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Thread: Spry

  1. #1

    Spry

    Toured Spry Wednesday (5/9) with son-in-law Jared and grandson Marsh. We
    didn't leave the trailhead until 10 AM, and the approach hike was fairly
    brutal after leaving upper Pine Creek. We found the petroglyphs, so that
    was really neat.

    Just above the first anchor, I slipped on some wet moss and
    slid/tumbled/rolled into a small pool, banging up my knee and elbow and
    opening several leaks in my skin. We made it down to the anchor without
    further incident. I rapped first and found a small ledge to bypass the
    medium-sized pool in the middle. It was full of frogs who were loudly
    protesting our presence. Seems we had interrupted a frog orgy or
    something. There was another ledge above the bottom pool, so we were
    able to "skate" around that one as well. We found no other significant
    water until I rapped off the chockstone anchor above a very deep and
    cold hanging pool. After I got off rope, I discovered I wasn't finished:
    there was another rap down to another pool. About that time, Jared
    spotted another anchor which would bypass both pools. They pulled up the
    rope, leaving me standing in a notch between the two pools and then had
    to toss it back down to me so I could continue on down (I didn't want to
    swim back into the pool if I could help it; I was already getting
    hypothermic). After I got all the way down, they re-rigged at the new
    anchor and joined me. Once we got started moving, I soon warmed back up.

    The only other significant water was in the slide pool just after the
    "toothy" rap. That pool was over my head and didn't shallow out until a
    couple of feet from the end.

    I have to say that the boulder field exit could be much shorter and I
    wouldn't complain. I was finished with this canyon long before the
    canyon was finished with me. We finally got to the cliff-band rap off
    the tree and thought we were almost done. Unfortunately, by that time
    none of us were thinking straight, so when we got to Pine Creek just
    after sunset and looked across and saw a trail on the other side, we
    said, "That must be the trail out." Wrong. We spent the next two hours
    wandering around on the mountain in the dark (both literally and
    figuratively) looking for a way to the road. Thank goodness we each had
    a head lamp. We finally gave up and found a suitable tree, rigged an
    anchor, and tossed the rope. We sure were happy to hear it hit bottom.
    When we rapped down, we were less than 2 minutes from the car. We went
    back the next day and hiked up lower Pine Creek to where we had erred
    and then timed our hike back to the car: less than 10 minutes! Major
    bummer! For Jared and I, both cavers, rapping in the dark was nothing
    new, but it was a new experience for Marsh, who needed a little
    encouragement at first, but finished strong!

    As someone once said, "It doesn't have to be fun to be fun."

    Stan
    Stan
    ====================
    Photography by Stan McQueen
    http://www.smcqueen.com

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  3. #2
    Stan, welcome to the site. Nice report, sounds like you had a good time, despite the boulder field exit. We had a fun time with that same stretch Friday night in the dark. It's a bear.

    I checked out your photography site. Very nice. You shooting on 8x10 all the time? That's a beautiful camera you have in that top picture. Feel free to post pics here, we eat that stuff up.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by CarpeyBiggs

    I checked out your photography site. Very nice. You shooting on 8x10 all the time? That's a beautiful camera you have in that top picture. Feel free to post pics here, we eat that stuff up.
    .....said one photographer to another. If we keep getting more of of you guys around here I will be embarassed to post my crapy photos taken with my little Pentax Optio water proof thing. If I ever get rich, I swear I am going to hire you photographers to come to Zion and teach in-canyon seminars to us wannabees.
    Life is Good

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by CarpeyBiggs
    Stan, welcome to the site. Nice report, sounds like you had a good time, despite the boulder field exit. We had a fun time with that same stretch Friday night in the dark. It's a bear.

    I checked out your photography site. Very nice. You shooting on 8x10 all the time? That's a beautiful camera you have in that top picture. Feel free to post pics here, we eat that stuff up.
    I shoot 4x5 (Canham view camera), 6x7 (Mamiya RB67), 35mm (Nikon F4 and FM), and digital. Lately it's been mostly digital. In technical canyons, I use an Olympus 720SW which I just hang around my neck. Otherwise, my main digital camera is a Nikon D200.

    I'll be posting photos of the canyons on my site at http://exhibition.smcqueen.com soon. I also have some photos at http://blog.smcqueen.com in addition to my main site http://www.smcqueen.com.
    Stan
    ====================
    Photography by Stan McQueen
    http://www.smcqueen.com

  6. #5
    Dang.... it's TR heaven around here today..... sweet....

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by CarpeyBiggs
    Stan, welcome to the site.
    more appropriately welcome back to the site.

    thanks for sharin' ... zion seems to be a hotspot this week

  8. #7
    i did spry about a month ago. it looked like there was a HUGE rockslide @ the very beginning of the approach. there was a pool of water filling the drainage that was about 5 ft. deep. i've done the canyon 2 other times and don't remember the slide or the deep pool. any comments?

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by snatch
    i did spry about a month ago. it looked like there was a HUGE rockslide @ the very beginning of the approach. there was a pool of water filling the drainage that was about 5 ft. deep. i've done the canyon 2 other times and don't remember the slide or the deep pool. any comments?
    We didn't see any water to speak of until the frog pools on the first rappel. There were a few small pools in Pine Creek just before we climbed out of the drainage, but nothing of significance.
    Stan
    ====================
    Photography by Stan McQueen
    http://www.smcqueen.com

  10. #9
    Bogley BigShot
    Join Date
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    Where are the photos.

  11. #10
    i didn't take a camera so no pics. nearly all of zion had flashed when we did spry so that contributed to the massive pool. it was only about 15 mins up pine creek. there's a relatively unworn trail through some bushes on your right as your heading up canyon. the slide appeared to be pretty recent but i'm not an expert in the field of stuff falling from the sky.

  12. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by tanya
    Where are the photos.
    Photos of my Spry trip are now at http://exhibition.smcqueen.com.
    Stan
    ====================
    Photography by Stan McQueen
    http://www.smcqueen.com

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