Canyoneering Skills

[Iceaxe]

I took some friends to North Wash this weekend who had only canyoneered in Zion. They had done all the Zion canyons.... (That should get Tom's panty's in a bunch... ). The group had done the usual Zion trade routes of Pine Creek/Mystery/Subway/Keyhole/Birch Hollow/Englestead/yada yada.


I had forgotten what a step up in skills North Wash and similar places are to the noobies first venturing outside the rap-n-swim kiddie canyons of Zion. It was fun to watch them learn new skills and experience another side of canyoneering. I think the down climbing, and what they were actually able to down climb was the biggest eye opener for them, the lack of bolts and visiting the skinnies for the first time was also enlightening.


Anyhoo.... not any real reason for this post outside of the fact that the weekend brought back a lot of memories from my first trips to North Wash. Taking noob's out and helping them improve their skill set is a lot of fun, if you haven't done it in a while give it a try.

[hank moon]

Anyhoo...the weekend brought back a lot of memories from my first trips to North Wash.

like rapping on polypro ski rope?

Attachment 80264

[Iceaxe]

like rapping on polypro ski rope? 8:

Attachment 80264

Ahhh... yes, the good old days

We were damn lucky to have that rope as we had used up everything else in our backpacks.

[qedcook]

It's true. Usually when I meet someone who tells me how much canyoneering they've done, I resist the urge to chuckle. I wait to do that until I've asked them what canyons they've done outside of Zion, and they reply, "Little Wild Horse".

[TommyBoy]

My favorite are the non canyoneers that insist that they've seen everything Zion has to offer even after I explain to them how different the slots are from the rest of the park.

[Rob L]

I'm an inexperienced canyoneer.

Iceaxe & Moab Mark and ScottP and many others took my frail hand and introduced me to the Moab "canyons" back in 2009.

That same year, they threw me from Moab to Sandthrax Campground, where I met up with a group & did a few of the Irish canyons.

I then wended my own bedraggled way to Zion, and did Pine Creek and Spry with others that I had bumped into.


In the intervening years since then, I've done a few more trips to Utah and a few more canyons ... but very largely with the help of this site.

And after 6 years, I am still a very inexperienced canyoneer.

Rob

[ratagonia]

I took some friends to North Wash this weekend who had only canyoneered in Zion. They had done all the Zion canyons.... (That should get Tom's panty's in a bunch... ).

Cool. Hope I can get their notes, because there's a few canyons with 5-6 hour approaches that don't look like much, and i'd rather not do them if they are duds. Get them in contact with me... will ya?