Hard Day Harvey

[Slot Machine]

On the crisp morning of February 15^th, 2016, Stephanie and I ventured into Hard Day Harvey.

We’d been in the gym the entire winter, training six days a week for a busy 2016 canyon schedule. I’d lost 18lbs, and Steph had recovered from a dislocated wrist injury. We were antsy, like harnessed sled dogs at the beginning of the Iditarod, eager to see if months of conditioning was going to pay off.

I had never done a canyon weighing under 170lbs. On this day I weighed 155lbs. It was the lightest I’d been in sixteen years. Perhaps more useful than the weight loss was my volume loss – nine liters shed since my previous canyon.
___

We park at the trailhead then hike directly into the drainage (some folks take a sneak route, which we’ll do next time). The top part of the slot is nice, worth doing once, but uses precious time and energy that proves valuable later.

We pass a fresh rockfall in the canyon. One fallen slab is stuck between the wall and a spire of stone, some 60 feet above the floor forming an impossible tabletop arch. How new it this? Is it unstable? I lean on a 1,000 lb blade of stone standing in the wash and it easily tips over. …Yes, rather unstable. We climb gingerly over the rockfall.

Soon we hit the crossjoints which are the signature feature of Hard Day. The air is cool and we pray for dry passage. Left. Right. Left. Right. The movement is engaging and my downclimbing requires less effort while wearing my new smaller fat suit. Down, down, down. Far above on the north facing slopes are little patches of snow. It is still winter.

Steph often leads the charge through skinny canyons and she is flying down this one. The Gods have seemingly sculpted this one just for her. Fluid and graceful, she moves ahead with confidence. She arrives at the first crossjoint silo and downclimbs the offwidth slot on the entry side without hesitation. I am startled by how quickly she does this. I downclimb it with the grace of an ogre being shoved from a high dive, thankful for the aggressive spot below.

We arrive at the second crossjoint silo, which is nearly identical to the first. We repeat the procedure. I note how difficult these moves would be when slicked with mud. Multiple times the effort. The third crossjoint silo is the most serious. The upcanyon slot tapers then spits you out as it turns overhung, some 15 feet above the floor of the silo. Difficult to downclimb alone, but fun and rewarding to conquer with a partner.

The canyon narrows then goes black. A gorgeous red and orange cavern presents itself. Challenging photographs are taken. We rap from a tangle of prayer flags. We pass Good Day Jim. Maybe not in that order.

We arrive at a narrow section and Steph curses. Her goal of staying on the ground for the entire canyon is thwarted. She is forced to stem up and over one pinch and misses one linear inch or floor travel. Dang!

We enjoy a nice break at the bottom of the canyon then wander along the edge of Lake Powell on our way back to the truck. We have difficulty finding the weakness in the very top layer and waste 90 minutes wandering. The sun sets. Butterflies in the stomach. Minutes before dark we find the weakness and hustle back to the truck. Precious recovery time wasted and needless calories burned. We will be very sore tomorrow.

Overall, a fantastic canyon. Steph’s new favorite. We can't wait to return to Ticaboo.

-Bob















Looking into the first crossjoint silo.


Above the first crossjoint silo. Steph's head is about 20 feet from the floor, the camera about 30 feet from the floor.










http://amazingslots.blogspot.com/201...ay-harvey.html

[french_de]

I really like that cross joint silo picture. Thanks for posting

[peakbaggers]

Nice one Bob. Can hardly believe Steph managed to do virtually all of it on the floor. Congratutions on trimming the fat. Not clear on which exit you took - the Good Day Jim or the one overlooking Powell but it sounded like the Powell overlook where you have to navigate back through all those fins?

[Slot Machine]

I really like that cross joint silo picture. Thanks for posting

Thanks, Doug. Watching from above was fascinating. I should have filmed it.

Nice one Bob. Can hardly believe Steph managed to do virtually all of it on the floor. Congratutions on trimming the fat. Not clear on which exit you took - the Good Day Jim or the one overlooking Powell but it sounded like the Powell overlook where you have to navigate back through all those fins?

Thanks, Tim. We took the east exit through the fins. It was a fine walk out... we made the hard part look easy, then made the easy part look hard. Ugh.

Curious, have you done both exits? If so, how do they compare? In a few weeks we will do GDJ, so we're tempted to use the HDH exit because we know it now.

[peakbaggers]

"Thanks, Tim. We took the east exit through the fins. It was a fine walk out... we made the hard part look easy, then made the easy part look hard. Ugh.

Curious, have you done both exits? If so, how do they compare? In a few weeks we will do GDJ, so we're tempted to use the HDH exit because we know it now. "

Bob- when we did HDH, we exited by way of the GDJ exit. When we went back and did GDJ, we figured (similar to your thinking) that using the GDJ exit again made sense, so we never used the east exit through the fins. We avoided the east exit partly because of warnings about it getting complicated in the fins and being short on daylight. I posted a report on HDH on this site with coordinates to help with the GDJ exit and a few photos if you want to try it. The first half hour upclimb is the tough part. The rest is easier slickrock hiking with trail at times. Here's the link to that report: http://www.bogley.com/forum/showthre...ard+day+harvey
GDJ is much easier unless it's wet. We did the pothole fork. I have a Candition report on it with a little more beta and a full report on Canyon Collective here: http://canyoncollective.com/threads/...day-jim.21248/

[Iceaxe]

The west exit is simple, easy route finding and boring. The east exit is a little more exciting and adds a little spice to what is otherwise just a long boring slog up the hill.

[oldno7]

The west exit is simple, easy route finding and boring. The east exit is a little more exciting and adds a little spice to what is otherwise just a long boring slog up the hill.

Plus if you have a good arm, you can throw rocks at the lake...

[Slot Machine]

Cool. Thanks for the input.

[flatiron]

Very nice pics. A friend and I did it 2 yrs ago in fall. And we found out as we got into it right after a flash flood. 1/2 through the tech section it was waist high water, very muddy and a mess. A fun mess but going was a lot slower. So much that I virtually took no pictures - all of our gear was completely fouled up and caked with dry mud by the end.
And 3-4 anchors were blown out so we had to scavenge and make new ones. So much slower descent than prob normal or what we expected. We also took the East exit and ended up wandering in and out of fins. Long day. Great canyon.

[Slot Machine]

Very nice pics. A friend and I did it 2 yrs ago in fall. And we found out as we got into it right after a flash flood. 1/2 through the tech section it was waist high water, very muddy and a mess. A fun mess but going was a lot slower. So much that I virtually took no pictures - all of our gear was completely fouled up and caked with dry mud by the end.
And 3-4 anchors were blown out so we had to scavenge and make new ones. So much slower descent than prob normal or what we expected. We also took the East exit and ended up wandering in and out of fins. Long day. Great canyon.

Your adventure sounds miserable. I kept looking at the high mud lines on the walls and imagined the extreme difficulty.

I've been obsessed with doing HDH during dry conditions for the past 2 years. Before our trip, I watched the precipitation totals for 8 weeks to make really REALLY sure that it was dry before we went in. Even then it was a gamble because there was melting snow dripping into the canyon. With a little bit of luck my effort payed off. Next time I'll go on a colder day, during a similar dry month. Probably best during December or January.

[rockgremlin]

This is a quality TR. Thanks for bringing the canyon experience to the less fortunate.

And keep 'em comin'!