Return to Stewart Falls

[ghawk]

Last year me, Cliff, and Anthony headed up to try out Stewart falls. We had a pretty good time but we couldn't do the last rappel because we only had a 2 hundred foot rope and we had heard it was close to 250 for the drop. This December I got married though, and my friends gave me a 300 foot rope for a present (best wedding present possible in my opinion). So about a month ago we headed up to do the whole thing this time. The water was cold! A neoprene hood might have been nice. But the falls were great and the last one was pretty fun. Fairly high flow so I was a little worried about it, but there was a clear course through the middle of the two falls. Our pull cord got stuck halfway down the falls though, so Anthony climbed all the way back to the top and rapped it again Awesome points went to him because that upclimb is steep and sucks. Overall a good time with good friends. And the last rappel? You actually might be able to use a 200 foot rope on it. It would be tricky because it would put you on a slick slope, but if you landed on it solid it would be an easy walk to safe ground. If you missed it though you would fall about 10 feet. Wouldn't be so fun. Here's some pics.









Sarah forgot to put on her helmet on the first rap. She fixed it on the next ones Tom




My Wife on Rappel and looking good!




Anthony getting drenched








Cliff at the bottom of the second biggest drop, though it had the most water directly in your face. Our pull cord twisted into the rap line when I came down (bad planning on my part) and I got stuck untwisting ropes for about 5 minutes in the middle of freezing water








Me on the last big drop. I didn't know if I could go over the top safely so I went down the left side and moved over out of the flow a little further down. Everybody else went over the top easily and stayed out of the majority of the water.






Cliff at the bottom of the big rappel. This is where a two hundred foot rope would reach to. You could easily walk under the falls to the right of Cliff and get down safely. But, if you missed the ledge it wouldn't be fun.




Overall an excellent trip with excellent friends... but Cold!! I think next time I'll wait until July or August.

[Slot Machine]

Sweet!! Nice pics!

[New Mexico]

Looks like fun and a little cold too.

[jbick]

This December I got married though, and my friends gave me a 300 foot rope for a present (best wedding present possible in my opinion).

Awesome friends!

[DesertDuke]

his December I got married though, and my friends gave me a 300 foot rope for a present (best wedding present possible in my opinion).

You two must have registered for wedding gifts at Tom's store.

[BW123]

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[ghawk]

Was there black webbing in the upper canyon still?

BW

There was. We left the webbing last year on our way through.

[BW123]

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[ghawk]

I left 5 slings around 15 years ago; perhaps gnomes stole them.

BW

Probably. When we went through last year there was nothing at any of the raps. This year all our stuff stayed from last year and I found a dyneema sling at the last drop. The sling was only a few feet long and I was worried about the pull so I extended the anchor closer to the edge. Worked great. We're tight on money right now (Wife and I are in grad school) so we won't be able to head south much over the next year or so, so we'll probably be rapping the different routes we can find around here. Cliff, who I go most with, is getting married so he'll be in the poor boat too I think. So we'll hopefully find lots of interesting local stuff. We'll head back to Stewart sometime and see if gnomes have visited...

[ghawk]

Awesome friends!

The Best ones! Here's the pic




We also took this one, seemed appropriate. I don't generally use a totem, but for an event of this... size it seemed appropriate.

[Sandstone Addiction]

Looks like a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing.

[accadacca]

Awesome. Love the hard hat!!

[antdun]

Haha I love the picture of you holding the spool of rope and us cheering! And of course we're cheering because we know we'll likely get to use it too!

[Taylor]

How long did it take you this year? We are going to do it tomorrow. Need to tell some folks a round trip time from Draper. Thanks

[ilipichicuma]

How long did it take you this year? We are going to do it tomorrow. Need to tell some folks a round trip time from Draper. Thanks

It took us probably about six hours or so from the trailhead and back. However, we had a fairly large group and weren't moving very fast. You could easily do it a lot quicker than that.

[Taylor]

Right on. Thanks again