Trip Report for Weds June 4th "Fat Mans Misery"

[oldno7]

how long does it take to drop off the shuttle? Looks like a long drive.

If you start at coral pink sand dunes, maybe a little over an hour.(sand permitting) The road/roads out there are all sandy. There are many forks in said sandy roads. If you leave a camp where Bo shows to park you could spend the night and pick up rock canyon the next day.
From Zion area this is a very long shuttle. If your not good at map reading you could be out there for days.(lots of roads)

[AJ]

You can do East and West Fat Mans Misery without a car shuttle. I just did it, and know a pretty decent route now. From West, you hike the ridge between East and West until you hit the large grey butte wall. Then go down into East on steep rock and dirt slopes. Drops you at the start of East. You have some moderate routefinding but not too bad; when in doubt, trend towards East.

Hike down East, and do the standard gully exit out. Longer hike out than the French canyon exit, but I disagree about the best part of the canyon being between Rock and Misery (I hiked up canyon a couple of miles from Misery and then back down, and did Rock down to French the same trip.) I think the best part of Parunaweep was downcanyon from Misery. Absolutely stunning.

Take care,
A.J.

[AJ]

Also, I might add that Shane's directions aren't correct anymore to Rock Canyon. He has three or four intersections, and there are now 8 or 9. Not obvious which way to go; and his mileage is off. It took me over 3 hours to find the Rock Canyon trailhead. PM me if you want the updated info. I'm still playing catch up from my trip now...

Make sure you have a REAL 4WD. My Jeep was struggling through a bunch of the deep sand (but to be fair, I didn't air down the tires, so I could have gone through worse conditions; but there is LOTS of sand.)

Take care,
A.J.

how long does it take to drop off the shuttle? Looks like a long drive.

If you start at coral pink sand dunes, maybe a little over an hour.(sand permitting) The road/roads out there are all sandy. There are many forks in said sandy roads. If you leave a camp where Bo shows to park you could spend the night and pick up rock canyon the next day.
From Zion area this is a very long shuttle. If your not good at map reading you could be out there for days.(lots of roads)

[tanya]

Also, I might add that Shane's directions aren't correct anymore to Rock Canyon. He has three or four intersections, and there are now 8 or 9. Not obvious which way to go; and his mileage is off. It took me over 3 hours to find the Rock Canyon trailhead. PM me if you want the updated info. I'm still playing catch up from my trip now...

Make sure you have a REAL 4WD. My Jeep was struggling through a bunch of the deep sand (but to be fair, I didn't air down the tires, so I could have gone through worse conditions; but there is LOTS of sand.)

Take care,
A.J.

how long does it take to drop off the shuttle? Looks like a long drive.

If you start at coral pink sand dunes, maybe a little over an hour.(sand permitting) The road/roads out there are all sandy. There are many forks in said sandy roads. If you leave a camp where Bo shows to park you could spend the night and pick up rock canyon the next day.
From Zion area this is a very long shuttle. If your not good at map reading you could be out there for days.(lots of roads)

My land rover just cruises through there with no problem and it does not even have off road tires? Same can be said about the local 'cowboys' and their trucks.. they have no trouble. That can be said about any of the dirt roads out here, the ATV riders are always going to make lots of new ones. Usually you can tell the main trail though or at least Bo and I have not had trouble doing it, but that man does not get lost much.


If I had to find it and drive then we would get stuck and lost.

You should post the update here so that we all have it.

[tanya]

You can do East and West Fat Mans Misery without a car shuttle. I just did it, and know a pretty decent route now. From West, you hike the ridge between East and West until you hit the large grey butte wall. Then go down into East on steep rock and dirt slopes. Drops you at the start of East. You have some moderate routefinding but not too bad; when in doubt, trend towards East.

Hike down East, and do the standard gully exit out. Longer hike out than the French canyon exit, but I disagree about the best part of the canyon being between Rock and Misery (I hiked up canyon a couple of miles from Misery and then back down, and did Rock down to French the same trip.) I think the best part of Parunaweep was downcanyon from Misery. Absolutely stunning.

Take care,
A.J.

It is stunning! Most of these photos are from that section.

http://www.zionnational-park.com/ima...m2/index42.htm

[Iceaxe]

My land rover just cruises through there with no problem and it does not even have off road tires? Same can be said about the local 'cowboys' and their trucks.. they have no trouble.

Tanya - I talked with Dean K. about this and he told me it really depends on the time of year and what the weather has been like. As a quick guide... the later in the summer it gets the worse the roads get. I've been to Rock canyon twice and the second time the roads were a lot worse then the first time. The problem seems to be that in late summer the roads turn to deep sand with big ruts.

[Iceaxe]

And a little clarification.... when I said it takes 3 hours to set up the shuttle I was talking.... start at the Checkerboard Mesa TH, set up the shuttle at Rock Canyon TH, and returning to Checkerboard Mesa TH.

Now you can break this down any way you like, including setting up the shuttle the night before, which is a great idea.... but in total you are still going to spend some where around 3 hours setting up and cleaning up your shuttle.... no way around it... its a slow shuttle to set up.

YMMV

[AJ]

My land rover just cruises through there with no problem and it does not even have off road tires? Same can be said about the local 'cowboys' and their trucks.. they have no trouble. That can be said about any of the dirt roads out here, the ATV riders are always going to make lots of new ones. Usually you can tell the main trail though or at least Bo and I have not had trouble doing it, but that man does not get lost much.


If I had to find it and drive then we would get stuck and lost.

You should post the update here so that we all have it.

I would consider a Land Rover to be a true 4WD vehicle. I was warning against taking a Subaru or other AWD type vehicle there. The Land Rover has larger tires, so more surface area for traction.

As long as Shane is cool with me posting the coordinates, I'll get to it. (Have more pressing catch up to do first.) Don't want to overstep boundaries since it's part of Shane's "Circle of Friends" program...

[tanya]

I would consider a Land Rover to be a true 4WD vehicle. I was warning against taking a Subaru or other AWD type vehicle there. The Land Rover has larger tires, so more surface area for traction.


As long as Shane is cool with me posting the coordinates, I'll get to it. (Have more pressing catch up to do first.) Don't want to overstep boundaries since it's part of Shane's "Circle of Friends" program.....

Yeah.. rovers rule! I loved my Subaru Brat too but it would get stuck easy!


Oh! I forgot about Shane.

[Iceaxe]

As long as Shane is cool with me posting the coordinates, I'll get to it. (Have more pressing catch up to do first.) Don't want to overstep boundaries since it's part of Shane's "Circle of Friends" program...

Go for it... if you have a more accurate description to the TH post away. I'm all for canyoneers having the most recent and accurate beta possible. I think accurate beta cuts down on problems and SAR events.

I'm really curious to see where we differ on the road to the TH since the route was checked against two different vehicles and two different GPS units.... but it wouldn't be the first time I have messed up...

As for the numerous "other intersections".... I don't count minor intersections where the main road is obvious and usually post a note saying something like... "The area is criss-crossed with roads. Stay on the road described until told to turn off of it." I can understand where the "main road" might change in that area depending on ATV traffic.

I would be curious to hear from others who used my Rock Canyon TH beta... did you have problems finding the TH or not? It's probably the most complicated TH on my website.

Thanks in advance.

[Iceaxe]

Yeah.. rovers rule! I loved my Subaru Brat too but it would get stuck easy!

I think that is how I recruited Marc O into my little band of mis-fits.... we needed his Lifestyle Vehicle (Rover) to access the Rock Canyon TH.

Oh! I forgot about Shane.

Ouch!!!

[AJ]

As long as Shane is cool with me posting the coordinates, I'll get to it. (Have more pressing catch up to do first.) Don't want to overstep boundaries since it's part of Shane's "Circle of Friends" program...

Go for it... if you have a more accurate description to the TH post away. I'm all for canyoneers having the most recent and accurate beta possible. I think accurate beta cuts down on problems and SAR events.

I'm really curious to see where we differ on the road to the TH since the route was checked against two different vehicles and two different GPS units.... but it wouldn't be the first time I have messed up...

As for the numerous "other intersections".... I don't count minor intersections where the main road is obvious and usually post a note saying something like... "The area is criss-crossed with roads. Stay on the road described until told to turn off of it." I can understand where the "main road" might change in that area depending on ATV traffic.

I would be curious to hear from others who used my Rock Canyon TH beta... did you have problems finding the TH or not? It's probably the most complicated TH on my website.

Thanks in advance.

Having trouble locating the sheet that I wrote all the stuff down on (which really stinks as I took GPS coords on all the locations. From my memory; the turnoff from the main road is 15.4 miles from the intersection (not 16 as your beta says.) There is a road at 15.8, and 16.2; niether of which are correct. (This is when I started to use the GPS.) This got me the right starting point, but soon saw that there were many other intersections. Because of the deep sand, it was definitely not obvious which one was the main intersection. I started following your coordinates, but then I found one that I couldn't get to. I think it was the third one; drove around looking to get there for a bit, but couldn't. Just switched to go to the last coord (the campsite) and got there eventually.

Oh, the most important thing, is that all the signs are now gone. There is no sign at the beginning (save for a K1300 sign, which your beta doesn't list), and there are no longer K signs on the way...

Will continue to look for the place I wrote everything down (my car was a bit trashed after 10 big days living out of it...) I know it was on the back of my Mystery beta, but just can't locate that just yet... Just unpacked the car yesterday so hope is not lost. ;)

Take care,
A.J.

[abirken]

Will continue to look for the place I wrote everything down (my car was a bit trashed after 10 big days living out of it...) I know it was on the back of my Mystery beta, but just can't locate that just yet... Just unpacked the car yesterday so hope is not lost. ;)

Take care,
A.J.

2 months later, AJ is just unpacking his car. (sorry had to tease you on this one)