Larry Canyon Debrief Part II: wakeup, go, in-canyon events

[ratagonia]

Our story to date:

We were planning on heading out at about 9 AM on Saturday, but we didn’t wake up until about 8:40 and still had to eat breakfast. We hurried and just grabbed a couple packets of oatmeal and had to eat it on the way out. We had about a mile and a half hike to the entrance of Larry canyon. It took us about 45 minutes to get there and we started the first rappel around 10 AM. We got down that rappel just fine with no incidents. It was about a 50’ rappel, not too bad.

We were trying to get through the canyon fairly quickly so that we would not have to find the exit at dark, so we booked it through the canyon. There were a few semi-difficult down climbs. A few of them we found out later were mandatory rappels, oops. The first one was about a twenty foot down climb to a ledge and then another twenty feet to the bottom. My Dad decided to try and down climb the first part of it and made it just fine and then figured that the second part of it was a little to steep so I threw him the rope from the top and he rappelled the rest of it. I rappelled the whole thing and met him at the bottom. After that there was some pretty cool slots that we went through. Some were almost too tight to fit through, especially with all of the extra clothes that we had on. A few times we had to get down and crawl to avoid getting stuck in them. There was one very skinny slot where we had to choose if we wanted to stay up high about 30’ above the floor and scoot across the top or try and get down closer to the bottom and risk getting stuck. We decided to try up high first and then if got too scary we would lower ourselves down and get closer to the bottom. We were able to get past that with no problems either. It was a little scary hanging way above the bottom of the slot, but it was all good. When we started going down to the floor we had to get out our flash lights because it was so dark from the thinness of the canyon and the boulders and wood that were stuck above us from flash floods.

We then came to what was supposed to be the third mandatory rappel. We had to climb about 6’ down to where there was a wedged boulder that was used as the anchor for this rappel. My Dad looked down it and looked like only about 20’ to get to the first ledge. There was just a small ledge that you had to land on. On one side of the ledge there was a three foot deep pot hole and on the other side there was a about a ten foot drop with a knotty log in the bottom.

My Dad decided that he would be able to down climb it again with maybe a little difficulty, but he thought he could make it. After he started going down I went down the 6’ drop to start the rappel. He got maybe 5-7’down and had his left foot against the wall and his right foot hanging down and he didn’t think that he could hold on anymore and slipped and fell about 15’ and landed on the ledge almost going over the 10’ drop, but luckily was able to grab onto the ledge and not fall over. I heard him slip and fall so I ran to edge and yelled, “Dad, are you alright!?” He replied,” I don’t think I broke anything!” I then heard him say, “Oh, $#!*!!!!” a few times so I asked him what was wrong and he said, “Kyle, I think I tore my ACL!” He then told me to rappel that one down for sure. I rappelled down to him and found that he could barely even put weight on it before it would pop out of socket and cause him an immense amount of pain!

There were very few options that we had after that. The one that we decided to do was to try and grab the bars out of the hard frame of his little backpack and try to make a brace with that and some duct tape that he had around a pen in his backpack. The duct tape didn’t work very well so we had to use a bunch of extra webbing that we had to wrap the bars from his frame around the outsides of his knees as a makeshift brace. It actually worked really well as long as it stayed tight. I then took most of the stuff out of his backpack and put it into mine so that he wouldn’t have to carry as much weight on his knee. He then lowered me down the ten foot drop with a hand line and then he came down and stepped onto the backpacks as I was holding it up for him. We both got down there and then we had to tie another hand line onto the log that was wedged in the bottom. We got down the next twenty feet with that hand line.

Timeline:

Saturday 1:30 pm injury occurred
Saturday 4:30 pm SAR first signaled via spot
Saturday 9 pm (approx) Chungy22 and I don’t think Spot is signaling, formulate game plan to get out of canyon on our own over the next day or two.
Saturday night - Chungy22 and I spend night in canyon
Sunday 2:00 am contact from Jaxx and Chabidiah from canyon rim, what a relief
Sunday afternoon (not sure of time, maybe 1:00pm) SAR reaches me
Sunday 3-4pm LifeFlight arrives
Sunday 5 pm – I am dropped on canyon rim, and argue with LifeFlight to go get my son, to no avail
Sunday After dark 6 SAR and my son start the last two rappels after dark with lots of heavy rescue equipment to try to find the exit crack
Sunday later – my GPS (with my son now) batteries die before reaching exit crack. They can’t find the exit crack in the dark from below or above. Keep walking til they get cliffed out trying to reach a “horse trail” out of the canyon.
Sunday time? - DPS chopper in SLC called to come down a day early to help extract, since they couldn’t find the exit, and a snow storm was closing in on them. They were going to be in Green River the next day anyway.
Sunday 10 pm? The group walks 2 miles past the exit; son reported later the hike from the last two “optional” rappels was tough with lots of bolder hoping, cliff hanging and obstacles. Maybe easier in the light, but not at dark. Snow Storm moving in quickly. DPS chopper grounded twice, temporarily in Santiquin, final for the night in Nephi due to storm moving south.
Monday midnight? Sheriff able to get chopper from Page willing to try the extraction.
Monday 2 am – get call that Chungy22 is by his mom on the canyon rim, successful second rescue.

Ok, I just can't remain quite any longer!!! I usually rely on Jaxx (my son, and one of my heroes) to post since he is so eloquent. Yeh, I’m the dumbazz dad who tore my knee apart that caused this mess. But, it always pisses me off when the injured never tell their story, so the rest of us can hear it first hand and so we can learn from the experience. Now my boys have done a great job of telling the story. I suspect the reason most injured like me don’t want to share is a error in judgment was usually made and we don’t want to tell how dumb we really are, so be gentle :-) So I will break the pattern and tell what I did wrong and how we were able to survive. Maybe we can cover what we did correct and incorrect in this situation in detail over the next while, but just remember my ego is fragile (well not really, but I am embarrassed over this one). So let’s get’r goin…

I was going to post my full story, but Jaxx and Chungy22 have shared such a good and accurate version, I will only add a few tidbits from myself. We maybe more than a little (lol).

I was so pissed at myself for taking the risk that caused the accident. I am normally so anal about safety that other canyoneers that go with me get annoyed. Things like no exposure without at least a belay. Even with the first one down the rap, I use a biner block to tie of the rope and use the pull side as a belay for the first person down, so they don’t have to go “exposed”. I take a lot of youth groups through these canyons and we use a separate anchor (where possible) and belay system as a backup. Takes us forever to get through the canyons, but we are very safe. Jaxx has been a bit perturbed with me at times when I insist on belaying him as the first one down a rap. But I just say “when ya go with me, you will always have a belay, now stop boobing and get down the rope” :-)

Anyway, the reason I share this is I shouldn’t have taken the risk, but I felt like a little kid in the canyon, and felt like I and Chungy22 were equals, so I didn’t have anyone to worry about (except myself). This trip I figured was Chungy22’s time to learn to set up the raps, so we both inspected the existing anchors, then he sat up the rap and I inspected.

I remember the distances a little different than Chungy22, but maybe it’s just my ego ;-) The first of the two mandatory raps in the middle of the canyon was about 70 feet, and I downclimbed all but the last 20-30 foot straight fall, called up to Chungy22 to set the rope and throw it down to me. The second mandatory rap looked similar, but shorter, so I tried it as well. It was about 35 feet high. I downclimbed the first 17-20 feet through the “birth canal”, until it opened up significantly. I placed my left foot on the wall, level with my head, and my back and backpack pressed on the right wall, with my right leg hanging towards the bottom. I wedged myself in and scooted down a little, I looked the situation over and noticed there was only about 6 inches of spring left in my left leg and below the slot opened too much to chimney any farther.

I kind of evaluated if I could just continue with an uncontrolled slide, but decided it was just too high (15-18 feet to the landing). I started to turn to my left to tell Chungy22 that this was a bit hairy and go ahead and place the rope through the rapide on the anchor and I was going to try to hand-line the rest of the way down. BUT…just as I turned to holler up the slot, my backpack slipped off it’s perch, and down I went. I was grabbing onto the right wall trying to swing my left leg down so I could catch myself with both legs, but no such luck…my right leg hit (most likely straight legged, as I don’t remember thinking to bend my knee for impact). My knee buckled back behind me and I went down hard on my helmet, with my momentum carrying me to the right and over the next drop (my recollection about 15 feet where my face was (against the far wall of the landing) :-o I was able to claw my way to a stop with my hands and with my left foot hooked on the pothole to my left. I stopped just as my shoulders went over the next cliff.

Chungy22 heard me hit hard and asked if I was ok, I said “I think so, but that’s a rappel, so set it up”. I took off my pack and started a self assessment. The only thing that hurt was my right knee, but that’s not unusual for me on these canyons. So I stepped into the pothole on my left leg and gingerly tried to step on my right. The bone pushed my pants out about 2 inched to the inside of my leg and the pain was excruciating and I went down. Damn I knew it was my ACL and I must have torn it completely, my daughter did the same in soccer a few years back.

Not wanting to accept the truth I tried the same a couple of times with the same result, I’m sure I was cussing each time :-( My leg crumbled like a couple of tinker toys each time. I figured I would need help out of the canyon, but we were in the middle of the tight canyon with no way to have our “Spot” signal SAR. I started to get concerned and mad as hell at myself for the predicament that I just put us in. I unloaded my pack to see what I had. The major item missing was something solid to splint my leg. I started to think of sticks/wood we may have passed earlier, but nothing came to mind. I gotta admit I started to panic just a bit cause I knew I needed a splint for any hope of getting out. Poor Chungy22 had to rap without a belay; I was kinda occupied thinking of options.

Eventually I realized we both had internal frame packs and there had to be a long solid bar of some kind in there. I started looking at my pack and pulled some Velcro straps off the top of the supports and pulled out two flat metal supports. Cool we are back in business, and I could feel myself calming down a bit. I tried to ducktape X’s on the skin on each side of he knee for additional support, but the ducktape didn’t hold. Bent the metal bars straight and placed on each side of the knee. Duck taped them in place, and then used my rap webbing to figure 8 the knee and to hold the top and bottom of the bars in place and just above and below the knee. Gave it a try in the pothole and walla, I was able to walk gingerly.

It was about 1:30 pm. My son Chungy22 put all the heavy stuff in his pack. We both packed lighter than normal this trip cause of the tight canyon. My pack was 32 lbs and his was about 30 when we started with everything. He took most of the weight; I had maybe 10-15 lbs. He was one of my heroes this trip, I was very proud of him. I’m glad it was him with me. He is level headed and strong as an ox, and young :-)

We started down the canyon, and the pain was excruciating, but I could hear Jaxx saying “quit your damn winning and keep going” (lol). I was just a bit worried the pain was my meniscus (pad between the two big bones in your leg) ripping apart and I knew they are virtually not repairable (via surgery). So as the pain got worse, I would stop and tighten up the splint. The surgeon told me I have a tibial plateau fracture (top of the tibia / shin bone) and that was mostly the pain I felt each time I put weight on it. The canyon was tough after the accident and the pain at times unbearable. At times I just tied my pack behind me, and crawled on my hands and good knee, dragging my injured leg and pack behind me. Chungy22 was a major help getting me through that canyon, talk about partner assist. On the downclimbs we both removed our packs, he would downclimb without his right leg and tell me it was ok, then down with the packs (man was his a monster), and then he would spot me as I climbed down.

It was about a mile hike I suspect to get to the top of the last two optional rappels; I couldn’t handle much more pain. Chungy22 checked out the side canyon for a possible quick exit. In the meantime I tightened my splint and looked over the area. The cliffs looked like they lent themselves to a cliff rescue (not sure of name, but where SAR might be able to lift me up the cliff in a basket) and if we drop 160 feet further in the canyon it would be that much harder, plus the canyon below looked a little gnarly and harder to locate a location to hunker down for the night. There were a lot of large dry dead bushes around and I thought we could find an overhang or something to get out of the wind for the night. It was about 3:30 pm and I figured we had about 90 minutes of light to prepare to hunker down and gather fire wood.

It was at that moment I realized I just can’t get out of this canyon on my own accord. That was a large pill to swallow. I’ve always told my wife to never call SAR until I am 24 hours overdue. I will just always be prepared to spend 1-2 days in the canyon on my own if SAR is needed :-(

When Chungy22 got back we decided to hunker down. I started to loose it just a bit emotionally at that point and turned away to hide my emotion from my son. He said “Dad are you ok?”, I turned to him about ready to cry and said “No!”. I said “Chungy22, you are going to go through hell over the next 1-2 days and it is because of my mistake. I feel very guilty for putting you in this predicament, and I am really sorry for doing that to you”. Little did I understand what hell he would go though, I meant getting me out! Then I told him we had 3 serious issues that could make the difference between survival and not.
1) We need to keep it together emotionally, not panic and think about how we will survive and keep busy surviving. I told him sorry for loosing it, but now we both need to be strong to get out of this, and I will stop feeling sorry for myself and we will get out of this.
2) I have suffered a serious injury and could go into shock. I have been watching myself closely as we have been hiking (I am a former EMT and volunteer ambulance driver), and I don’t’ have concerns yet, but it is a possibility. So we discussed shock a bit, and
3) The cold has the potential to kill us tonight, so our immediate danger is the cold that will hit early in the morning. So we needed to get busy to survive the cold that night. The night before it was 10 degrees in the Roost.

After we decided to call SAR, I sat on that rock before pressing the 911 button for like 5 minutes. Even though I knew I needed help, I just couldn’t push it. Then I told Chungy22, well, we are going to scare the hell out of our families, and here comes the cavalry, and pressed the button :-) Later, when we thought the spot was not sending the messages it was disappointing. We discussed getting up at first light, splinting my leg, making crutches and taking the next day and night, and maybe even the next day getting out of that canyon. We needed to conserve our water and food for the ordeal. It was a relief when we heard Jaxx and Chabidiah on the canyon rim, what awesome heroes they both turned out to be for us. Chungy22 tells the story quite well in his post, so I will stop with the story there.

Jaxx, Chabidiah, Chungy22 were heroes to me on this trip, I was very proud of all of them. Someday when I grow up, I want to be just like them!!!! The SAR folks were also my heroes!!!

View from the Dad with the blown out knee…

First I'd like to say thanks to those who were directly involved and have given their accounts of the incident in Larry. Knowing the dart throwing/Monday morning quarterbacking that goes on, this was commendable.

My takeaway from this isn't very dramatic. From what I have read, these guys were fairly well prepared and that probably was a huge factor. The simple fact that they are all back and safe, has to be some kind of testament to their preparation.

I see one accident and one mistake:

The "accident" was Nick's dad slipping. HE SLIPPED!! How many can say they haven't been in a downclimb,elevator,sustained high stem and haven't thought--damn--if I SLIP here I could really be screwed. I'm going to say 100% of people who spend any amount of time in a canyon have thought similar.

The "mistake" was starting a canyon late in the morning in the Winter with an impending storm. No time was allowed for a accident or even a slip.
I say--he who lives in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones.

the lesson's have been learned and hopefully the community at large has benefited from these guy's predicament and overall successful outcome.
Since I only know Chad and Nick--I'll say kudos to the Chad and Nick family on a adventure that had the makings of disaster, but ended up with a great outcome. I'd have to say a successful rescue all around.

Merry Christmas

With some time elapsed, Chungy and TNT, any further coments on your decisions on that day?

Tom

[ratagonia]

Chungy, TNT - looking for you to have first crack at this, if'n I haven't scared you off entirely at this point.

T

[ratagonia]

Chungy, TNT - looking for you to have first crack at this, if'n I haven't scared you off entirely at this point.

T

Well, I probably have scared you off...

I have little in the way of criticism for the day-of. Yeah, get up earlier, eat a good breakfast... some obvious canards like that.

You made good time in the canyon, sounds like.

You misjudged a downclimb. Heck, I do that all the time. Best to decide to turn it into a rappel before you get too committed... but I bet you already know that.

Here's a few pointers in pack management on downclimbs. It's largely a matter of personal taste, but it's good to have a couple of options. BEST and fastest if you can leave your pack on, but if you need your back for climbing, best to take it off. I put two over-the-shoulder slings on my pack, and have a way of clipping it to my waist. For moderate downclimbs, especially short ones, I lower it ahead of me, and have the slings long enough that it is below my feet. If the downclimb looks hard, I just leave the pack at the top and downclimb without, then my partner can lower my pack, then her pack.

After the tumble, you guys did an outstanding job of getting to a place where the SPOT would work, and getting to a place you could be rescued from. Also a good call on finding a sheltered place up on the ledge. Usually it is good to get as far as possible, but shelter was a very high priority, and taking a good spot at hand was an excellent choice.

Tom

[Chungy22]

You don't scare us too bad Tom, just a little!! ;) I actually love getting advice...... maybe not in some of the ways that you like giving it, but that just makes me suck down my pride and take it because I know that you are much more experienced than I! Thanks for all your input Tom!

[Chungy22]

Well, our plan for this canyon was to start at 9AM. That would give us 8-9 hours of light. We woke up at about 8:45 AM..... which was later than we were wanting, but we just grabbed a couple packets of oatmeal and headed out. Our goal was to get at the first rappel at about 10 AM. We got there at about 10:15AM, which is pretty close. We could have started earlier, but if you know our family we don't start early!! LOL Maybe we should start. Anyway....... I think that having a little more time and a good breakfast would have helped because we were rushing a little through the canyon and could have used the time to settle us down. That is one of the main reasons that my Dad decided to try and down-climb that rappel because we were in a hurry (Go figure)! I think that those times are correct. Tntrebel will have to verify that though. I am not 100% sure that was the times.