5/25/14 - Elephant Butte (Moab)

[jman]

After 'Not Tierdrop' the day before with the group of 12 - the next day we finally decided on doing Elephant Butte in Arches.

Elephant Butte is the tallest point in Arches NP and the route is highly enjoyable, especially for going up rather than the usual down. The two rappels just added the needed canyoneering fix, but was definitely a all-hands adventure.

I'd recommend Elephant Butte to most everyone. The crux leading up to the first rappel was the highlight for us. Jeff (the guy filming) and Dave seemed to walk right up as demonstrated in the video. I was able to do it without aid, but it definitely gets the blood pumping!

As we were setting up the first rappel, it started to rain on us and even caused a "flash stream" in the "slot" below. That was enjoyable to witness that but we were very cautious of the lightning! We took shelter and waited out the storm for a bit and re-evaluated. Even with the storm now gone and water trickling down everywhere, we were still able to summit.

As were coming into view of the last rappel, we were thinking 'oh great, a swimmer pothole - time to get wet" which wasn't to exciting. Thankfully, most everyone was able to stem across it. The girl in our group used her boyfriend as a brace as he stepped across, but that didn't work out so well as you can see in the video.

And the last rappel was great as a part of it is free-hanging (we love our free-hangs) and in our case from 30 minutes earlier, created a small waterfall to descend through!

We follow the GPS coordinates (climb-utah.com) and it eliminated all confusion - Straight forward. A fun route in deed.

Here is Jeff's video edit of our trip. Enjoy! (and as always, watch in 1080p)



And later tonight, I'll add some of the pics from that trip to complete it.

[moab mark]

Nice IMHO Butte and ROA best bang for the buck in Moab.

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[jman]

Nice IMHO Butte and ROA best bang for the buck in Moab.

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Yea, I couldn't believe how fun Elephant Butte was. Non-stop action there.

You forgot a canyon for best for the buck - Pleiades. My favorite in all of Moab.

[moab mark]

Yea, I couldn't believe how fun Elephant Butte was. Non-stop action there.

You forgot a canyon for best for the buck - Pleiades. My favorite in all of Moab.

The problem with Pleiades is it's not usually in season when most people are in Moab.

[Iceaxe]

The problem with Pleiades is it's not usually in season when most people are in Moab.

^^^THIS^^^

Pleiades can be done motel to motel in under two hours and there is very little to partner it with when it's in season.



Tap'n on my Galaxy G3

[jman]

^^^THIS^^^

Pleiades can be done motel to motel in under two hours and there is very little to partner it with when it's in season.

The problem with Pleiades is it's not usually in season when most people are in Moab.

As our atheist emperor has said on a few occasions, as he thus quoteth the Bible,: "Man shall not live by canyoneering alone".

Don't you Mark and Shane do other "walking-activites" besides canyons in Moab? Isn't Moab famous for it's NON-canyoneering things?

Pleiades and hiking the Devils' Garden Loop, or Pleiades and Wall Street, or Pleaides and Jeeping on Fins and Things are all excellent ideas for "in season" things with Pleiades. But then again...most canyoneers I know ONLY do canyons - no hiking, no climbing, no pushing over goblin formations, etc., so I can understand your frustrations...

[Iceaxe]

Hiking and Jeeping in July and August are not popular in Moab, at least not by those who have done it before.