Elephant Butte - Arches NP

[Iceaxe]

I climbed Elephant Butte with my wife and youngest daughter last Saturday to try and work off a little of the turkey dinner I ate too much of on Thanksgiving. It was a great day to be alive and in Arches NP.

Enjoy the show.

[oldno7]

Nice job Shane, thats a route I've ignored, your video makes me think I shouldn't do that anymore.

[restrac2000]

Classic route, especially with a little challenging verglas during the autumn/winter months. It wasn't unusual for us to bring a small broom during this time of the year to sweep of the climb. Love the final rappel and meandering route to avoid crypto.

Phillip

[Iceaxe]

Nice job Shane, thats a route I've ignored, your video makes me think I shouldn't do that anymore.

Elephant Butte is one of the better Moab routes. Its top five for sure, I've climbed it a couple dozen times over the years.

AJ just sent this to me. He was up the day after us.

[moffer]

Fun stuff! We were on top the day before Thanksgiving.

[moab mark]

We did it the day before Thanksgiving also. Could not believe how many groups were up there. We counted 5 seperate groups. IMO top 3 of Moab. I see in your video that you did a courtesy rappel at the first one. What goofball placed all those bolts eons ago? Poorly setup anchor.

Mark

[Iceaxe]

No courtesy rappel needed.... I just spent 5 minutes and rigged the rappel correctly. All of you who used that rats nest and didn't fix it should be ashamed of yourself.



I couldn't believe what a mess. I'm pretty sure the two guys who did it before us in the morning were total noobs and screwed it up further. The reason I know they were total noobs and messed things up worse is because they left a brand new biner at both rappels to act as a back up rappel ring. And they managed to somehow tie all 37 bolts located at the first rappel into one huge cluster****.



Oh well.... I guess if you don't know what you are doing the answer is to add more sling and tie more knots.



Below is a picture the wife took when I was re-rigging. I cut everything out and just rigged to the two bolts closest to the crack, which creates an easy start. Then if you walk to the head of the canyon to pull your ropes you don't leave grooves. I did get two new biners for my troubles.