Escalante Conditions

[AJ]

A group of us went down to the Escalante over the long weekend, which we made longer by a few days. The HITR road is fine with a little washboard out to the Egypt Bench road. Easily passable by 2wd. The washboard gets a little worse on the Egypt bench road, and has a few rough spots that would take some careful driving in a mid-clearance 2wd car. A high-clearance 2wd would make it fine to the Egypt bench trailhead, slowing down in a few spots.

We did E4 first; quite the warmup canyon. Fun, but strenuous, canyon with lots of off the deck stuff; some quite high. Quite sustained, with a few silo crossings; you aren't on the ground for very long at all for most of the first section of canyon. Footing seemed a little loose in the beginning, with some sand on the walls; but felt comfortable the rest of the way. All the Egypts had decent water. Certainly not requiring a wetsuit for E4; you would be insanely warm with all the climbing - and most of the time you were at least 30 feet above the water. Although, additional padding on the lower back would be nice; we were all quite sore there. Not a beginner canyon; be careful if you head there. It would be possible to start upclimbing from the bottom (though even more strenous), and head up as as far as you felt comfortable. Otherwise, we saw three different exits on the way down. One prior to the one Kelsey mentions; it was a ramp on the right LDC, then Kelsey's exit when the canyon opens with ramps on both sides, and the lowest section has many exits as it's much more open with potholes. Although, if you go from the top, and made it to the bottom section, no need to exit as the final section is comparitively easy.

A second group did E3 while we were in E4. They said the lower section had a long swim in cold water. The water was clean and refreshing on the warm day. No wetsuit needed, as the long hike back is just afterwards. Warm day in the lower 80's.

We then hiked down into Fence canyon that same day - Thursday, and camped near the confluence of the Escalante. Friday we hiked up past the standard entrance, and bench walked all the way to the next major canyon on the left LUC. This is quite a distance from the normal long route mentioned by Shane and Tom. Still not at the canyon head, but it adds about 3-4 hours round trip to the normal Neon route. The section above is quite fun with a variety of downclimbs, swims through narrow tunnels (many can be bypassed, but why?), and some open canyon walking. We dropped into the first deep keeper pothole (near the bolt bypass on the left LDC) by sequencing and got out using 2 potshots with rocks from the pothole and one pack toss. The second keeper was a climb out on a slick large branch/small log. The final rappel was awesome as usual. Most wore 3/2 full wetsuits and were fine. The warmer blooded went without a wetsuit as it was in the upper 80's.

Saturday a group of us hiked over to Bakers and did West Baker. Very fun canyon with lots of variety. Some swims, a jump or two, fun downclimbing, a very tight squeeze, and beautiful sculpting. Raps to 55 feet, some natural, some from a single bolt. Some natural anchors could be built near the bolts, but the bolts were in decent shape and were pretty clean so we used them. East looked great too, but we were playing it on the conservative side because we had Choprock on the plan for tomorrow. We hiked back to camp that afternoon. Most wore 3/2 full wetsuits, the warmer blooded wore 3/2 farmer johns, and were fine; but it was in the upper 80's.

Sunday was Choprock. We started early, just after 4am, because we were expecting issues from what we heard from the field. Found the canyon to be quite easy this year (relative to previous Choprock.) There were more log jams than last year, but all the upclimbs were from dry spots, with the walls near the upclimbs being quite condusive to easy climbing. There was a decent upclimb and span near the start of the grim; but it was in a really cool section, so I climbed down and deconstructed one of the jams so everyone could experience the dark, tight and twisty slot section. It took us around 10 hours tent to tent; but we had a pretty experienced group. All were in full wetsuits; minimum of 4/3mm and were fine. There were two longer swims. The first is awesome with tight twisty narrows for a hundred yards or so. We exited the canyon around 1pm, and leisurely strolled the river floating our packs behind us back to camp. Wish we knew we could have made it through that quick as we could have added East Baker the previous day. Oh well, better safe than sorry. East will be there next time.

Monday we hiked out, saw Dave and Penny coming in on our way out (hope you guys had fun in E2 and E3!), hit the Kiva coffeehouse, relaxed, ate, chatted, and did the long drive home. A great time. Trip reports and photos to follow in the future.

[Iceaxe]

Thanks for keeping us current.

[bruce from bryce]

ACA Mini-Rondi at Escalante brought together our group for Choprock & Neon. My 2nd time in Chop and first time for Neon. All others were virgins for both.

Chop was tough even with the low water as the log jams presented different types of problem solving. Places not available last September were 2-4 feet lower this time around. One interesting place was a 90 degreee left turn with a huge log jam on top along with piles of sand. Looked like it been there a long time so wondered which way to go. Nancy volunteered to swim up the corner and hopefully we could make it through. She gave us a running commentary and when she peeked around the corner and saw light at the head, we all gave out a yelp of joy. We were methodical and safe and while our time set no records, we all had a great time and exited the canyon in high spirits.

CAUTION: IMHO the water flow in the raparian section was very low. Until it rains be prepared to pump some questionable water.

Neon on Sunday was a lot of fun, but I'm ready to go back at full pool.

Ended the weekend with E2 which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Some photos follow.

[ajroadtrips]

Cristina and I were in the area as well last weekend, and did Neon on Saturday. Beautiful canyon! I had heard it was long to do it in a day, but we found it pretty reasonable. 9 hours from trailhead to trailhead, with 2 hours of that lounging at the Golden Cathedral. (Going straight to neon, not going via fence.)

It's an amazing canyon! The keepers were currently not a problem for a group of 2 or more.

I put a write-up on

http://www.outdoorzen.org/

Enjoy.