Out of Egypt Sept 6-8

With determination we woke early to make the drive across three and a half states to make the most of a quick trip to the Colorado Plateau. Though lengthy, this all went smoothly and we made good time arriving to the Egypt Trailhead in Escalante before 4p. It is clear the Escalante area is now considerably more popular than my last visit. We past numerous vehicles on Hole In The Rock Road and what used to be a one vehicle turnout at Zebra Slot has grown to a parking lot with more than 20 cars in it. We finished last minute packing at the Egypt trailhead and had a good snack and drink before setting off across the slickrock and sand to the Escalante. I think looking out from the trailhead Heather felt overwhelmed at the intimidating extent of this slickrock wilderness, and I could recall vague memories of the same feelings on my first visit many years before. The route was largely as I remembered it. I had both my pairs of 5.10s dramatically failing me, which reduced my enthusiasm and forced me to switch shoes midway. It was hot and sweaty and we past several groups hiking out and a couple more camping by the Escalante. I was happy to see the Escalante flowing nice and clear (a water source!) and the refreshingly cool temperatures. We hiked upstream through the river and then through willows. We spent considerable time scouting a good campsite, and with some improvement selected a nice one above a bend in the river with a nice deep section below. While Heather worked on dinner I rigged the slabby friction climb out of the canyon on the approach to Choprock to make the early morning start easier. 

I slept well with the cool night but unfortunately Heather got next to zero sleep, which killed all of my enthusiasm to take her through Choprock, which would be a long and challenging day already. So yet again the opportunity to go through Choprock eluded me for like the fifth time! Disappointed and down, I slept in with the hope we could do something with the day with some sleep. We wouldn't have time for Choprock or West Baker and so our options were Neon (which I had been through twice) or Ringtail from the top (which I hadn't). So we packed up for a trip through Ringtail and set off from camp shortly before noon. On the way we had to cross the Escalante numerous times, and passed two decent petroglyph panels (unfortunately with a fair bit of unamusing graffiti). My favorite was a section where the rockwall had narrowly spaced vertical fractures that broke the wall up into elongate tablets that the artists very clearly found inspiration for a number of vertically focus motifs. It was one of the rarer cases I had seen of petroglyphs being designed for the canvas.

The scramble out of the Escalante alongside Ringtail was easy enough to spot. Once up the going was great with nice slickrock benches to walk on along the dark void below. We made great time to the drop-in. The canyon was bone dry, which made pretty good travel. 

The first section is shallow, more open, but with several chockstone downclimbs, most short, easy and unmemorable. We did find one prominent pour over that Heather opted to rappel while I traversed ledges around and down.

About halfway through the canyon distance-wise we had another short drop to contend with. I meat anchored Heather then she carefully spotted my downclimb. Now the canyon really started getting deep and narrow. Many time I had to dismount my pack from at least one shoulder to fit through the slot sideways. We were expecting two formidable keeper potholes. I crawled through a narrow gap and found an anchor for a short awkward rappel into a room-sized dry pothole. We both dropped in and set about trying to escape its steep 9ft lip. It took us a good while to find the winning combination of Heather boosting me close to the slope to climb out. I then rigged a rope and had Heather use ascenders to escape. Once I climbed out of this pothole, looking back I recognized it: this was the furthest extent Ryan and I upclimbed the canyon many years back. This was good news in that we were nearing the end and I knew we should not have too much more trouble, but somewhat disappointing that I now knew all the best parts of the canyon were downstream.

The second pothole posed much less of a challenge and was a straightforward partner assist. Beyond were a few more downclimbs and the narrowest, darkest slots. It was interesting to see this canyon in its bone-dry condition. The last hundred meters of the slot were certainly the best. Dark almost to the point of flashlight, and one interesting tunnel-shaped section. So I think we ascertained that Ringtail was fine but certainly hiking up from the bottom is the way to go.

At the end of the slot we had a quick snack and I took some more photos before we headed back to the Escalante River and returned upstream. We still had a little daylight left and so decided to drop packs and take a detour up Neon to the Golden Cathedral. We had it to ourselves given the late hour, which was nice, though the pool at the base was at a meager seasonal minimum. Back at camp we opted to have dinner on the sandy bar at the edge of the Escalante, which was very pleasant given the warm evening. I debated attempting Choprock alone the next day and packed for the possibility.

In early morning the weather dramatically shifted as a cold front set in upon us. Between the cool temperatures and worried about Heather being bored for the day I decided to give Choprock a pass (once again eluding me!). We slept in and eventually got around to deciding to hike out. With the cool temperatures and light wind hiking out was a breeze.

In Escalante we shivered waiting on some pizza and managed to return a lost driver's license we found on the trail. We drove on down Cottonwood Road, which thankfully was in great shape. We detoured briefly to Grosvenor Arch and then turned to weave in and out of the dramatic Cockscomb monocline. We had very little daylight left but I wanted to try to make a quick stab at checking out Yellow Rock. Unfortunately I was mistaken on the approach so this turned out to be a walk up lower Cottonwood Canyon instead. It was nice enough and we probably didn't have time for Yellow Rock anyway.

We found a nice enough camping spot sheltered from the wind behind an enormous sandstone rockfall block near some mud cliffs. It was a cold night!