Dragonfly Moab 6-6-09

[Iceaxe]

Saturday (6-6-09) the hot young wife and I did Dragonfly. The potholes were all completely full and very clean, at least clean by slot canyon standards.

I'll be updating my Dragonfly Route description latter this week.... following a couple of suggestions from Moab Matt the new and improved route will cause fewer access problems with the Park Rangers, Eliminates the need for a shuttle or 45 minutes of road walking, and creates a more secluded environment.

Here is the old route description. I'll post a new link soon as it's updated.

Dragonfly
http://climb-utah.com/Moab/dragonfly.htm

Anyhoo.... the canyon is in primo condition right now and I expect it to stay that way for at least the next couple of weeks.

After Dragonfly we were off to the Mill Creek swimming hole....

[Brewhaha]

Looks fun, but your pictures are very misleading. If you notice, the pictures progress from the beginning showing your wife move closer and closer to the viewer. The anticipation builds as we expect to see her closeup coming out of the water. Then....we get YOU! And you are topless to boot. Can't you take your picture out and put one of her in? Think of it as a comuunity service.

[Iceaxe]

Hahaha.... there is a funny story with that sequence of pictures..... I'll give you two versions and you can decide for yourself which to believe....

Version #1
The hot young wife climbs out of the pothole, her bikini top falls off, as the icy water cascades own her beautiful chest before dripping back into the pothole to form perfect ripple rings on the surface.... and she didn't want me to post those pictures.....

Version #2
My hot young wife tossed her pack into the pothole, jumped in, and swam right by it.... I'm screaming grab your pack..... as you can see by the pictures she had to swim right by it..... so she is now standing on the edge of the pothole and I tell her to grab her pack.... her reply "No, it drifted over in the dark scary corner now and I'm afraid to swim over there".... so being the stud that I am, I had to dive back in (perfect 1 1/2 gainer) and swim over and retrieve her pack.....

Take your pick of which version you want to believe.....

[Alex]

LOL Classic!

[oldno7]

You must have been in there just ahead of us. We did Bighorn first, then jumped over to dragonfly.

[Iceaxe]

You must have been in there just ahead of us. We did Bighorn first, then jumped over to dragonfly.

We were the first ones through.... at least on Saturday (no footprints), which is amazing when you consider we didn't get started until about 10 and Saturday was such a great day. There was anther couple from Salt Lake following behind us.... they would queue up at the rappels just as we were finishing.

[Iceaxe]

The Dragonfly Canyon route description has now been updated to what is really a much better, shorter and safer route....

Dragonfly Canyon
http://climb-utah.com/Moab/dragonfly.htm

Please do not park at the Petrified Dunes Viewpoint. Canyoneers parking at the viewpoint are creating social trails leading away from the viewpoint that are causing problems with tourists wandering out into the Petrified Dunes. Now is the time to show Arches NP that we can be responsible canyoneers. I would hate to see Arches institute a crappy permit system like the one canyoneers must suffer with in Zion.

On anther note, Arches now has a ranger, Nathan Plants, who recently came over from Capitol Reef. Capitol Reef has always been one of the most canyoneer friendly parks around, and Ranger Nat has been good in working with the canyoneering community in the past.

[oldno7]

You must have been in there just ahead of us. We did Bighorn first, then jumped over to dragonfly.

We were the first ones through.... at least on Saturday (no footprints), which is amazing when you consider we didn't get started until about 10 and Saturday was such a great day. There was anther couple from Salt Lake following behind us.... they would queue up at the rappels just as we were finishing.

Bighorn took us a little while, we had a 67 year old gentleman in our group, he was a great hiker, but it took us some time with him on some rappels.
I think we started Dragonfly---2:00ish. That quick right turn out of Courthouse makes this canyon a much better bang for the buck.

[Iceaxe]

That quick right turn out of Courthouse makes this canyon a much better bang for the buck.

I totally agree.... This route is one of my Moab favorites. Only downside to this route is if the potholes dry out it loses some of its zing.

.