WOW!!! This trip was thrown together at the last minute on Friday night. My two buddies Pete and Eric both had Saturday open, so I decided to give Pete and Eric a tast of the Squeeze. Pete has done canyons with me before, but Eric has not. Although, out of the three of us, he is the best climber. We took off about 9:30, loaded up on goodies at Wal-Mart in Price and made it to Hidden Splendor at around 2:00 ish. The road out there was in remarkably good condition. No mud and no washboards. I was surprised to see two other groups out there that weren't canyoneering. We threw a tarp out and slept under the stars. We were up and at it by 7 and on the trail by 8. By the way, anybody know when they put up that road block that prevents you from taking a vehicle down to the river? After a nice hike down to the the trailhead, the biznitch of the hike began. Hiking the Moroni Slopes blows!!! We decide that we were going to get all of the canyon we could in, so we hiked all the way to where Seger's Hole flows in. We were prepared (well not quite, Eric forgot his wetsuit) for wet conditions. After a brief lunch of lunchables and twix bars we were off for the excitement. We were immediately confronted with flooded hallways and full potholes. We decided that since one of us didn't have a wetsuit we would all suffer the cold of the water. The first plunge in took the air right out of your lungs. Cold cold water. After about a half hour, Eric was shivering pretty bad and Pete was too, so I loaned my suit to Eric and both him and Pete suited up. I am not trying to sound like a Stud or good Samaritan or anything, but I really didn't think it was THAT bad. As long as I got out of the water quick, the 70 degree weather would warm you up. When we were in the shade, we tried to just keep moving. Seger's Hole is brim full of water for those who have it on radar in the next few weeks. It was a toss up between swimmer potholes and those that were chest deep. Most of them you could swim across and flop out, but there were one or two that required a partner assist to exit. All of the bolts looked to me like they were in stellar shape. On that note, I want to ask the opinion on a no-bolt ethic for this canyon. For me personally, I was glad that all the drops were bolted. This canyon is so long with the exit and approach hikes that to stop and build anchors would push you near the limits to do it in one day. What are everbody else's opinions on this? Although it is a little cold this time of year to do this canyon without a wetsuit, I still had a blast. The last time I did it, it was nearly dry and required the help of partner assists to exit the potholes, but it seems that it was not as exhausting as swimming through it. Another question for you ACA techs, how do you manage a pack toss while treading water? Seems quite the challenge when the water levels are lower, but not low enough to stand in. Anyhow, Eric is now hooked on the sport. I took quite a few pics, but by the end we were pushing to get out so we missed a lot of the big drops into potholes. We made it back to the car in 11 hours which seemed a long time to me. That canyon still ranks high up on my favorite list despite the slog to get there.
Reedus