Arizona Strip: that skirt of red rock land north of the Grand Canyon on the Arizona/Utah border. A long but satisfying day. We left Flagstaff early and headed for 7 Mile Draw, a short one rappel technical canyon near the Navajo Bridge. Most of the canyon was pretty boring until the 85' dry fall rappel into a cathedral-like chamber (click photo at right for larger view). We explored further down canyon a ways towards the Colorado River, then returned the way we came, doing a fun and easy rock climb up the dry fall (with a belay, 5.6). Next stop was exploring Middle Waterholes Canyon outside of Page, AZ. The slot had a few nice narrow sections. While we were happily photographing, thunderheads were building overhead. By the time we started heading up canyon thunder could be heard. When we got to an unclimbable dry fall (deadend), it started raining good and thundering loudly, which prompted a rapid adrenaline-aided escape down canyon to where we could climb out of the canyon. We tried to stay on a bench halfway up to avoid a potential flash flood below and lightning strike above. We then checked out the Toadstools- impressively transient balanced rocks called hoodoos- in the last light of the day. We camped near a flooded Paria River.
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