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A Crack in the Capitol Reef Strike 2
A Crack in the Capitol Reef Strike 2 - Sunday, June 10, 2012
There’s a long wonderful crack in the Navajo Sandstone monocline in Capitol Reef National Park called Strike 2 that makes for a great 3/4 day canyoneering adventure. This one was plenty fun. Thanks to Luke of BluuGnome.com for sharing this route and beta. This is some crack! There are a couple of great-view, pre-crack rappels to get psyched up with and one post-crack rappel to get toggled down with. A 340 foot rope which we pulled from the top after the adventure and during shuttle pickup was the perfect length for the entrance rappel. A warning on that first rappel: big loose rocks at the top! - Some of which are no longer at the top. Once in the crack - that drops maybe 500 feet in elevation and stays crackish all the way – it takes a constant set of elevatoring (I think that’s a canyoneering term?), shimmying, squeezing, sliding and foot jamming to get thru and it gets kind of dark and tight in places. The dark section has a perennial pool which we were all able to stem over except for one pack. Moderate shredding of clothes and protective gear occurred in the crack . . For this time of June the biting cedar gnats had left the stage for the larger black biting flies, the kind that likes to fly up your nose. Breezy weather kept them mostly down wind. We were a tad disappointed that we missed the Desert Harvestman spider fest that takes place on the crack walls... Temps in the 70’s made for a great day
Thanks to Canyoneering partners Dave, Lorin, Dereck, Orlando and Paul who made this a fun trip
Doug French
My Flickr pics
https://www.flickr.com/photos/french...57709146789638
