Imlay Canyon, July 1, 2011
Did Imlay sneak route yesterday with Julie from Australia, Anna and Phil from
ZAC/Springdale, and Shaun Trackrunner from... Salt Lake?
Still a grunt climbing those hills. 5 am start worked well.
My main point is that the anchors are in piss-poor shape. We replaced only two,
and there are 4-5 more that need to be re-rigged. If going in, bring plenty of
webbing, please.
The anchor for the second-to-last rappel blew out. There were some giant
Ponderosa logs in there that are gone gone gone. My two bolts on the left are
still there, and the aluminum hangers are still there, but the webbing was
pulled from the hangers - without breaking, leaving a slit in the hangers. Wow!
Some fools have been rappelling off of the old bolts on the floor - also WOW!
Those things are J I n G u S ! ! !
We rigged a long sling back to a log back aways, using the last of our available
webbing, just long enough.
The canyon was full full full, and there were only two pothole escapes. Water
was clean and not all that cold. Some Log Soup near the beginning.
Near the end of the first narrows, the stump in the V has been eroded down a
lot, but the water level is still 5 feet below it. We used a toss to a guided
rappel.
The gaper pothole right near the end was fairly full of water, with a remnant of
a stump in the exit. I went in and tried to climb out, but though I could reach
the holds, I could not pull the moves -- solved by Phil tossing a tied-off
ropebag over the stump. I tied off the big log in the next pothole to set up a
guided rappel (since the penultimate anchor as unusable).
Tried floating out the Narrows, but the water was really low. Floated a lot,
bumped a lot of rocks, couple of good faceshots... Seemed a lot like the last time I floated Imlay at 90 cfs.
Tom