choprock

[kamfoo]

Me and and a few of my buddies headed down to Escalante to do Choprock this past monday....we got down to the egypt parking area at about 10 pm got all the gear packed good and ready,, we woke up the next morning at 5am and started the approach.. the approach turned out to be a good one with all of our gear,, especially the heavy wetsuits, it was also quite hot, registering 102 on the suunto watch.. it took us a little more than 5 hours and 30 mins to get to the beginning of the canyon and by this time we opted to eat some luch to get re-energized as we were all feeling the heat. After lunch we headed down the slot. The first section, the Riparian, was not to bad, had a good rappell and a couple of tight slots to squeeze thourgh,, not to mention the interesting jungle type features it had..we put on our wetsuits here to walk through the watercourse... we took this section a bit slow becuase we had to filter some water since we were running low,, after this the happy section came and just as the name says it was great,, we were feeling good, and the canyon was looking good. Just as we thought this canyon was going to be a breeze we got into a nice darker area with bunches of logs jammed in the slot.. this was the start of the grim section. After a few mins of "problem solving" we were on our way again, to hit a few more log features and a good sized swim.. the rest of the grim was not to difficult but involved some intresting stemming to move on and some "problem solving skills" were needed.. by about 7:30, we hit the last rappell and were out of the canyon.. None of us had done the canyon before but we were guessing the water was at a medium low height but we had nothing to compare it to.. The walk back to the car took us a long time becuase we stopped for dinner and rested awhile so by the time we were to fence canyon, it was dark, cloudy, and we were gettin a little bit of rain and lightning.. we finally reached the car by about 12:30 that night and we were all pretty worn out. Overall it was a fun canyon and well worth the crappy hiking to and from.
im not sure if the pictures i attached worked but i will post them if they didnt..

[kamfoo]

a picture of the early morning approach



getting down into fence canyon



the first real downclimb in the canyon



this is towards the end of the happy section

I was planning on taking alot of pictures,,but some battery problem/camera problems hindered that idea!

[accadacca]

Hey thanks for the pictures that you did post. I like the sunset shadows pic. Might be a good choice for the image bar.

[Iceaxe]

Yeah.... the sunset pic is sweet...

We need more pics

[shaggy125]

Sweet pics, I love Choprock, one of my favorites. You guys are nuts doing it all in one day, and in 102 degree weather! Whew! I always wondered how long it would take to do Chop all in one shot. Now I know, 19 1/2 hours car to car, kudos for finding your way back to the TH in the dark too (GPS?).

Eric.

[shaggy125]

P.S. I love the old school rainbow wetsuits. Where did you find those? At a garage sale?

[rockgremlin]

Nice work! Thanks for the report. We badly needed Choprock in our TR index!

[kamfoo]

P.S. I love the old school rainbow wetsuits. Where did you find those? At a garage sale?

hahahah. yeaah. we made fun of our wetsuits all day... we actually rented them and i suppose im glad that they were old ones so we didnt put noticable wear and tear on brand new ones.. and yes looking back i think it was a tad to much hiking for one day,, your math calculations made me think i was nuts as well...and yes we had a gps to help out,,and that "sunset" picture is actually the sunrise!

[accadacca]

I knicked the shadow pic for the image bar.

[rock_ski_cowboy]

P.S. I love the old school rainbow wetsuits. Where did you find those? At a garage sale?

hahahah. yeaah. we made fun of our wetsuits all day... we actually rented them and i suppose im glad that they were old ones so we didnt put noticable wear and tear on brand new ones.. and yes looking back i think it was a tad to much hiking for one day,, your math calculations made me think i was nuts as well...and yes we had a gps to help out,,and that "sunset" picture is actually the sunrise!

When we did it, fence camp to choprock back to fence to pack up camp, back to the car, and then home took us 23 hours. Longest day of my canyoneering life, but oh it was good. Driving home after choprock definitely isn't recommended. Oh and yes, Choprock levels have been reported to be rather lowish lately-- it is currently at an easy level; subject to change soon with all these thunder storms we've been seeing.

[shaggy125]

When we did it, fence camp to choprock back to fence to pack up camp, back to the car, and then home took us 23 hours. Longest day of my canyoneering life, but oh it was good.

Haha, I guess that's true. I call these guys nuts for doing it in one day, but we were just as nuts. We started early from Fence, did Chop, floated the river back, ate and packed up camp, carried our heavy packs out to the car (which we reached around 10:00) and drove home. I live further south than Ben so for me it was a full 24 hours! Yea... actually we might have been even more nuts than you guys.

Eric.

[Sombeech]

A little competition?