2007-06-09 Lavar/Conundrum canyon

[Alex]

After the Black Hole fun, the big group split up into little sub groups, I went with Shane

[ajroadtrips]

Nice pictures, looks like a great time! The deadman anchor seems to have grown a bit since Cristina and I built it...

The canyon is also known as Conundrum. Full write-up available at-

http://www.outdoorzen.org/site/beta/...conundrum.html

deserthiker

[tanya]

Looks like fun! Nice photos!

[marc olivares]

not sure i would consider this canyon a "conundrum", unless the pun was that it's "not" difficult...

it's a fair little canyon, the log damn was neat.
your dead man was still pretty bomber, so that was a bonus.

i would consider this an "on the way home, have a coupe hours to kill" canyon.

SUPER SUPER buggy at the top

Ryan, i'm not sure if you guys tried,
but you can easily drive all the way to the spring (where the road crosses the wash) this is a great spot to leave a shuttle if you have 2 vehicles, might want to add that to your beta.
shaves off a bunch of buggy road hiking...

[Alex]

Ryan, thanks for the beta, it was a great little canyon to hit after Black Hole.

[Alex]

All of my pics are here:

http://kazkat.com/upload/leavar.zip

[ajroadtrips]

Ryan, i'm not sure if you guys tried,
but you can easily drive all the way to the spring (where the road crosses the wash) this is a great spot to leave a shuttle if you have 2 vehicles, might want to add that to your beta.
shaves off a bunch of buggy road hiking...

Uggg, bugs are bad this year! We had an attack of the deer flies in Escalante a couple of weeks ago that left us running up the sand hill as fast as we could.

Thanks for the note Marc. I did know it's possible to drive to the spring, but felt the route is short enough that it is not worth a shuttle. Along the road portion, if you look around, there are many old relics from the loggers or miners that were in the area that are pretty interesting.

Did you see what we surmised to be an outhouse floor hanging over the canyon a ways before the rap? Weird.

[Iceaxe]

FWIW: I believe the BLM has the slot on record as "Lavar". Only reason I mention this is I believe its less confusing if SAR is ever required.

We used Ryan's beta

[Iceaxe]

I believe most the relics (at least down low) are from the uranium mines. I noticed several of the mines in the area are sporting new claims. Also, I believe what you called the "outhouse" was some type of pumping platform to bring water up from the log dam. In its day the dam would have pooled deep water under the platform.

[moabmatt]

We named that after Lavar Wells, a backcountry pilot from Hanksville. He told us about that slot. His wife actually lived just up the road from the canyon at Eagle City as a kid. Ted Ekker in Green River also lived up there and remembers much more about the area and its mining history. He's fun to talk to and seems to enjoy telling stories to those who are interested in the area.

[Alex]

Thanks for shedding the light on this Matt, it was quite interesting since we went through that canyon. Do you have any stories online about it?

[tnunemac]

I wandered around Conundrum a while back, both up top and down below. A few comments:

At the dam rap, you can see the grooves in the sandstone on either side where the dam used to be much higher. There are chunks of concrete down below the dam, which may have been part of the missing section?

With the dam higher (and maybe less debris built up behind it?), there would have been a considerable reservoir backed up behind it. The platform up above looks to have been used, as already mentioned, to support pipe for pumping water to the rim, for the purposes of mining.

There are tons of mining artifacts up on the rim. Downcanyon from the dam, the three logs spanning the canyon above look to have formed the supports for a bridge. There are traces of a track leading away to either side.

There are easy exits from the canyon on the south side just above the dam and on the north side just below it. There may be reasonable E/E on the north side just above it. Could be explored as a non-tech. The exit just below puts one right near Ryan's carpark.

The deadman has been completely dismantled and rebuilt at least once in the last few months... ;)

Thanks, Ryan. Fun little explore.

[Iceaxe]

I just updated my website with a route description and pictures for this canyon.

But even better is I posted a little history of the slot along with the route description. I was surprised to learn that at one time a town called Eagle City was built on Crescent Creek, with homes, a hotel, two saloons, a dance hall, three stores, and a post office. Enjoy your short history lesson....

Crescent Creek
http://climb-utah.com/Powell/crescent.htm