Outskirts of Wonderland Dec 21

With a half day to show a visiting Kiwi student a taste of something different, Joshua Tree was an obvious choice. A short drive from my new home, the granite slickrock and boulder piles are a world apart from the terrain on offer in NZ. Given the limited time I thought a taste of the northern outskirts of the Wonderland of Rocks would be a good approach. I wanted to have a closer look at the slot canyon and talus caves in Rattlesnake Creek than I was allowed on my last visit and figured it would add some interest and variety to a hike. We drove up the long bajada to Indian Cove. It was already a comfortable mid-morning temperature by the time we arrived at the trailhead despite being full-winter. We hiked up the wash, over and past flash flood polished megacrystic K-spar granitic rocks, quickly overtaking a couple less familiar with rock scrambling. We poked around the bottom of the slot canyon where I was surprised to find all the potholes full of water and frogs happily swimming and croaking. Some large slickrock slabs took us up and over to the head of the slot canyon. Although technically a technical canyon with 2-3 rappels and some beautiful sculpted water-features, it held little curiosity or lasting appeal to me since I could see the entire was only a stone or two's throw in length.

        Rattlesnake Canyon Narrows (unfortunately quite short)

Continuing on up the wash we turned the corner, losing the long views back down the bajada. As footsteps and trash diminished and boulders engulfed us, it finally felt like we were getting somewhere. Soon we came to the main tributary of Rattlesnake Creek where a complex pile of large boulders covers a bedrock canyon to create a talus cave. We did our best to follow the bottom of the talus cave but occasionally needed to climb up to a higher level to carry on. Overall the cave was more continuous than I was expecting and we needed to use a flashlight to get through the darkest section. The smooth water polished rock created some interesting play of light as light reflected its way into some of the cave's chambers.

        Climbing up a level in the talus cave

After a while the cave became shallower, less complex and more open which seemed like a good point to climb back out. Back on the surface we found ourselves surrounded by large rocks with hints of real wilderness. We continued up the drainage and picked a nearby hill to try to climb that would hopefully afford us a view and a lunch stop. After a tricky and exposed slab climb, we rolled over into the top of the hill. We enjoyed the many shapes and patterns and rock formations here at the edge of Wonderland as we ate lunch (frontispiece).

        Escaping the talus cave

        Deep in Rattlesnake Creek

The walk back was uneventful. Certainly much faster heading downhill and overland this time, but not without its route-finding challenges. With a little time to spare we drove on through the park to give some more glimpses of desert diversity and then stopped at a real palm oasis right on an active strand of the San Andreas Fault.

         Potassium feldspar megacrysts

        Cholla

Thanks to Sara and Genevieve for a pleasant day out.

Young River Dec 15

Jeff was immovable in his desire to spend our last full day in New Zealand packrafting the lower Young River. I felt like I owed it to him. The weather the last 1.5 months had been lousy which meant more waiting around than the promised action. I was somewhat keen though questioning how much Class IV I could handle. It was a beautiful sunny morning, unlike most other mornings we had seen in New Zealand. With light packs we made good time marching across the paddocks, across the Makarora River, and onward along the well-maintained Young Valley track. From memory we hiked something like 1.3 hrs up the track past the lower riffled stretches to near the top of the lower boulder gorge. Along the way we passed several intimidating waterfalls and hydraulics.

Towards the top of the gorge we inflated our Alpackas, and readied ourselves. This was a pretty intimidating stretch of IV+ with some real consequences in places. We took each stretch of river in sequence, tackling each obstacle one at a time with the other on throw rope duty. Though I didn't flip on any of these obstacles, Jeff generally handled things with more finesse and gave a couple things a go that I decided I would just as soon portage. A couple obstacles, including a beefy 4+ m drop we both said no thanks to. Progress was slow but it was pretty fun. It would have been better if we had the whole day and could lap the best features, but as it was I was rushed to get back to Dunedin to pack for our return to the U.S. Towards the end the boulders diminished, leaving a shallow riffled river completely different in character from the stretches above. This pleasant but slow moving portion of river sent us back to the Makarora River, which comparatively was a creamy blue color from the Blue River upstream.

       Going diving (somehow I came out of this upright)

        Lower stretches of the Young

I'd like to say the drive home and packing was uneventful but it was quite the opposite. A medical emergency ended up leading to a frenetic drive back to Dunedin followed by frantic packing between about 4 hours of sleep. I'm glad we were able to fit in some fun before the stormful finish to New Zealand. Unsurprisingly the NZ summer started improving considerably as soon as we left the country...

Photos of me by Jeff; thanks to him.

Wilson & Cross Canyons Dec 14

It was with great effort I managed to convince Jeff it would be a travesty to leave New Zealand without experiencing a Southern Alps canyon (plus I really wanted to see my canyon buddies). In the end I succeeded with a trip down Wilson Creek (only my second time down), to be followed immediately by a classic Cross Creek trip. Wilson was in excellent shape! Many things that usually are not jumps were cleanly jumpable, almost all pools deep and clean. My first Wilson trip was early on in my hydraulic canyon career and I remember the turbulent froth and water hazards impressing me. Now considerably more experienced several years later I saw it with completely different eyes. No less beautiful or fun, but considerably more friendly. A definite highlight was the 16m or so waterfall jump that felt a bit like threading a needle from the top. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Wilson is a very special place!

Alain, Jeff and I followed up with a run through Cross Creek while the other two buggered off back to town. I was sad to find many of the pools partially filled from the storm which limited some of the jumping and sliding options. Still a classic and I did still jump off the highest waterfall despite a slightly shallow pool. It was unfortunate we didn't get to fit in new canyons for me, but some nostalgia in some tried and true classics was certainly better than no canyons at all.

        Alain boldly jumping first

Thanks to Annette, Alain and Chucky. It was fantastic to catch up with you all.

Big Bay Dec 10-13

Here are a few quick pictures from fieldwork in one of the most remote areas along the Alpine Fault. A very scenic fixed-wing flight from Milford Sound landed us on the beach at low tide at Big Bay. We then hiked along the 3 mile long beach to McKenzie Creek and then bombed our way back and forth over the shallow creek. Eventually the creek turns a corner and enters a friendly bedrock gorge (dry shoes when done correctly). I had hoped to make it all the way up to the Alpine Fault on the first day but we had a couple delays and it was not to be. We did find a considerably better place to setup base camp on the one recently abandoned flood channel within a 2 km radius, which in the end was probably worth the longer commute. On my last visit to this area, this had been one of my most productive field areas. To my disappoint the last two years have been rough on this area (as well as everywhere else I visited along the Alpine Fault) and the superb outcrops (especially of the fault core) were much deteriorated. This greatly hampered my plans, but we did what we could with the time we had. We measured the orientations of fault-generated fractures, collected calcite veins from both sides of the fault, and took a detailed photo log section through the entire width of the fault zone. We only had one completely rainy day and the others were pretty decent. It was good to fit in this fieldwork at the very end of the season and much was accomplished, but as the general theme for my New Zealand field season, my expectations were much higher than reality.

Falls Creek Run Dec 9

For inexplicable reasons I was having a decidedly off day. Zero motivation and some sort of looming feeling of ill-will in the air. Maybe a fair bit of stress at the upcoming logistically intense fieldwork. Whatever it was, Jeff certainly didn't have it and was rearing to go packrafting before our flight in. We spent considerable time scouting the Hollyford just above Falls Creek. We both agreed it was looking be in good packrafting shape but that did little to dispel my "off" day. We decided to take it drop by drop, one at a time, with the other close by with the throw rope as needed. Jeff had clean runs through almost every drop including a nice 3m drop I gave a passed. I floundered my way through most in poor style. I was sluggish and felt like I had a log for a paddle.

On the longest section I pinballed my way down, eventually pinning myself to a rock and flipping in a classic what-not-to-do maneuver. After a bit of a swim and some fishing for my paddle, I'd had enough. There just would be no shaking my sluggishness this day! On any normal day it would have been an enjoyable run worth repeating. Jeff said it was one of his best ever.