No Kidding: Chock Full of Kidders...

[Erik B]

After 6 LONG canyonless months my Seattle crew finally made it back down to the desert for 11 days of adventure in the North Wash, Grand Canyon, and Buckskin/Paria! Wheels down in SLC and thus begun the rat race of baggage collection, rental cars, & supply shopping. We were off like a shot and managed to squeeze in a lap through Zero G on the way down to the North Wash. The next day we ran through one of the Leps and Blarneys.

After clearing up a bit of confusion that night concerning some beta with a ZAC crew camped adjacent to us at Sandthrax (thanks again guys) we tried our hand at No Kidding.

We had relatively minimal experience with the Sandtrap but learned very quickly. Fortunately we had 5 people of varying sizes such that we could thoroughly test the trap before putting the last person at risk.

Here's what we took away from the experience:

• Lightest person always goes last.
• Be generous with sand. The trap pulls easier than you'd think and it's better to have more than less weight.
• Surface area of the trap on the sandstone matters. Distribute sand as evenly in the trap as possible.
• Everyone but the LAMAR is backed up by a meat anchor. We left 15ft of excess rope up-canyon of the trap and had the meat anchor attach via ATC to that.
• Use low impact rappel techniques: Scoot on to rappel on your belly, maximize your surface area on the rock, and dont ever stop once on rappel.
• Watch for movement of the trap while others are on rappel. Add sand if needed.
• If ANY doubt, test the pull after the first person is down. We made sure not to actually dump the sand while testing the pull.
• Always ensure you have access to more anchor material before sending the last person down.
• Bring Potshots to ferry sand if needbe.
• BRING A trowel/garden shovel for shoveling sand! It beats using your hands. I owe Bootboy a big thanks for recommending that.

Things went swimmingly. The escape wasnt quite as bad as I had anticipated either. Steep but short.

And to clear some things up from the pictures below:

1. Yep, those are suits.
2. Yep, it was fun.
3. Nope, we didnt get stuck or require rescue.

Canyon-suit stigma be damned. I'm out to have fun.




"Wait...how do you use this thing again...."





This is the Video from the entire trip (North Wash, Grand Canyon, Buckskin & Paria). I've got some more pictures and a few videos concerning this post from ~ 3:00 - 6:05.

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[Absolute Gravity]

...Canyon-suit stigma be damned. I'm out to have fun....

You guys do it right.