that rap. The 120ft is a nice rap into the gorge. From rim, you can hear the river below making its way down the rock jam right here which creates numerous waterfalls and downclimbs.
After the rockfall, continue on downstream and enjoy the stroll! No more raps, but nothing but great views, cool water, and A LOT OF MUD!!! dang - this river is super muddy!
Once you hit the last swim (couple hundred yards) where 2 logs are jammed between both walls, immediately after it is a side canyon to your North. Take that and follow it until you hit the road, in a northwest fashion. After 30minutes of walking you will be at your vehicles again.
Pretty easy. I personally would like to do this again when the river is about 30-40 cfs but anything higher than that would be dangerous especially for the youngins.
Enjoy Jeff's video (in case you wanna know what I look like, I'm the other guy wearing the white helmet and white shirt (over the wetsuit) and the guy skipping the rocks at 2:18 in the vid) followed by my pics in this thread.
Be sure to watch it in 1080p for it's full GLORY!!!
ENJOY!
Oh, like in previous fashion - copying from Jeff's Youtube page:
Be sure to watch in 1080p!
Upper Blackbox is a fun river hike if you like walking through moving water, mud, and tripping over rocks that are hidden just beneath the murky water. We did the (Short Route) which involves a 120ft rappel. There is also the option to do a 220ft rappel into the canyon, but that involves carrying a longer rope. You can do this canyon without rappelling by doing the canyon in reverse from what we did by starting at the exit and hiking up river as far as you want then turning around and going back down river. There was a guy doing that with a boogie board to help him cruise through the water instead of floating and swimming like we did. There is also the "Preferred Route" which is an additional 2-4 hours and has one 85ft rappel. There is yet another route called the "Long Route" and is an additional 2 hours on top of the Preferred Route time. Upper Blackbox is worth doing to check it off the list, but I don't see myself doing it again anytime soon. I would rather do Black Hole of White Canyon in Cedar Mesa any day! It was pretty cool to jump off those logs into the river though! that was about 8ft deep.
I shot this video with my GoPro HERO3 Black Edition camera at 1080p at 30fps and edited with iMovie. I had my GoPro mounted to my GoScope Extreme which is a telescoping pole and it works great with the J-Hook mount! Get your GoScope at http://go-scope.com.
http://youtu.be/lnTGtprDEl8
Exit 130 from I-70 (or 131) heading south takes you to Upper Greasewood and Upper Three Fingers, but heading North (for 20miles) from that junction takes you the San Rafael Bridge, Mexican Hat, and then our destination Upper Black Box. The last stretch of 13 miles on Mexican Hat Road to the trailhead is a long one! Lots of curves and washout roads and even in my truck it still took us 30-40 minutes just for the 13miles.
We followed AJ Roadtrips beta for it and it was spot-on (like always). It was great hiking for maybe 15minutes from the truck to reach the first rappel. The Upper Black Box gorge is something else! Gorgeous! Deep slot (250+ft) with the San Rafael River running through it. I failed to mention earlier that according to the USGS, the river gauge was about 20 CFS that day. AJ, recommends less than 50 CFS and I can understand why. There are some tight restrictions in some areas, plus that's just a lot of water of channel through some of those narrow areas.
Anywho - if you like hiking the Narrows - you will throughly enjoy this hike! Now Jeff (The one filming) wasn't a huge fan of the hike, but that's because he hates hiking (go figure right)! Even a hike where his home is near Park City - is against his religion. He hates the no destination hikes. So I have to coerce him basically to tag along, but his GoPro video collection (He tries to capture the entire canyon from start to finish so people have an idea of what to expect, compared to other videos that just cherry pick the fun areas...) is starting to be motivation enough. And on a sidenote - I'm building him a website which hosts his video collection and how-tos, and other adventures, and hopefully that will be finished in the next month or two (along with my other 1000+ projects).
Once you reach the canyon entrance, there is a large cairn of where you can downclimb to make the rap 120ft compared to 220ft (which is on the canyon rim). I believe Kuya has a TR of that and his scouts down that rap. The 120ft is a nice rap into the gorge. From rim, you can hear the river below making its way down the rock jam right here which creates numerous waterfalls and downclimbs.
After the rockfall, continue on downstream and enjoy the stroll! No more raps, but nothing but great views, cool water, and A LOT OF MUD!!! dang - this river is super muddy!
Once you hit the last swim (couple hundred yards) where 2 logs are jammed between both walls, immediately after it is a side canyon to your North. Take that and follow it until you hit the road, in a northwest fashion. After 30minutes of walking you will be at your vehicles again.
Pretty easy. I personally would like to do this again when the river is about 30-40 cfs but anything higher than that would be dangerous especially for the youngins.
Enjoy Jeff's video (in case you wanna know what I look like, I'm the other guy wearing the white helmet and white shirt (over the wetsuit) and the guy skipping the rocks at 2:18 in the vid) followed by my pics in this thread.
Be sure to watch it in 1080p for it's full GLORY!!!
ENJOY!
Oh, like in previous fashion - copying from Jeff's Youtube page:
Be sure to watch in 1080p!
Upper Blackbox is a fun river hike if you like walking through moving water, mud, and tripping over rocks that are hidden just beneath the murky water. We did the (Short Route) which involves a 120ft rappel. There is also the option to do a 220ft rappel into the canyon, but that involves carrying a longer rope. You can do this canyon without rappelling by doing the canyon in reverse from what we did by starting at the exit and hiking up river as far as you want then turning around and going back down river. There was a guy doing that with a boogie board to help him cruise through the water instead of floating and swimming like we did. There is also the "Preferred Route" which is an additional 2-4 hours and has one 85ft rappel. There is yet another route called the "Long Route" and is an additional 2 hours on top of the Preferred Route time. Upper Blackbox is worth doing to check it off the list, but I don't see myself doing it again anytime soon. I would rather do Black Hole of White Canyon in Cedar Mesa any day! It was pretty cool to jump off those logs into the river though! that was about 8ft deep.
I shot this video with my GoPro HERO3 Black Edition camera at 1080p at 30fps and edited with iMovie. I had my GoPro mounted to my GoScope Extreme which is a telescoping pole and it works great with the J-Hook mount! Get your GoScope at http://go-scope.com.
http://youtu.be/lnTGtprDEl8