Adobe Swale

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03-22-2013, 07:18 PM
Slot Machine

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Adobe Swale

On Saturday March 16th, 2013 we took an opportunity to hike through Adobe Swale. The plan started with a small group, then developed into a large, friendly group around a campfire the night before the hike.

We had the chance to hike with a few Bogleites, including Tim & Carrie (@peakbaggers) and Cristina (@hesse15 ). The man with the awesome mustache is my buddy Tony (@Absolute Gravity ).

Steph and I tending the SandTrap.
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Tim, Mr. Peakbagger, freezing his butt off, moving the group along, and enjoying the view.
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Tony, Cristina and I cowering in a breezy pothole.
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Steph rapping 'lightly', LWAR, from the SandTrap. Brave and capable. :hail2thechief:
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Tony pulling down the SandTrap.
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At the end of the day we all had mixed feelings about the hike.

On the positive side, the technical part is great! It was fun to show off our newly aquired SandTrap skills. Since Steph was the LWAR, she took charge of the SandTrap situation and gave everyone a brief lesson on what was going on. She masterfully managed the amount of sand, instructed people to rappel in the order she preferred (heaviest to lightest), then 'lightly' rappelled to the pothole below. The pull was extremely easy and looked kind of fun. (Sorry to geek out, but It will take some time for the novelty to wear off.)

There are a few interesting downclimbs afterwards to keep you on your toes. Carrie psyched herself up for a few minutes to attempt a particularly wide downclimb. She showed a lot of moxy, and trust in her coaches (everyone), then got it done! Nice job Mrs. Peakbagger!

Mrs. Peakbagger in action. :2thumbs:
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Then we got to the harsh part of the hike. The exit starts with a hike down a wash with lots of sand blowing in your face, followed by a hike up a south facing slope for a couple of hours. Without the car shuttle, the day would have been miserable.

However, we did have a shuttle; so it was a pretty fun day with a great group of people. IMO, Adobe Swale is good, but not good enough to do twice.

Thank you Tim and Carrie for organizing this hike and getting us back to our cars safely!

Bob

http://amazingslots.blogspot.com/201...obe-swale.html
03-22-2013, 07:46 PM
Iceaxe

Just curious why you would use a sandtrap on this canyon? The route is done enough there are normally solid well established anchors.

Tap'n on my Galaxy G3
03-23-2013, 06:13 AM
Slot Machine

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iceaxe

Just curious why you would use a sandtrap on this canyon? The route is done enough there are normally solid well established anchors.

At the top of the pothole section there is a burly deadman anchor. There are no other anchors in the pothole section.

To speed things up, we set the SandTrap up halfway down the pothole sequence, just above the biggest drop. That way we could have two people rappelling down the pothole section at the same time.

The pothole above the big drop has very favorable geometry for a SandTrap, which made it a quick and safe anchoring solution. It was kind of a fun solution as well. :mrgreen:
03-23-2013, 07:48 AM
Mountaineer

Great job team! Yeah, after the last deadman rap you think it is over, but there are some more challenges. Some pretty narrows through there also.
Thanks for posting, nice report.
03-23-2013, 08:23 AM
accadacca

Great report. Looks like a really fun day! :2thumbs:
03-23-2013, 09:03 AM
Sandstone Addiction

Looks like everyone, including the cute little puppy, had a great time. :2thumbs:
03-23-2013, 09:10 AM
WorkBad

You guys rock! Seems like you two hit it hard everytime, very inspiring. Great trip report, really liked the photos!
03-23-2013, 11:33 AM
Sombeech

Looks like an excellent crew. Thanks for posting!
03-23-2013, 01:19 PM
SRG

Saweeeet! Looks like a blast. :2thumbs::2thumbs:

I especially like the pic of Tim lookin' out over a rappel(?).

Great to see the retrievable anchor techniques, woo hoo for keepin' the canyons clean!
03-25-2013, 11:50 AM
hesse15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandstone Addiction

Looks like everyone, including the cute little puppy, had a great time. :2thumbs:

yep the little puppy got is fair share of fun!!!:bootyshake:
for the other guy, no we did not do the canyon "CLEAN":
there was a very questionable webbing around a nice dead man, too lazy to rebuilt it with such big group, so I meat everybody to the second stage, were the brave Stephanie was taking care of the sand trap for the last stage.
i hand down the whole 30feet of vertical of extended webbing (next time i have to put gloves my poor fingers were not very happy) and finally rap with the rope the second stage to Stephanie where I transitioned to her
so we left the webbing ,that look very crappy for my already low standards.

I instead cleaned one of the DC ,there were 2 webbing with 2 rap links on the same chockstone so i cleaned up one (very nice shiny rapid) had to upclimb to it.
I did not cleaned all just to do not feel responsible if some fool need to rap and did not carry webbing!
so there is still a rapide and webbing there!
totally agree with Slot Machine, not worth a second run!!!!

Cudos to Steph for her bravery,smooth rappeller points, and setting up everything correctly!!!
still my hearth crunch in seeing her coming down on the sandtrap!!!!
:2thumbs::hail2thechief:
ps if you want to sand trap is better to do each stage ,the geometry will not allow on easy pull of the trap from way below!!!
03-25-2013, 05:58 PM
Slot Machine

Quote:

Originally Posted by hesse15

I instead cleaned one of the DC ,there were 2 webbing with 2 rap links on the same chockstone so i cleaned up one (very nice shiny rapid) had to upclimb to it.
I did not cleaned all just to do not feel responsible if some fool need to rap and did not carry webbing!
so there is still a rapide and webbing there!
totally agree with Slot Machine, not worth a second run!!!!

Cudos to Steph for her bravery,smooth rappeller points, and setting up everything correctly!!!
still my hearth crunch in seeing her coming down on the sandtrap!!!!
:2thumbs::hail2thechief:
ps if you want to sand trap is better to do each stage ,the geometry will not allow on easy pull of the trap from way below!!!

It was awesome watching you fly up a 30 ft chimney to retrieve that rapide! Uh yeah, you are in a whole different league than the rest of us. :hail2thechief: Tony joked that next time he will just give you one of his. :haha:

Agreed, we probalby should have cleaned some of that crap out of the canyon. With 11 people that we didn't know, it was tough to tell if the last person would need to use that stuff. We could have ghosted the whole canyon it if we sequenced a little differently.

And my heart 'crunched' too watching Steph, believe me... :eek2: :mrgreen: I'm thankful for her mad skills.
03-25-2013, 09:42 PM
ratagonia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slot Machine

It was awesome watching you fly up a 30 ft chimney to retrieve that rapide! Uh yeah, you are in a whole different league than the rest of us. :hail2thechief: Tony joked that next time he will just give you one of his. :haha:

Agreed, we probalby should have cleaned some of that crap out of the canyon. With 11 people that we didn't know, it was tough to tell if the last person would need to use that stuff. We could have ghosted the whole canyon it if we sequenced a little differently.

And my heart 'crunched' too watching Steph, believe me... :eek2: :mrgreen: I'm thankful for her mad skills.

When 'ghosting' a traderoute canyon like Adobe Swale, it is very bad form to remove the 'regular' anchors. Unnecessary crap, yes. Necessary anchors for the traderoute crowd - best to leave in place.

Tom :moses:
03-26-2013, 08:52 AM
hesse15
Quote:

Originally Posted by ratagonia

When 'ghosting' a traderoute canyon like Adobe Swale, it is very bad form to remove the 'regular' anchors. Unnecessary crap, yes. Necessary anchors for the traderoute crowd - best to leave in place.

Tom :moses:

Hi Tom,
we are talking about the DC part not the actual rappelling part.
i just saw that one of the chockstones from below had 2 webbing and 2 rapids and one was very shiny and I cannot resist ,so went up clean one left the other intact.

the warning of: "we use my bi-color (aka sun bleached) webbing only in case of emergency"
:haha:
with RC we always used the 'rap lightly ' concept!!
- :cool2:
03-26-2013, 10:35 AM
Slot Machine

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratagonia

When 'ghosting' a traderoute canyon like Adobe Swale, it is very bad form to remove the 'regular' anchors. Unnecessary crap, yes. Necessary anchors for the traderoute crowd - best to leave in place.

Tom :moses:

Ah, I didn't know that Adobe Swale was considered a trade route. Probably would have ghosted it if we had a small group. Good thing we didn't, I suppose.

Bob
03-26-2013, 10:53 AM
Iceaxe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slot Machine

Ah, I didn't know that Adobe Swale was considered a trade route.

When a route is supplied by one of the more popular beta sources it normally receives enough traffic I'd consider it a trade route. YMMV

Tap'n on my Galaxy G3
03-26-2013, 11:55 AM
hesse15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iceaxe

by one of the more popular beta sources

:cool2:
still sometime certain anchors at DC are a little stupids!!!!!like shoulder size for 6 feet and you get webbing and rapids!!!
more dangerous go over chockstones on rope than just DC them