TR: 20061122 - UT, Roost Canyoneering

[AJ]

Pics: http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailsh...61/t_=38054161


Wednesday 11/22:

Fully utilizing the Thanksgiving holiday, we were planning another canyoneering trip to Utah. A friend Rom had a trip going down to the North Wash area, but he had around 30 people going. A bit too many for my tastes. So I gathered a small group that wanted to do more aggressive canyons in a more isolated setting. Jonas, Chuck and I headed out on Wednesday, November 22nd.

We loaded up the car, and headed out. We met up with Susan in Glenwood Springs, who was joining Rom's horde. She was driving alone, so I jumped in with her to help her out with driving; we would caravan with Jonas and Chuck up to the point we would split off. We stopped again in Green River to gas up, and drove to the junction on 24 South. A few miles after turning off the junction, Jonas and Chuck were flashing thier lights and pulling over. What gives? We still had another 10 miles before we would split. Turns out that we forgot to fill our water jug in Green River. Rats; we already went around a half hour past Green River. Had to go back though, as we needed the water for the weekend, and the next closest possible water source was around the same distance past where we needed to turn.

Said goodbye to Susan, and I jumped back into the car with Jonas and Chuck. Chuck drove on the way back to Green River. He was driving pretty quick, as we were anxious to try to get some sleep, and we had already just drove this section of road. We hit I-70, and he continued to do around 95 or 100 on the way back to Green River. Unfortunately, a state trooper going the other way clocked him, drove across the median, and hit his lights. Chuck joked about trying to outrun him, but slowed down and got pulled over. Lucky for him, as the officer only gave him a warning. Nice.

We drove a little more civil the rest of the way to Green River and to our campsite. On the way out, we discussed our canyon options. We chose to do a big day tomorrow, possibly skipping meeting up with the other group. We would try to go down East Pasture, and climb up West Pasture. There are a couple of upclimbs to 30 feet in West Pasture, but both Chuck and I were good climbers, who could then belay the other and Jonas if necessary. There was also an exit in case we weren't able to complete the climbs. All of it could also be done without a car shuttle (as we were all in only one car.) If we made it out in time, we could drive to the North Wash area and join Rom's horde for a Thanksgiving potluck. We set up camp around 1am, and tried to get some sleep. It was chilly out, upper 20's at night.


Thursday 11/23:

Woke up to a chilly morning. Wanting to get a jump on the day, we chose to not do a warm breakfast; I just ate the leftover Subway from the drive up; which was a bit frozen. We headed out around 6:30am, around first light. We drove over, parked the car, hiked in, and hit the start of East Pasture around 8:30am. East Pasture was a fun canyon. It was still very cold out, as was evidenced by the icy spots near the entrance and first drop. We tested the first bolt in the loose rock, and it wasn't very solid. We used it only as an emergency handline and for balance, and downclimbed fine.

East Pasture was a fun canyon. Lots of fun downclimbs, and the last rap was down into a deep and dark section of canyon. Very cool. There was some water, but we were able to stem over all of it and remain completely dry. The canyon opens abruptly at the end, which we hit around 10am. We then stopped for a bite to eat; cold Arby's, mmmmm.

We then hiked down East Pasture, viewed a cool arch, and up West Pasture. We reached the start of the technical section of West Pasture at noon. We were making good time, and as long as we didn't get stopped by the upclimbs, we would likely be able to meet up with the horde for Thanksgiving dinner.

The upclimbs in West Pasture were a blast. The first section just seemed to go on and on. Tight and very fun, with some open sections heading over boulders. It was a really cool upclimb. Since the temperature only got into the 50's, the exertion warmed us up. There were plenty of fun little obstacles to figure out. The last upclimb was the most challenging, as it opened up near the top, and you had to make your way over a boulder. It still wasn't that much trouble though, but the exposure was pretty good as it was around 30 feet off the deck. Chuck decided to upclimb it as well, Jonas took a belay. There were some fun upclimbs after the rap section too. We ran into a small rattlesnake as well, and stemmed over him. Everyone did awesome, and we were back at the car by 2:45pm. A great day!

We still had enough time to meet up with the horde, so we packed our stuff in the car, and headed back to camp. At camp, we changed, and grabbed the food we brought for the potluck and made the drive over to the North Wash area. We arrived there around 6pm, just when it was starting to get dark; and visited with the horde. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey, cranberry sauce, corn, pumpkin pie and more. It was delicious! We then sat around and visited by the fire for a while. It was great to visit with everyone. We headed back to camp around 10pm, and went to sleep around midnight. It was a cold night, again in the 20's.


Friday 11/24:

We were going to do another big day. We would park the car at the exit of Not Mindbender. We would then hike the road, go cross country and descend the South Prong of Not Mindbender. From there, we could do the North Prong, and/or make the loop out the Moki exit and do Mindbender.

We woke up around 7am, and had a hot breakfast. Ramen for me. We packed up the car, and drove out to the Not Mindbender exit. There were some rough spots of road that we had to be careful with Jonas' car. Getting stuck out here would definitely not be a good thing. Not many people are in these canyons in the winter. We parked the car around 8:30am, walked back up the road, and headed cross country to hit the South Prong of Not Mindbender. We dropped into the South Prong around 10:30am.

The South Prong had some fun downclimbs. We decided to just explore in Not Mindbender, so we upclimbed several of the spurs, including the entire distance of the North Prong. I liked the end of the North Prong (or the beginning, depending on which direction you were coming from.) There was a fun upclimb. We got back to the confluence of the North and South prongs around 12:30pm. Still making good time, so we could continue to explore side spurs.

The canyon had a little bit of water, and some really deep stinky mud. After hitting the first patch, I made sure to climb over all the rest of it. Overall, it was a fun canyon. There were some great fluted sections, and a lot of fun downclimbs. some of the side spurs looked like they could be interesting. Although, most were pretty short.

We were the first group through after the major flooding in October. The final anchor was trashed. We lugged rocks over, and built a new deadman anchor. We rapped down around 3pm, and headed downcanyon towards the Moki exit. We reached the Moki exit around 4:30pm, and climbed up. Gave Jonas a belay on the crux moves, and then headed up the rolling sandstone back to the car. We reached the car around 5pm; perfect timing as the sun was beginning to get lower in the sky. We were able to drive back out the sometimes washed out road in the daylight. Made it back to camp, had dinner around a campfire, and then headed to bed early to try to catch up on some of the sleep we had been missing. Especially since we weren't sleeping all that great because of the low temperatures at night.


Saturday 11/25:

Today we would head over to the White Roost area, and try to hit at least two of those canyons. We woke up early, around 6:30am again. This doesn't seem early, but the sun didn't even rise until around 8am; so it sure felt early. Cold too. Had a quick cold breakfast, and drove over to the White Roost area. We started out going towards the East Fork at 8am, which is the farther of the two forks.

We dropped into the East Fork around 8:40am, when the sun was still rising. East White was a great little canyon. Started out with some tight sections. Lots of stemming and fun downclimbs, with some options to go high. The canyon dropped off pretty quickly with four raps in a row. The first two looked to be pretty easy to downclimb, but not the third one. The third one opened up, and dropped into a pool. It was still pretty chilly and only 10:15am, so we stemmed above the pool. Then came more squeezing and downclimbing, followed by the last rappel. This one didn't look bad to downclimb either; would have to try to downclimb all but the third rap the next time we came through. The fourth rap ended in a pool as well. It looked deep too. All of us chose to stem over it rather than go through it. Stemmed over some more water, and then the canyon opened up. We were here around 10:45am.

East was a short and sweet canyon. A good one to get acquainted to canyons to; Jonas and I decided we would come back here later with Jen and Misty. It would be a good canyon for them. We hiked downcanyon, and then did the exit climb, reaching the rim around 11:45am. We then rim walked, getting a great view of the West Fork. We hiked around to the head of the West Fork of White Roost, and dropped in there around 1pm.

West Fork of White Roost was a fun little canyon too. Some cool downclimbs, nice tight sections, and good scenery. Less water than East, and we were able to stem over all of it in this fork as well. There is one rappel of 22m which we reached around 1:50pm. Not a bad rap, and then you get to a really cool and dark slanted slot. Not too challenging, but a really neat experience. We would definitely be bringing the gals out this way next year. The canyon opens up after the slanted slot, and then we hiked downcanyon to the same exit as the East Fork.

We did the exit climb, and hit the road around 3:30pm. From here, we could go do Little white Roost, but we would definitely be hiking out, and possibly doing some of the canyon in the dark. Or we could call it a day. we talked it over, and all of us were content with the two canyons we did, and didn't want to possibly miss some of the canyon by doing it in the dark. We'd save Little white for next time, and we'd likely have a car shuttle then as well. We hiked back to the car, and got there before 4pm.

Drove back to camp, relaxed with a good meal and campfire. Chatted about the trip so far, and planned the next day. Since we were moving pretty well so far this trip, we decided that we would do Mindbender before heading home. We visited around the campfire for a bit, and then headed to bed around 8pm.


Sunday 11/26:

Woke up to another cold morning. Certainly inspires you to move quickly (after being non-inspirational to getting out of your sleeping bag.) Another cold breakfast of granola bars, and back over the rough road to the Moki Exit area where we were two days ago with the Not Mindbender adventures. We dropped our gear off on the side of the road on the way in, and then parked the car around 8am. We hiked down the road, picked up our gear, and then headed cross country to get to the canyon. We dropped in around 9am.

Mindbender was a fun canyon. Like many in the roost, there was a lot of fun downclimbs. There was still some water and mud from the October rains; most of which could be stemmed over. It looked like we were again the first ones in here since the storms. There is a cool little window in the canyon. One section has an exposed downclimb to a ledge, and then a downclimb down a chimney into a pool. There wasn't a way to avoid this one. Jonas went first and it was waist deep, with a muddy bottom. Chuck decided he was going to jump it. Quite the splash, and mud cloud from him landing. Good opportunity to jump though, with the soft landing. I chose the downclimb and waist deep wade option though. This was around 10:30am.

Near the end, there is a really fun downclimb. Before the others came down, I checked the anchor and, as I expected, it needed to be rebuilt. We cut the frayed webbing from the deadman, and shuttled rocks from above to reconstruct it. We rapped around noon. The end rappel is awesome. It's almost a full 50 meters, at 155 feet high. Great views, and cool how the canyon just ends at this huge overhanging dropoff. The rest of the canyon hike is pretty, but we had seen a lot of it just a couple of days before.

We hit the Moki exit around 1pm, and were back at the car around 1:45pm. We repacked our stuff, carefully drove out the rough road, and headed back home. All in all, an awesome weekend with lots of new canyons and challenging upclimbs/downclimbs. Thanks to Jonas and Chuck for the great times!


Pics: http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailsh...61/t_=38054161