Deaths in Choprock Canyon

This sucks. I really feel for the families of these guys. One guy left behind a wife of one year. Practically newlywed. Choprock is a very tough canyon. But at the same time, these guys weren't amateurs either. I wonder what happened?


Bodies of Missing Hikers Found
Apr. 19, 2005
(KSL News) -- Tragic, breaking news from Southern Utah tonight. The bodies of two missing hikers from BYU have been found in Garfield County.

A Dive team found the bodies of Brad Underwood and John Anderson in a slot canyon in 10 to 15 feet of water. The bodies were located about 4:00 this afternoon.

Garfield County tells us that family members have identified the two men. They had been on a canyoneering trip near Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. When they didn't return on Saturday a search was launched.

They were set to graduate this week. The whole thing is gut wrenching.

Here are a few articles:

Text & Video: http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_109100638.html

Video (Real Player): http://helix.ksl.com/video/ksl/2/282/28262.ram

I mean in no way to discredit these two guys, they were experienced and thier death was, as you say, gut-wrenching and unfortunate. There are inherent, non-exterminable risks that we take as we participate in dangerous sports, and hypothermia can be one of them. However, we can learn from others experiences so that we don't repeat what happened to them. Follows is some analysis, gleaned from the pros on the yahoo groups, so that we don't let it happen to us.
Problem#1: they did not have enough wetsuit to get the job done, and hypothermia was clearly the principle contributor to their drownings. They were wearing 2-3 mm "shorty" suits in a long strenuous canyon with 36 degree pools. Necessary for this canyon at this time of year would be full length, 5 to 7mm winter diver's style suits or overall/jacket combos. If you can't afford the adequate wetsuit or drysuit, head for dryer canyons or wait for hot weather to come.
In addition, South Fork Choprock is rated 4B-X on the canyon scale (depending on conditions.) That is as difficult a rating as a canyon can get and requires much expertise and risk-tolerance. Care should be taken to contact people who are familiar with the area, get suggestions (such as wet-suit length), and recent conditions, and go with someone who knows if at all possible.
As a thought, their death due to lack of wetsuits could just as well be someones death due to lack of helmets sometime. Stuff you take for granted; better safe than sorry.

Ben

Well what do you guys suppose really happened. My first thought when I heard was that it must have been a flash flood? There was rain that week? But down there? How would they end up at the bottom of a pool? Sorry if I sound daft but it doesn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by accadacca

Well what do you guys suppose really happened. How would they end up at the bottom of a pool? Drowning deep? I guess? :ear:

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Yeah, that's the key. They could have died anywhere, but to be found in the pool??? Even if they did have insufficient wetsuits on, they still would have made it through the pool... and both of them together!
Why not just somewhere on the trail? Unless the whole trail had water throughout.
I still suspect a flood.
For them to be found in the same pool together. If it was hypothermia, you would think they may have died seperately, or atleast not in the same exact pool.

The canyon didn't flash that weekend.

From reading a lot about the incident, I have come to a "most-reasonable" conclusion about how they died together...

Their bodies were found on the bottom of a 15 foot deep pool, right next to a 5 foot high logjam dam. The pool was close to 40 feet long. The water was 36 degrees. Their rope was strung over the logjam dam, as if they were trying to use it to climb out of the water, and over the dam.

So, they probably entered the swimming pool already fatigued, swam 40 feet, to find an logjam obstacle that they couldn't climb over. They took out their rope, threw it over the logjam, attempting to catch it on something so that they could use the rope to climb out of the water. The rope didn't catch on anything on the first attempt, nor the second, nor the third, nor the fourth, etc. (Keep in mind they are treading 36 degree water this whole time, in nothing but shorties). After about 15 - 20 minutes of this, they get hypothermic, and it's all downhill from there.

You might ask "Why didn't they just swim back out of the pool?" The answer is that they had hypothermia. One of the symptoms of hypothermia is that the logic side of your brain turns OFF. You start to do things you normally wouldn't do, because your ability to think straight is GONE. Also, in the later stages of hypothermia, you get what's called "false warmth." For some reason, you feel like the temperature has risen some 20+ degrees, when in fact it hasn't, and you're slowly freezing to death.

Under these set of circumstances, they probably huddled together for security, and as soon as one guy died, the other soon followed (there's only so long you can hold a body above water when you yourself are weak and hypothermic).

Tragic...

There was no flood. The slot requires you to swim for extended periods of time between canyon walls. There is no trail--thats what canyoneering is all about. There is no other way out but to rappel and swim. The spot where they were found is 2 feet wide and filled with 15 feet of water. They climbed down into it, swam a ways, and their passage was blocked by a large pile of logs (confirmed by SAR). The exact conditions of their drowning is unknown, but it seems pretty clear that due to hypothermia, they did not have enough energy to escape the situation that they had gotten into, and were literally trapped in a narrow, water-filled slot canyon between steep walls. It would only take a few minutes in those types of conditions to not be able to swim or tread water any more. Another party came through the next day and were the ones that found a body. The two deceased had apparantly gotten a rope out to try and assist in their escape. When the party of 7 saw the rope and tugged on it, a body came up. Startled and disturbed, no doubt, they made their way out of the canyon and informed SAR of the location of the 2 young men.

OK, knowing about the log jam on the other end definitely paints a better picture. Also, the rope they tried to throw across.

Man, now having those details, how can it be a mystery? I feel pretty sure that's how it happenned now. A little more detail goes a long way.

All I heard about was a 15 foot deep pool, and when nobody could guess how they died, I could understand the mystery.

Only after reading a bunch of different reports from different sources have we been able to splice together what happened. I imagine that to many concerned people it still is a mystery. I think the SAR guys are hesitant to share all the details with the media initially because they don't want it to be too sensationalized.

New pics were posted to the Canyons forum of where they found the bodies. Check em out...

Grisly.

I just read a post over on the canyons forum from a close friend (RAM) of the guy who took these photos.

Apparently these photos were taken during the recovery effort. That explains why they're in full diving gear, and the grim expressions on their faces. Photos were taken of the victims, but witheld for obvious reasons.

:eek2:

Could they have just gone over the top instead of in the water? Hypothermia thing? What a miserable place to meet the piper. I guess maybe not for you rock hounds.

Thank's for the pictures.

That's too bad. It looks like they could have shimmied up the sides (only being 2 feet across). Probably lack of energy by the time they got there.

Ya, there's theories going around that either one or both of them were nursing some kind of injury that didn't enable them to stem across the top of the water together with the obvious fact that they were fatigued, and hypothermic.

I wondered why the hell they were in the water in the first place too. We can only speculate...

http://i2.ytimg.com/sh/aJFns_nvvw4/s...jpg?v=4f3c9b22

There have been several accidents/rescues in the last little while. Be careful out there and go prepared! On Throwback Thursday we remember the deaths of two BYU students in Choprock Canyon back in 2005

The Escalante area canyons (and all of Utah) have been really dry these last two years. From the numbers, it only sort of makes sense. Did anyone do Neon or Choprock in 2010? Was it as full as the pics here from 2005?

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMONtpre.pl?ut2592

The full story is here for those that have never heard it or want more details

Choprock Claims Two
http://climb-utah.com/Escalante/chop1.htm

:popcorn:

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Originally Posted by mcweyen

The Escalante area canyons (and all of Utah) have been really dry these last two years. From the numbers, it only sort of makes sense. Did anyone do Neon or Choprock in 2010? Was it as full as the pics here from 2005?

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMONtpre.pl?ut2592

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It does not really work that way - the way I think you are implying that the "winter" is the determining factor.

For Choprock specifically, there are three factors: water, sand and logs.

The location of the sand determines how deep the pools are when full. The sand shifts around after floods, sometimes building up, sometimes moving around, sometimes diminishing. Same thing with the logs.

Once you have the table set, there will be water.The recent storm may have dropped enough to fill it up. Certainly Spring 2005 had a huge snowpack with a slow meltout, so it had unusual conditions. But similar conditions MIGHT be in there now. Or next week, after another front goes through. Or... it might not set up like that again for 10 years.

"Did anyone do Neon or Choprock in 2010?"

Yes, lots of people did Neon and Choprock in 2010. Why do you ask? The canyons get done all the time.

There were times in 2011 when Neon had a TON of water in it. And times when it was pretty much dry.

:moses:

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Originally Posted by accadacca

http://i2.ytimg.com/sh/aJFns_nvvw4/s...jpg?v=4f3c9b22

On Throwback Thursday we remember the deaths of two BYU students in Choprock Canyon back in 2005

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Acca! Dude! :facepalm1:

Throwback Thursday is a time for celebration! Nobody wants to turn on the radio and hear 'Achy Breaky Heart' on Throwback Thursday.

:ne_nau: :lol8:

Why you dis'n acky breaky heart? I got laid because of that song. That makes it a top 100 in my book.

Tap'n on my Galaxy G3

I agree with slot machine. The death and loss of two people doesn't seem appropriate for a throwback thursdays. Not too respectful.

I agree with slot machine. The death and loss of two people doesn't seem appropriate for a throwback thursdays. Not too respectful.