Rock Of Ages Nov. 7, 2015

[Sandstone Addiction]

Took advantage of a beautiful late fall Saturday to make a long awaited descent of ROA.

The canyon is full of water with the 2 unavoidable potholes in the short slot being armpit deep on me. Swimmer for the shorter ones in our group. The pool at the bottom of Pool Arch (which we didn't do on this this trip) looked like a swimmer as well.

Along for the fun was myself (Dave), my son Brandon (12), Charlie, Jack, his son Mykal and his daughter Crystal.

This canyon was a lot more pretty than I'd imagined...definitely the most scenic of the limited list of Moab canyons I've done so far. Will definitely be doing this one again with the Pool Arch rap included.


Brandon and I on the approach.




Jack on one of the fun upclimbs.




Chimney Arch. L to R, Crystal, Jack, Brandon, me (Dave) and Mykal. Charlie is taking photo.







Any idea what this scat is from? I first thought Coyote, but those are juniper berries and seeds.




Pool Arch from the top.




Brandon in front of the, what appears to be deep, pool at the bottom of the arch.




Looking up at Pool Arch. Spectacular.




Potholes bypassed on right.










Jack entering the short slot section.




Another small group in front of us getting ready to swim.




Jack stemmed across the first pothole, but not this one.




Mykal swimming...yes, it was very cold.




Warming up in the sun. Looking up canyon from near the final rappel.




Brandon making his way to the final rap anchor.







Crystal on the final rap.




Me on rappel.




Packing our gear after a very fun day.

[moab mark]

Nice, have probably been thru at least a couple dozen times have never seen more then a couple of inches of water in those two potholes before you go into the small slot. Pool at bottom of pool arch looks waist deep. When were there just one gets wet. We zip line them from the crack to that big tree behind the pool. Kids love it

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[Iceaxe]

The pool below pool arch can vary greatly in depth. I've see it ankle/knee deep and I've seen it a swimmer. It just matters if the previous filled it in or cleaned it out.

[Sandstone Addiction]

There were some of our group that wanted to rap the Pool Arch rap, but there was a group that was just starting to get set up and we didn't feel like waiting for them as the days are just too short and we'd never been through this canyon before.

The group caught us later and told us that it was armpit deep.

[Udink]

Any idea what this scat is from? I first thought Coyote, but those are juniper berries and seeds.

I've seen similar scat in the Swell that I'd attribute to a bear.



This was rather large to be from a coyote, and it was in an area (near Cottonwood Wash) where a friend had seen bear tracks before.

[Scott P]

I first thought Coyote, but those are juniper berries and seeds.

Coyotes do eat berries and fruits, as well as meat.