I try to never turn down a first descent invitation if at all possible. They only happen once after all! Armed with nothing more than GPS coordinates of the two projects' locations, I scoured aerial imagery trying to assess what might be in store. This first canyon had multiple discrete slot sections with what appeared to be escape options between, i.e. periods of commitment with opportunities for respite. Most of the slots were a thin dark gap on Google Earth imagery, offering no clue of what was inside. A few places appeared to have headwall rappels. The final section was the longest and appeared to be the most committing; again shadows obscured most of it but the end appeared to be a chain of formidable potholes and drops culminating in one epic final rappel (later measured to be 300ft!). Just above this end-of-the-world pouroff, an odd shadow could be seen on the imagery- a sizable natural bridge that perhaps had never been visited before! The surrounding slickrock and quality of the rock also suggested great things. It would be a long drive to and from the Colorado Plateau, but based on the little information I had, I was pretty sure the two canyon projects would be total winners in terms of scenic beauty and technical challenge.
I packed over 800 feet of rope to contribute to the cause, readied a pothole escape kit, and replenished my emergency bolt kit in anticipation. I was excited! It has been a while since I had a first descent project to look forward to and rarely do ones of this caliber appear these days. Objectively, they probably ended up being some of the best first descents on the Plateau in several years.
Keith and I got a morning start on the drive so we could meet the rest of the crew at the designated turnoff with over an hour of daylight to spare. We'd be traveling the sort of dirt roads you don't really want to be traveling for the first time at night. I have had plenty of experiences driving to remote Grand Canyon canyons where late night mistakes cascaded into determining the fate of the trip. The original plan was to all pile in one 4WD truck but this seemed a daunting task given the five people and mountain of gear. Keith opted to attempt to drive his Outback down the seldom traveled sandy road so we would have two vehicles available. Happily Keith and his car were both up to the challenge and it worked out perfectly. We made camp in a sandy wash draining into the head of our unnamed canyon, against a backdrop of rock monoliths. Most of us were overeager (and cavers so why not explore a canyon at night!?) and opted to stroll the thousand feet down the wash to check out the short uppermost slot section for a taste of what was to come. A downclimb led into a short rappel so we walked the canyon rim around and walked up from the bottom of this uppermost slot. The slot was surprisingly bigger and more sculpted than I guessed from the aerial photos, one of those classic larger in real life situations. Lukas and I walked up the slot and with little more than minor scrambling we arrived at the same rappel I stared down at. We ticked off the upper slot, our excitement for tomorrow no less. The tentative plan was to try to complete the lower slot sections first which appeared to be longer, harder, and have more vertical drop, and then to loop back to work through the upper slots.
Lukas and I got an early dawn start to walk out and scout the canyon. We were able to effectively determine several possible exits and found a useful cliff break that would provide a straightforward commute to the lower canyon. We slung packs, heavy with ropes, bolt kits, and tools of the trade, but happily no wetsuits, determining water to be unlikely in the current deep drought conditions. We walked red dirt flatlands on meandering cow trails to our sandstone cliff break, then continued a further mile across an undulating slickrock ocean, taking care to avoid the well-developed patches of cryptobiotic soil. The scenery was truly spectacular, with sandstone monolith after sandstone mesa extending all the way to the dark ominous peak on the horizon. Hidden from view between us and the horizon were countless vertical-walled canyons. It was a wild, wild landscape we would just be touching the surface of.
We dropped packs at the sandstone patio which drained into our dark slot and scouted some more. It looked great! Definitely some drops and fantastic flash driven scouring. I hiked along the rim and scouted two possible escapes and convenient locations, which I took back to convince the others to plan a pull-through trip rather than a rig to return assault. I was excited to commit to the unknown rather than having the option of retreating upcanyon whenever we wanted, and this approach would save us lots of rigging and time.
This section of canyon was off to a good start! In three-hundred short but twisty feet we had several downclimbs, big pothole rooms, and narrows with swirly sculpting overhead. This ended with a 50ft rappel (one of two bolts we placed) and then a shorter 15ft one. This small taste suggested we'd have some more great features ahead in the longer 1400ft section of committing canyon that would follow. Already this 300ft was among some of the best sculpted slot I've ever been in. Unfortunately Keith had to tag out- his fractured ribs were not feeling great on some of the downclimbs and so he climbed out and was given detailed instructions on call out procedures and potentially placing an escape rope for us further down.
The second section of canyon started strong with some deep (but fortunately very dry!) partner assist potholes. This led into some more scrambling narrows and then a partner assist downclimb into a very unique breached pothole room with an impressive natural bridge. The features in this canyon were fantastic and it was often that the person in the lead let out excited commentary on the next feature to be seen. We had a short 30ft long section of canyon that required stemming about 15ft off the deck, a nice bit of spice. Fortunately this is all the stemming we had to do in this canyon- it would have been a very different trip (epic) if we had thousands of similar feet to surmount. With me in the lead, six hundred feet of canyon led us to a weird sloping downclimb beneath two natural bridges; we passed packs effectively through this section and were working well as a team. The slot ended abruptly at a horizonline into a broader amphitheater. What we thought for sure was a drop into the continuing slot turned out to only be a few feet down to a wide ledge we could walk out of the canyon. We made it through this section in great time, only 40 minutes. We took this well placed break to drop packs, walk laterally to rendezvous with Keith, and scout an escape route for the lower canyon. I ended up fixing a rope to a small Charlie Brown juniper which would provide us an escape route up a steep slab. There were some interesting plant casts eroding out of the sandstone near this prominent ledge we all took note of. We had lunch together in the shade on the spacious ledge and I tried to scout some of the lower canyon from above.
After lunch we rigged a fixed line rappel of about 70ft off a sizable juniper (since we had plenty of rope and knew we could easily get back to the ledge) into the continuation of the slot. I optimistically hoped we could keep up our swift pace but this section had some deep keeper potholes and minor water hazards that slowed us down. The keeper pothole sequence was fun, a buddy boost got me out and then I provided the meat anchor for the others to follow. More antics followed as we passed packs across a pool on a line and then took turns leaping for dry land; few succeeded. Another notable feature was a 20ft slide where I provided a meat anchor for the others and then positioned my pack as an anchor to my headline. It worked perfectly with the anchor failing at just the right place to slowly lower me to the ground. I felt pretty clever with that one. Some more potholes and downclimbs and we were at our climb out exit, fortunately even easier than it appeared at a distance. This section took us an hour, still not too shabby.
And now the final section at the end where drops and potholes led to a final 300ft end-of-the-world rappel into the trunk canyon. This section we would rig to ascend back up since we did not have a feasible exit route from the bottom of the last rappel. We selected a healthy juniper out the side of the canyon and protected the rope with several rope protectors to drop a nice 50ft falls. Down a ways and around a corner was perhaps the most dramatic horizonline encountered so far. The next drop was beneath the much anticipated natural bridge into a wet pothole. Anchor options for this next drop were not great so we added a new rope to the end of the last 200ft rope and added a redirecting knot chock I probably would not have trusted for a solo anchor. I went first down the most perfect 70ft smooth chute of a rappel and splashed down into a thigh deep pool with deep squishy mud. I waded across the pool, awkwardly climbed out the pothole lip and passed beneath the bridge. Once Lukas was down he meat anchored me to peer over the penultimate drop into a deep keeper pothole before the final lip. Unfortunately this last rope was too short so I turned around after a quick look down. We retraced our steps jumaring up the last two drops, then easily climbed out the side of the canyon. The escape rope I rigged worked perfectly. We returned to the ledge to collect our things and hike back up to the patio at the start of today's slot.
At this point it was 5pm but I was still hungry for more slot and managed to convince the others to drop packs at the head of the patio and explore upward into the next slot section. A great twisty 300ft of slot with some minor downclimbs (upclimbs for us) opened up at a dramatic gateway and a place we could climb out. We continued on through another shallow 350ft of slot with some trickier climbs to another possible entry/exit. Enthusiasm was still high (all time high if anything) so we continued onward to see what the next 1400ft long slot, the darkest and narrowest on the imagery, had to offer. This was easily some of the best slot canyon I had ever been in! The shapes, the colors, the variety was astounding. Some sections were incredibly dark, nearly requiring a headlamp. Every step was another irresistible photo and scene I wanted to capture forever, a thousand feet of magnificence. I could hardly contain my excitement as could everyone else. The slot was remarkably easy going until the end when three climbing obstacles presented themselves. I couldn't coax anyone up the third one (surely we would be checking this canyon out again tomorrow but from the top), and so backtracked down this best slot and then climbed out to bypass the sections below to our packs. Back to camp. The wind had picked up during the day and my tent was full of sand! Despite the wind it was an amazingly satisfying day and we had a pleasant enough evening. I slept poorly due to near-constant sand blasting my face during the night.
Thinking [correctly] that the most challenging sections of slot were behind us, we packed considerably lighter the second day. We had three 500ft sections of slot canyon yet to explore (upper sections) and the top 400ft of the dark slot we ended with the previous day. The first slot was shallow and narrow, cutting through a pastel red unlayered sandstone with some minor downclimbs and sideways shimmies.
The second slot passed through some strongly layered orange sandstone, which offered up some of the best gracefully swooping lines and golden light. The third slot was an easy walkthrough and did not have any particularly noteworthy features. This led us to a small patio at the top of the darkest slot.
Scouting from the rim we determined there would be two drops and beyond I could recognize the spot I upclimbed to. We opted to rig both these drops using a long rope attached to a juniper. After we passed through the slot and looped around to our dropped bags, I would go down the first rappel again to pull up the rope. The top of the slot had some nice golden light photogenically bouncing down the unlayered sandstone walls. The second rappel was particularly nice, down a clean dryfall into a pothole room. Some boulder scrambling then led to the final boulder choke featured I awkwardly upclimbed. I provided a meat anchor for everyone to rappel over the top boulder, then shimmied down the tight rabbithole behind, needing to remove my harness first to fit. Then a chockstone downclimb. Then a twisty chute downclimb and we were back where the others turned around at the top of the deepest, darkest, most sustained slot. The slot was every bit as good as I remembered from the day before. We all took our time slowly working through the slot, irresistibly taking photos at every turn. Out the bottom we looped back to our packs and had lunch on the patio as the wind raged.
It probably ended up being a solid four star canyon, not bad considering the relatively easy access this day in age. It had some fantastically scenic slot sections, lots of variety, and a few fun challenges. Because of all the opportunities to escape between slot sections it did not have the same commitment as some other first descents where you have to fully commit to the unknown for hours, but nevertheless it was well worth the lengthy drive, even without the second canyon project we had in mind. I felt very fortunate to have seen this special place.
The return to the cars and the drive out the sandy road were thankfully without incident. It was only 3pm at this point when we said goodbye to Clint. The wind raged and the forecast was for increasing winds and a chance of rain tomorrow evening. The prospect of waiting out a miserable evening in the sand and the mental warfare of the wind prompted me to suggest retreating to a motel. I'm usually not the hide in a motel type but I could not have another lousy night's sleep like the previous night and the motel would give us the chance to be very organized for a solid effort the following day. The motel and food was a nice break from the wind; the retreat worked well in setting us up for success the following day.
