Dragonfly Canyon conditions

[Pyranha]

Has anyone done dragonfly canyon recently? The description says the top pothole can be difficult to escape in dry conditions so I am curious.

[Iceaxe]

I wouldn't worry about the top pothole too much. The pothole is easily defeated with a pack toss if required. The route is also easy to reverse if you get to the pothole and find it beyond your skill level. Just make sure you keep one member of your group in a safe position to help everyone out of the pothole if it's in keeper mode.

The biggest problem with the pothole is the water can get a little putrid if it has not been refreshed for several weeks. It rained in the area last weekend, but it was kinda hit-n-miss on what specific area's got a lot of water. I don't know if Dragonfly was one of the area's that got rain.

And welcome to Bogley.

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[moab mark]

If you do not like the look of the potholes you can walk the rim and rappel in right at the last pothole. There is a rock horn you can use as an anchor. Look for the rock in the attached picture and rappel right next to it.

Mark

[qedcook]

I've done the canyon before when it was bone dry. There is never any difficulty in escaping the potholes. The first one is avoidable. In fact, you can get in and see if you can escape and if you can't, it is easy to retreat. The second pothole has a large ledge halfway up that makes escape a cinch.

[taatmk]

If you do not like the look of the potholes you can walk the rim and rappel in right at the last pothole. There is a rock horn you can use as an anchor. Look for the rock in the attached picture and rappel right next to it.

In viewing the attached picture, it appears that one would rim walk to the fight side, LDC, and rap in to a point at the end of the potholes....?

[Iceaxe]

The Dragonfly potholes are never difficult to escape.... and skipping them is for pussys!

I mean really.... the top pothole section is the canyons identity and what the route is all about.... if you are going to skip that section you might as well just sit at the trailhead and drink beer as there is not much difference.

[deagol]

Slightly off-topic:
We did Dragonfly this May and the water level was quite a bit higher than in the video. I lost a potshot (by being stupid) in the second pothole in that video. It sunk to the bottom. I waded around in the pothole for maybe 15 minutes feeling with my feet for the potshot in the cold murky water and eventually found it. I was barely tall enough to touch bottom and keep my head above water at the same time. I thought I would have to hold my breath and dive under and look for it that way- I was dreading that.

The third pothole looked like it would require some equipment to escape, but it turns out it was easy to get out of. We were able to downclimb & jump into the 3rd pothole since the water was higher than in the video- no rappel needed.

[Iceaxe]

If you are paying really close attention to the video above you will note it is shown in both high water and low water... the actual video is low water, but the still pictures embeded in the video are high water.

FWIW: At high water the first two potholes become one large pothole.