Middle Escalante Deluge (neon/choprock)

[stefan]

NAT'S TR::

Stefan and I were down in the Escalante Wednesday thru Sunday to do Choprock, Neon and the Bakers. We camped on a bench just up Neon from the mouth. On Thursday morning, we hiked to the head of Choprock, but with thunder and lightening off to the west, it seemed a bit to much like russian roullette to drop in, so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon scouting an entrance to upper Neon, which we found. It rained moderately, and Neon developed a pretty good flow, and we felt we made the right decision not to enter Choprock. Thursday night, it rained almost all night, and we could hear lower Neon raging below our site. Friday morning it rained very intensely for two half hour periods and merely strongly for another few hours. From the water filling my cup left outside, I estimated that it rained at least 5 inches. The rain finally stopped in the afternoon, and I got out of the tent. Lower Neon was flowing around 500-1000cfs. No canyoneering today! A couple of hours later, Neon stopped flowing and started backing up, looking like a lake at the lower end. We assumed there was a dam formed lower near the mouth. We climbed up on the rim between lower Neon and the Escalante to see what was going on. The sight from the rim was the most astonishing thing I have ever seen outdoors. The Escalante was raging windgate wall to wingate wall, around 400 feet wide at the mouth of Neon. It must have been at least 30,000cfs. It certainly more than I have ever seen the Colorado or Green rivers.

The next day dawned perfectly clear, and we headed up to do Neon. It was of course full of water, and had some flow still. Rappeling through the Golden Cathedral in a waterfall was pretty cool. On Sunday we did Choprock, which was amazing with all of the water. It also still had a flow. It also had several more logjams than the previous times I have done it, a couple of them pretty difficult to get over. Monday morning, the Escalante was way down and we had no problem crossing it, and hiking back to our car at Egypt. Crossing 25 mile wash on the Egypt road was brutal. In fact there was no road in sight 75ft on either side of the wash. We just barely made it in the 4runner after a fair amount of "road work".

i have written a complete trip report with additional photos which can be found at the following link

FULL TRIP REPORT & PHOTOS (LINK)

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DAYS 1 & 2

i have some photos/commentary to complement nat's report. it was quite a wild experience. walking these southern utah washes for years shows you how and where water can go, but you are left unprepared for the experience of witnessing it. i was simultaneously filled with horror and excitement. simply an unreal experience.

for the moment i will post some photos from the day of the flood. as nat said it rained most of the night before. i know this pretty well since i was in a bivy sack and awake much of the night (spooky full moon?) and morning, literally impressed by the endless pitter patter (more appropriately, ratta-tat-tat) upon me. the earlier rain during the previous day (20% chance of rain) had essentially filled the canyons so that they were flowing. after our long dayhike around the head of the northeastern sidecanyons of neon, i ran up to the golden cathedral to enjoy a wonderful waterfall ...



after dinner the rain started and stopped only rarely later in the night. (tomorrow had a 30% chance) in the morning it kept raining and, as nat said, there were two super powerful rain bursts. the first i was in the bivy sack, peering below my rain jacket at the gigantic rain drops and silver splash everywhere covering the rocks. the terraced sandstone wall behind our camp (route out of neon) was cascading with huge muddy waterfalls and a torrent moving through the sandstone basin down to the bottom of neon. crazy.

when the rain finally stopped after this huge burst, i got up, and took some photos and movies of lower neon below us. it was a wall to wall river flowing pretty swiftly. i can only imagine what the cathedral looked like at this point(if only i could have gotten there!). but from the sound of it, neon was a torrent for much of the night.







it was completely amazing world to wake up to. later as i was getting breakfast and nat and i were talking, the rain started again, nat went into the tent. i grabbed my food and heading into a small overhang at the base of the sandstone terrace behind. while eating breakfast, the rain turned briskly into the second superpulse of rain, and another sandy waterfall enveloped in front of me, pooling into a torrent and rushing down to join the neon torrent. after the half hour or so of superrain, the rain became more moderate/strong and i moved up to a small overhang of the terrace above, with a great view of the bend in the canyon above.

at some point after the rain finally stopped for some time, nat joined me up on this ledge and we watched as the neon torrent slowly lowered with a sandy slope emerging. however within a very short period of time while we were talking, the sandy slope disappeared (water level elevated) and the river stopped to form "lake neon."



ultimately we walked up onto the northern west wall which separates our camp from the escalante, to see what was backing up neon, and to our astonishment ....



looking up the escalante towards choprock



looking west/southwest from neon at the escalante



mouth of neon and the escalante ... the damming ... origin of lake neon.





after this, the clouds came in again and we were about to make dinner. i was getting worried about it raining ... again ... and nat made an hilariously ironic comment about not really needing any more ... and sure enough the rain started. nat headed for the tent, and i ran towards my lower overhang. while crouched and watched/enjoyed yet ANOTHER!!! rapidly developing superpulse of rain (the finale), while drinking my beverage i had barely finished making. after an hour and a half, neon was raging again and we enjoyed our dinner with a momentary break in the storm. it continued to rain moderately through the early part of the evening, but eventually cleared up during the night.

unfortunately when i recorded the following movies, i didn't realize that it was on the lowest resolution setting. they are only 5 sec long to conserve space, but i wish i had recorded them at the highest resolution.
the first is in lower neon, the second two are of the escalante. they are in quicktime format (.mov). if too many people have problems with viewing them i can encode them differently.

[Iceaxe]

Incredible..... thanks for posting the pics and video

[Sombeech]

Wow! Thanks for the pics!

[rockgremlin]

Well, I'm glad someone was ready with the camera during this 100-yr flood event!! Nice report!!

[Scott Card]

WOW!!! If I hadn't been there during normal conditions I wouldn't believe the magnitude of this event. Thanks!!!

Hope we can see the canyon photos next.

[fouristhenewone]

wow. simply amazing. those are some gorgeous pictures.

[asdf]

Stefan those pictures are amazing! Thanks for sharing your pics, you made my day.

[The Dude]

My wife spent a whole summer there and I've wanted to go there, but I never knew how beautiful it was, so now I REALLY want to go there.

She's the bomb.

Oh yeah, thanks for sending this to me William.

[marc olivares]

very cool Stefan, very very cool

[utidcapaco]

Fantastic pictures, Stefan. I especially liked eflood4sm.jpg. You should blow some of those up and frame them. Thanks for posting!

[shaggy125]

Wow those are awesome, if you've been there it's even more amazing because you know how huge that river was, if you haven't, remember those trees are what... 80 or so feet tall? Measure the distance from the top to bottom of the tree then try to figure out how huge that river is... WOW!

Eric.

[James_B_Wads2000]

Those pics kick ass! Thanks for the chance for all of us to live vicariously through you.

Got any more pics? Like of the canyons when you went through them?


James

[stefan]

thanks guys for the overwhelming response! it was quite an experience for nat and me, and i am happy to be able to share a little bit of it with ya!

fortunately it cleared up beautifully, and, although we couldn't cross the river, we could do some slots.
i have written a narrative (kinda long) trip report on neon and choprock slots.
unfortunately i didn't take many pictures for various reasons.
i thought i'd share the few good ones that i have.

i have written a complete trip report and included more photos on this link if you are interested.

http://www.math.utah.edu/~sfolias/escalante/


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Day 3 (Saturday, Oct. 7)::

We woke up to a crisp morning with clear blue skies ... not a cloud in sight and the large harvest moon was sinking in the sky. It was very reassuring. The water level in Neon had dropped a fair bit, but still had a pretty good flow through it. The sandbar and the cottonwood, in the bend near our camp, were at least completely emerged. Neon would be exciting ... full of water and still flowing. As I took my morning 'hike,' I had a vantage point of the Escalante which had decreased some, but was still raging strongly. Some of the higher parts of the floodplain were exposed, but the main channel was still quite overflowed and still well overhead. The enormous harvest moon sat right above the morning sunlit western canyon walls. It was a beautiful morning.

We made our way out of camp and traversed the wingate layer rim of the neon slot to its upper reaches. We passed side canyon after sidecanyon, until we reached the divide between the two sidecanyons where we scouted our entrance two days earlier. Nat, once, had descended this canyon from its head and had camped right before the first slot in the main canyon. We found a quick entrance into the very lower section of one of the side canyons that lead into the canyon directly above the slot, requiring no rappel. Dropping into this canyon, we wasted no time and put on our wetsuits and harnesses, got our gear in order, and had a small bit to eat. We quickly reached the main fork of Neon and water was flowing pretty well. Within the beginning of the first slot, there is a rappel off a log which spans a chasm from a drop. The drop was rushing with a waterfall, filling the chamber with sound. The rap off the log was right into a channel with water deep enough requiring one to swim. What we would find today was that the slots in Neon canyon were literally teeming with swimmers. High up in the canyon we encountered one section of thick log soup which had inundated a tight section of slot. After clearing a path into the slot, Nat stemmed over, while I was able to push my way through the debris to the other side. A little taste of what was to come in the infamous grim section of the canyon to the north.

Descending slot canyons is often an experience that is difficult to describe. Here the canyon walls undulate sometimes very narrow, sometimes wider, sometimes rough and rugged, sometimes beautifully sculpted and convoluted. You are locked in a slot of canyon 20-50 feet deep or more. The channel which forms the main floor on average is not a very steep grade, but it locally it fluctuates with basins of rock or sand, short tight slit-like channels with benches on which you can walk, or deep tight narrows which often present instantly, requiring you to slowly downclimb therein, using friction and stemming your body from one wall to the other. Depending upon recent rains, the basins and slots can hold various amounts of water and at times can be bone dry. But today every section of slot was exceedingly full, so that water filled every basin and deep channel, poured down every chute, and passed through the few wonderful natural bridges. The movement and splashing of the water, together on its own volition and by our force, filled the slot chambers, somehow making it feel less lonesome. Swimming or barely touching toes to the sandy/rocky floor seemed to be the norm in many long sections of tight narrows, as well as many wide narrows. It was simply amazing. And although I had a camera (which indicated it had problems reading the battery ... possibly low?) the vast stretches of water and swimming caused me to be less inclined to pull my non-waterproof camera out of its waterproof case. More importantly, the days are short in october, the water cold, and starting from upper Neon, the descent is long, especially with all of the swimming.

Late in the day we reached the lower part of the canyon, a wide spot where many folks drop in to do the last slot and the celebrated rappel through the Golden Cathedral. We sat in the last bit of sun, had some water and a little snack before continuing on. The final slot was quite spectacular as it begins with a rappel down a chute which, at the time, was a gushing waterfall. The webbing around the chockstone there was quite thrashed, especially after all the flooding, and needed to be replaced. The rappel was into a swimmer with noticeably cold water, especially late in the day. We continued on through the deep and convoluted narrow slot and arrived at the Golden Cathedral. There was an amazing mess of webbing of at least 5-6 different colors, including a stubby piece of wood. I cut off a large chunck of unnecessary webbing, and Nat added a long sling to extend the present anchor further into the descending chute for an easier rope pull. All the time water and sound rushed around us and down the cathedral falls. I went first, engaged on the rope, and downclimbed the chute to get on rappel. In the middle of the chute water rushed around my feet and I was staring down at the pool, very excited. With my pack dangling from my harness, I slowly descended the 70 ft mostly free rappel, reveling in the marvelous chamber, with water patting down upon my helmet.
After Nat rappelled down, we coiled the ropes and walked the water laden narrow canyon back to camp. The vibrant yellow of the tall and abundant poison ivy littered the lower canyon, making choices interesting with the deep water. It was an wonderful day ... would we be looked upon favorably with another beautiful day for Choprock Slot (South/East fork of Choprock)? We enjoyed dinner and a beverage and tried to get some sleep before another long day. Of course, for another night, I did not get much sleep. Not sure if it was the moon, the flood, or the excitement ...

DAY 4 (Sunday, Oct. 8)::

Another crisp clear morning with blue skies and a large moon welcomed us, and the day was ON! My morning hike revealed that the Escalante had substantially lowered, making our return to the car possible. How much flow would Choprock have, we wondered. After breakfast, we retraced our path for the most part to the drop in point for Choprock, from the top of a tall mesa, with spectacular vistas in all 360 degrees of direction. From this point you realize what an incredibly large area the tributaries of Choprock and Neon alone drain into the Escalante river. This is wild country, with nothing remotely civilized discernibly within sight. We route found down the steep slope of the Kayenta formation into the wingate canyon bottom. We slipped into our wetsuits and harnesses and we were on our way. The canyon was still flowing from our starting point to the end, adding a dynamic element to the canyon, making interesting and slippery the many downclimbs which initially welcome you into the potholes of churning water and unknown depth. After descending the 60 ft rap into a large swimming pool, we began the riparian section which was lush and littered with golden leaves of poison ivy. Fortunately it was very easy to avoid the stuff. It becomes very clear that this section of canyon is the origin of the dreaded logjams which frequently choke the tight slots to come. We moved briskly through this section, as the day was short and we had a long slot ahead. It's a beautiful section with green grasses, plants and trees covering everything, in contrast to the rock and sandy world of the sections of slot. It was palpable how the flood had ripped through the area, as may of the plants and grasses looked as if they had been combed down stream.

The riparian section transitions back into a first section of slot which has been dubbed the "happy section" in contrast to the section following (which I found far more exciting than grim). The happy section was filled with water and marvelously sculpted subway-like narrows that make you grin from ear to ear. I reveled in them, wishing I could spend hours here, but we had much to go and who knew what difficulties we would find next. The grim section which follows constricts down to very narrow slots in many places, which naturally get chocked with logjams that can present all sorts of obstacles and can be complicated by high water levels. We wondered what new obstacles could have formed during the deluge...

After eating a quick lunch in the last of the sunlight in the happy section, we immediately entered a cold pool, b-b-brrr. Though there seemed to be a lot less swimming in Choprock than in Neon, frequently we oscillated from being in water to our waist to water to our necks and swimming. As we approached our first logjam, we stemmed high in the tight slot, above it. Large thick logs choke the slot from above in a couple of spots, the first of which had water up to the log itself. Just beyond we used a sling on a log, suspended high in the slot, to rappel down about 15 ft into the very dark water narrows. These narrows were superlative, tall and narrow, sculpted, convoluted and sinuous, and swimming through them was intensely exciting. It was almost overwhelming. The slot opened up and formed a curved teardrop shape ... I had to pull my camera out and snap at least one or two shots. Out of the water for a bit, but then right back in and swimming again. At one narrow point, a logjam choked a very tight section of narrows. Nat and I stemmed up the tight slot, from a swimming start, which isn't exactly easy to do, then continued a ways over the series of logjams and dropped back in on the opposite side. Oof, you think to yourself, 'okay, these have been manageable, but what about the next one?'

On a couple of occasions, the surface foam would start to build up in the dark and narrow sections, and we knew what this meant ... a pile of logs in the water, filling a constriction. On a couple of occasions, it was just thick log soup, and with a bit of work, we could haul them back up the slot, while swimming, and open a passage way through. On one particular occasion logs of all sizes had seriously piled up in an flaring section followed by a constriction. We cleared some and Nat tried to climb it first. It was trying as the jam was unstable and his legs would slip through and he'd slide back. Finding the more sturdy sections of the jam, he was ultimately able to climb up over. Watching for these mildly stable when he climbed, I was able to get up and over the log jam too, with a bit of work and patience. More log jams, spectacular narrows, and endless slots of swimming and downclimbing followed ... and fortunately everything manageable with a little bit of work. This canyon is truly one of the very great ones. It persists and perseveres through this block of wingate sandstone and leaves you completely satisfied. Even if you move quickly, there is something just as amazing down the way. And water flowed through the entire canyon, enriching the experience with rushing falls and pools filled to the brim.

As the slot neared the end, it was more aligned with the low afternoon sun. The narrows brightened and we swam, climbed out and back into each channel of slot or pool. At one point I looked up ahead and instead of seeing the continuation of canyon, beyond the pool ahead of me was a spacious void. This was the end! I approached the opposite end of the pool ... a chambered pool that hangs over 80 foot falls as the canyon opens dramatically in the evening sun. The sun sparkled on the water as it poured from the pool off the spout in freefall to the large pool below. I was beaming with energy. It was a fanastic adventure today, and a trip which exceeded my expectation. Momentarily hanging at the top of these falls, as the leaves of the tall cottonwoods glistened in the sun against the vertical canyon walls ... a true moment of contentment and fulfillment. We rappelled 80 ft from the 3 bolts placed away from the slot exit to avoid the ill effect of raging floods, first Nat and then I. There is a nice closure to finishing a slot with a beautiful, tall rappel and water patting on your head along the way.

It was late in the day and only a couple hours of daylight left. We quickly hiked down the remainder of the canyon which was still full of water. We followed the main fork of Choprock down to the cow trail exiting to the south. We followed the kayenta for much of the way towards Neon canyon, unsure if it went the entire way. Although we figured the kayenta layer probably went through, with the sinking sun and short daylight, we decided to drop down to the Escalante for the rest of the way. It would also allow us to assess the river depth which we needed to cross the following morning. We found a nice steep chute allowing us to descend from the wingate bench down to a very old fence/corral. From there we continued down the Escalante floodplain. It looked like a war zone. Everything was bent over and combed downstream by the raging river. Thickets of trees and branches hugged the trees high up showing how deep was the river that we marveled at two days earlier. Everything was muddy and quicksand was abundant. We continued to move quickly as the daylight waned.

Then we reached the first of two river crossings. It wasn't clear how deep it was, but it was convenient that we were still in our wetsuits. Nat slowly got in and quickly found he was swimming and grabbed onto a branch extending from the river. It was overhead, at least there. He then made his way swimming and getting carried downstream, to find that at least in the middle of the river he could walk across. I followed. Fortunately the next crossing had no swimming. We continued on through the maze of thickets and cottonwoods and found our way back to the mouth of Neon. The area there was supermuddy and saturated with water. But it was clear that we would be able to hike out the next morning. We were sore and tired after the long hike. We enjoyed dinner and talked a while, then went to sleep. The night before and this night I slept outside and it was cool and clear. The late moon allowed for some stargazing, and despite being very tired, I continued to have difficulty sleeping. Instead I sat and thought about the great adventure we had had that day.

and though I find all of the trips Nat and I take are great ... this one was simply something else!
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[stefan]

okay ... one more, a panorama when we returned to the car.

this was shot from the egypt bench looking at the escalante,
towards neon canyon, with choprock canyon to the north (left)

click the following link to open it, (you can magnify and scroll it)

PANORAMA

[marc olivares]

great TR Stefan,
i got a camera question, what camera are u using?
and how many of those shots have been Iphoto enhanced?
you got some great color saturation, just want to know how much of it is the mac...lol

[stefan]

great TR Stefan,
i got a camera question, what camera are u using?
and how many of those shots have been Iphoto enhanced?
you got some great color saturation, just want to know how much of it is the mac...lol

i forget what kind of camera i have

it's a sony something or other. it was given to me by some good friends in december (older camera of theirs). it's got a nice lens on it for a point-n-shoot. which is it's most redeeming quality as it's somewhat larger than i'd like. i haven't ever had a digital camera so i am still getting used to it. i can give you then name when i get home if you really want to know.

as far as photo manipulation goes, i usually try NOT to manipulate but it depends. most of the stuff in the decent lighting hasn't been manipulated post-shooting(eg. flooding). HOWEVER i DO mess around with the exposure level (on the camera) when actually taking the photograph. this i find often brings out better saturation and contrast at the crucial moment when the image is laid down. occasionally (not usually), if the image exposure is off by a little bit , the most i will do is enhance the contrast.

when i totally mess up is when i really manipulate things, that is, when it's totally under/overexposed. this happened in that last panorama. all three have been manipulated to some degree to salvage the image AND to create a blended harmony between the three. (took some time). also the one with nat in the teardrop shape. that was way underexposed. so i had to do a mix of brightening it some with increasing the contrast to improve it. it was blue to begin with, then but then i needed to desaturate it some, as it was excessively blue/purple. it was one of the only ones that i took in chop and i took a little artistic license there (i admit).


but i think most of the effect you're talking about comes from the exposure setting on the camera. i think this setting is crucial to geting the right contrast/color saturation. if it's set too high, there is a grey haze and the image in nondistinct. if it's too low then ... also i think the darker grey clouds combined with this setting can produce beaming images.

so if it's bright i turn down the exposure on the camera. if it's dark i turn up the exposure.


i just don't know how to do this well in slots. the only three that have turned out really well at all (with ZERO manipulations) were the subway shot in pandora's, the glowing slot in pandora's, and the glowing walls in leprechaun. but there it's coming from the glowing and somehow having the exposure setting just right. everything else seems to be dim and bland. though i do like the other photo in chop. the somewhat illuminated walls turned out okay there.

[bretmaverick999]

What software did you use to create the panorama?
Bret Mathews

[stefan]

What software did you use to create the panorama?
Bret Mathews

that would be ... photoshop. it's such a pain in the butt to match everything. but i love having a large view of it.

here is another one i made. this is from sevenmile canyon on lake powell. in this case i strung together a large series of images from a video shot by eric godfrey (shaggy)

sevenmile panorama

[Iceaxe]

The panorama's are cool, but they really blow the hell out of the forum formatting and make the threads really hard to read. How about posting any further panorama's is a separate folder or something?

[stefan]

The panorama's are cool, but they really blow the hell out of the forum formatting and make the threads really hard to read. How about posting any further panorama's is a separate folder or something?

yeah yeah. i know. sorry about that. i tried to use the table html format for my longwinded crap.

point well taken.