Trip Report - Pine Creek 10/24

[scubabryan]

Took a group of 10 through Pine Creek yesterday (6 scouts, 4 leaders). Did it about three weeks ago in a shorty and was perfectly warm but there were only four of us then. This time, we all had full wet suits since we knew it would take longer, being a larger group. All participants were experienced but for one of the scouts, 10ft was his highest prior to yesterdays trip and he was scared of heights. He was very scared at the first stage of the first rap, almost in tears but we were able to talk him through it and once over the first ledge, he was golden and had an excellent time the rest of the day. On the trip up, I was showing him pictures of Pine Creek from TJ's website and he was freaking out! Water was cold but the full wet suit was too much for me. I didn't like being that hot and wished I was in my shorty again. I'm short so the pool at the bottom of rap 3 was a swimmer for me. Attempting to be funny, I showed the scouts my swimming techniques in the pool below rap 3 with demonstration of the breast stroke, back stroke, butterfly and even the dog paddle. I got quite a few laughs. At the top of rap 3, if you look up above, there is a log about 10 to 15 feet up and it was wrapped with accessory cord and a rappel ring. I didn't notice this anchor before, has it been there for a while? Why would anyone need to anchor from that log way up there when it would be pretty dangerous getting up to the anchor to set the rope and only using 6mm cord? Spent some time swimming and jumping into some of the deep pools on the hike out, water was cold but felt good. Found a nice large pool (at least 8ft deep) and got some good video of the guys jumping/flipping into the pools. It was a great trip and we were up at the 2nd switch back in about 3 hours 50 mins. Ran into a group of two girls who hung out with us but besides that, didn't see another person even though all the express permits had been taken for the day.