Gravel & Fry Canyons

[utidcapaco]

Thursday, August 31. My dad, two brothers, and I met up at the Cheesebox road just after 7:00 PM, drove in about 9 miles and found a place to camp. In the morning, we drove up to the Gravel Canyon trailhead and hit the trail around 7:30. It turned out to be a great canyon. Lots of boulders to go under/over/around, a few downclimbs, a couple short rappels, and some fun swims. Overall, it was very wet. We tried stemming over some soup, but I decided that took too much time and that I'd swim whatever came next. Well, I asked for it. We got into the stinkiest water I've seen yet. Chilly, too! Huge, floating, pine needle/stick/cow pie/etc. islands. Some were almost too hard to break through because the narrows were so tight, yet they didn't float enough to get you over them. Kind of like quicksand. My dad took the lead while I took some photos, but then he got stuck trying to push them ahead of him. We traded, and I just started pushing them down, breaking through them. Good thing we had some flotation in our packs. Anyway, we finally made it though and tried to rinse off in some cleaner (but still foul) pools. It was a blast! There were some storm clouds, thunder, and sprinkles on our way out, but nothing serious. Some really cool ruins down there that I guess we'll save for next time. When we got back to camp, we heated some water and washed the stink off.

We planned to do Cheesebox Saturday, but there were pretty good clouds on three sides of us, so we hung around camp and played cards to see if they'd break up. They ended up getting worse, so after lunch, we packed up camp and drove to the highway. On the way out, we stopped and hiked up an old mining road to the top of a mesa. We explored a bit and set up a big stunt rappel for practice. We were a bit concerned about White Canyon flashing and getting stuck on the other side, so we drove out and cooked a nice dutch-oven dinner. On Sunday, we were lazy and explored the ruins at Fishmouth Cave. Pretty cool. We had left one truck at Natural Bridges, so after Fishmouth we went back to get it and cruised through the Park. They had received some rain and some hail (looked at first like snow, see pic), so White Canyon now had running water in it. The campground was full, so we camped nearby in the National Forest. We had a nice dinner, great cool, clear night, and a nice breakfast. We then drove to Fry Canyon and cruised through that in about 2.5 hours. My camera battery died after the first pool, but fourtycal's pics look great (I think we followed your tracks from a few days before). It was fun, but the swims were long, especially in the cool morning. Anyway, that seems like a great little canyon for families and kids to get the full-meal deal without killing themselves, especially in hot weather. When we reached White Canyon, it was still flowing. Beautiful, brown, warm water. Nice hike back to the vehicles. We headed home our separate ways just before noon.

Even though we missed out on Cheesebox, it was a great trip! (I think one hardy group did either Cheesebox or Gravel on Saturday while we wimped out--would love to hear a report.)

P.S. Since this trip, I've learned a thing or two about taking pics in canyons. Shoot portrait, for one. This was my first try, so hopefully they'll improve next time around! Enjoy.

P.P.S. I'll try to upload some of the video to Youtube or Google video, then post a link here.

[price1869]

Cool Canyon and great pics. Non technical?

[utidcapaco]

I guess it depends on your perspective. Shane & Tom both rate it 3B, so I think it qualifies as technical. Unfortunately I didn't get pics of anything that looks technical. We only rapped twice. The first was necessary, the second because we cliffed ourselves out trying to avoid some stink soup.

[Iceaxe]

A rappel makes the canyon technical in the rankings. The canyon is easy by trchnical standards. As noted a couple short easy rappels. Also a little bit of navigation and route finding is required.

I had heard about the thick soup in Gravel but your pictures really helped tell the story.

[ajroadtrips]

Yup, we were the other group.

Did Gravel on Saturday, then East Cheese on Sunday. Weather was fine, although on Sunday we heard thunder just below the confluence of east/west cheese. Made for a tense few minutes, but we never got rained on. When we were driving out, White was flowing about 6 inches deep at the soldier's grave crossing, so somewhere got rain.

A nice time out.

[fourtycal]

Gravel looks awesome. We had similar soup in upper chute last year yucky!
Good job on the report, it sounds like you had a ball.

[utidcapaco]

Glad we could loosen up the scum jams for you, deserthiker.

[rockgremlin]

Nice report!! Those thick pine-needle scum ponds are gross! Very reminiscent of Upper Chute. About how long did it take for you guys to complete Gravel - start to finish?

[utidcapaco]

We REALLY took our time. Long lunch, nap, and getting a little stymied at the exit (2 sets of ruins, each with a black-striped rock nose across from them - ) put us almost 11 hours, start to finish.

[James_B_Wads2000]

P.S. Since this trip, I've learned a thing or two about taking pics in canyons. Shoot portrait, for one.

Why shoot in portrait? Please explain.

James

[utidcapaco]

See Iceaxe's last post on this page:
http://uutah.com/forum/viewtopic.php...light=portrait

[utidcapaco]

As promised, here are some links to videos from the trip. Very brief, amateurish, shaky, and dark, but hopefully you'll get a kick out of them. My family can be a little dramatic, especially, as I've found out, in cold and stinky water.


The old man trying to keep his hiking boots dry in plastic bag (didn't work): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCYvh95K0JM

Little bro trying to avoid water on first rap (didn't work): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOOUlDAlh3s

Drama king filming yours truly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhK6sgGduf0

Trying to swim one handed (sort of worked): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM-Z4mhNWNM

Note the recurring Carmex tube ("chap stick"): http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...00097390639881

First encounter with vegi-matter islands (I think "iced chili" is more descriptive than "soup"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap9DzxtNP_E

Hasta la vista to the Carmex tube that kept floating out of my pocket (note drama king(s) in background): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjpYoVCKxSI

So, which do you all prefer, YouTube or Google Video? Google Video has a desktop uploader where you can queue multiple files, and it doesn't appear to have a size limit. You can also download from Google Video. Any better alternatives to these two?

[accadacca]

Cool vids! Yeah I think google video and youtube are the big stops for videos right now. We use both of them for our company web videos and podcasts at work. Just to give them a little more exposure and you get some nice links back to your site, especially on google video. I think google will eventually be the best. But youtube has the community thing going and they actually passed myspace in hits.