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Mystery Canyon, or A Day Out With the World's Most Dangerous Canyoneer
Bo and I had been looking at getting in a canyon over the weekend, and we had been thinking big, but the monsoon made us reconsider. Mystery seemed like a great idea, easy and fairly short, it would be a good place to play it a little safe and have a relaxing day. We got a few others to come along, Dave and Dean, and somewhere along the line we picked up Andy. Now I was a little wary of getting in a canyon with someone well known as the world's most dangerous canyoneer, but he proved to be very experienced. His advice came in handy right away, when he insisted that the entire group not wear helmets, since 'they look pretty silly in photos.' He saved me a lot of grief from my friends later on!
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We made excellent time down Death Gully thanks to some damp ground and Andy showing us some social trails that cut right around all the obstacles in the upper canyon! Soon enough we were in the slot, which was completely dry.
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Even better once we got out of the narrows the clouds provided shade for the usually scorching hot lower canyon. Despite our days of monsoon there was no lake. We kept moving fast... as you can see in the photo, everyone pitched in to help bag the rope. To save weight we decided to bring nothing but 6mm accessory cord, so our packs were nice and light!
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The Mystery Springs rappel was as fun as always. The water at the bottom was only thigh-deep, and Bo even managed to avoid it with a little clever rappel work.
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Soon enough we were at the top of Mystery Falls. Chucking a few rocks to clear out the tourists, I rappelled down the falls with nary a slip.
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Everyone made it down in style. Even with the car retrieval still ahead of us we were done quite early and never had to worry about any rain.
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The drive back was a little tiring on our intrepid band of canyoneers I guess! It did end up exactly the way we hoped, a nice relaxing day without incident (which hasn't always been the case for me and Mystery as some may recall...). And now I can say I survived a day with the world's most dangerous canyoneer!
Hope everyone appreciates a little humor :naughty:
