Guadalupe Canyon Dec 28-30

We planned a quick two night escape to Guadalupe Canyon just south of the border to round out the end of the year. Somehow our last visit was ages ago in March 2019, and somehow despite the age of social ruin, the 20+ reservable campsites were more than half empty a few days before New Year's. The place is a true oasis of hundreds of California fan palms clustering around several hot spring sources that feed the hot tubs in an otherwise arid lowland desert. Each campsite has at least one private hot tub and each site is unique. Some have commanding views of the Cerro Rasco crag towering above, others are tightly nestled by palm fronds. The improvised infrastructure and network of pipes gives a Swiss Family Robinson vibe to the place. Onto this trip we planned a brief visit to the southern Salton Sea to look for burrowing owls and to see how the main geothermal area had changed since several years ago.

We drove down the east side of the Salton Sea in the early morning and then turned off near Niland to attempt to navigate the very muddy canal roads to the deadend road closest to the new Salton Sea Mud Pots. The Christmas Eve storm had clearly hammered this area and it had me wondering what access would be like to Guadalupe. Here I sent up the drone to survey the current configuration of the geothermal area, and then to fly over Mullet Island to scout future access. The cool morning temperatures meant abundant steam at the mud pots. The general size and configuration of the geothermal field was much the same as several years previous but there were new details including an intricately pockmarked field of overlapping single source upwellings in a colorful wetland. 

The drone returned, we continued on backroads past Red Hill and then over to the Sonny Bono Visitor Center. We strolled in and asked the guy at the counter about where we might be able to see burrowing owls. Sure enough he pointed to a xeroxed treasure map with "x"s for known nesting sites and gave us a brief rundown on etiquette and the helpful heads up that the nests are typically marked with a long wood stake. This was just what we wanted. As we nearly went to leave the docent pushed a piece of paper from the adjacent pile onto us as well: where to find all other birds in the southern Salton Sea. The persistent analogy I cannot shake is of him being a drug dealer, starting us off on the easy drugs (cute silly burrowing owls anyone can appreciate) but trying to push us to the hard drugs and a life of squalor (generic birding). I took it not to offend. We slowly navigated roads chasing "x"s, soon getting a good sense of what the owl burrows looked like. At the first site we saw a cute owl poking out of its burrow framed by an old tire. At the second we were able to get even closer to an owl poking out of irrigation piping it was just barely small enough for. We found our vehicle to make an effective blind, allowing us to view it closely without stressing it out. We struck out at the last two sites we visited. It would have been nice to have seen some more but we were otherwise satisfied to have seen a couple.

After the owls, we had a final gas-up and crossed the border at Calexico into the slightly chaotic streets of Mexicali. Slowly we progressed through many many stop signs and lights to eventually reach the main highway heading west. Even as we crossed the Sierra Cucapahs outside of town I was still undecided on which route to take into Guadalupe Canyon. I have only ever taken the free-for-all salt flats route in, which is typically faster but given the recent rain it had me worried for deep caking mud patches and a tractionless surface beneath a thin dry crust. I opted to try the "official" graded road closer to the mountains instead, despite its reputation for potholes, washouts, and washboards. Happily this road seemed to have been fairly recently graded and I was pleasantly surprised by its quality. It took us 1hr20min to reach Guadalupe Canyon- we definitely made the right choice. There was a new wash crossing at the mouth of the canyon with a wide swath of light-colored boulders from a storm several years ago (Hurricane Kay?). This storm was easily the biggest impact this canyon has seen in recorded history with a 150ft wide path of destruction wiping out hundreds of palms trees along the creek bed, leaving bedrock and deeply scoured pools in its place. I felt like the remix was a net positive thanks to all the newly deepen waterfall plunge pools along the length of the canyon. I was delighted to see that everything remained in its semi-primitive state from several years ago apart from a couple new signs. This was my third time staying at the hot springs, always on the north side of the creek, but the first time staying past the gate. 

We honked our horn as instructed and were soon met by friendly caretaker Fernando who led us to our site, La Cueva (frontispiece), and gave us the one minute tour. This was easily one of the smallest sites but might be my favorite of the 20+ camping spots for its privacy and beauty. A few footsteps through palm trees and across a hot water rivulet led to a nice concrete slab for a tent with palms overhanging, a few more steps around rocks led to a small picnic table with palapa roof and balcony-like views over the palms stretching down the slope, a few rock steps to a second concrete slab with fence that I found to be nearly perfect for a hammock and lounging, and then finally through a narrow gap between two palms was our own private hot tub with a large boulder cantilevered over half of the pool to form a grotto (hence "La Cueva") and the dam side forming a ten foot cliff nestled in the palm oasis. It was spotlessly clean with built-in rock seat and a simple quarter-turn valve that allowed us to control the temperatures for the full gamut from too hot to too cold.

After setting up camp I talked Heather into a short 0.3 mile hike up to the first waterfall. This was completely different than last time with two deeply scoured swimming pools where formerly you could walk to the base of the falls in ankle depth. She chilled at the falls for an hour while I made a quick 600ft vertical scramble to a ridgeline vantage where I could send my drone far upcanyon to scout a potential hike or canyoning trip for the following day. I was impressed at just how much the canyon was reamed out by the flood with scour marks visible perhaps 50ft up the walls of the canyon in places. In minutes I made it up about 1.5 miles to the final falls, a particularly picturesque bottomless pool in an inescapable gorge. 

Cerro Rasco towering above all

As sunset light began to kick in I worked my way back down to Heather and we returned to settle into our campsite. Quesadillas and margaritas led into many hours of perfect soaking. Heather was feeling a little sick, otherwise no complaints at all. We both slept exceptionally well on our cozy air mattress bed while moonlight cast palm frond shadows on the tent.

Cascada Uno

I got up early enough for a peaceful sunrise soak in the hot tub, then breakfast, more soaking and a nap led me to a 10am solo departure for a hike up canyon. "Just in case" I carried 200ft of rope, neoprene, and vertical gear. I passed one group hiking just past Cascada Uno, then had the whole rest of the canyon to myself. Overagressive spray-painted white arrows on boulders led the way past the first falls and then gave way to spray-painted red dot chickenpox. I soon reached the terminal pool of Cascada Dos, one of the most beautiful in the whole canyon, deep with a sandy bottom perfect for swimming.

Cascada Dos pool

Onward I continued in and out of the shade of the canyon, passing several more pools, small falls, and tidy palm groves. A room-sized boulder balanced on outcrop was exactly where I remembered it, with nice multi-colored pictographs adorning its underside (happily no graffiti seen).

The 500ft gorge section below the Pool of the Virgin (Cascada Quatro) was even better than I remembered with nice light filtering through palm trees at the bottom, then a couple fixed ropes on short climbs to keep feet dry on the way up. Cascada Quatro was even more beautiful this time but the scoured vegetation and rock piles made it more difficult to do the climbing bypass to this falls. On thin holds and out of balance with my pack I managed to do a short climb up the arete, probably the most technically difficult part of my hike. At the lip of the falls I was impressed to see that the two former bolts had been sheared completely flat against the rock by the flood. 

Pool of the Virgin (Cascada Quatro)

Another thousand feet of boulder scrambling found me at the base of the awkward vertical-walled crack falls that represented my furthest upstream progress to date. This feature was quite different with a fresh and scary looking rockfall half burying the crack. I thought this might be the end of the road again but tried climbing up a corner on canyon right to at least scout what it looked like. One climb led to another climb which led to a third slabby shelf coated in gritty ball bearing rockfall. Carefully I made my way to the end of this. Right when I was thinking deadend, I found a sling of webbing to provide a reliable handhold as I swung my but over the abyss and then climbed through gaps in boulders at the base of the cliff. The rocks were angular, unstable and coated in dirt- I did not linger! I was excited to explore new parts of the canyon now.

The rockfall obstacle: ledges at the high left are the only way on

Several more stunning pools and falls followed with generous splashings of California fan palms and eventually even some Mexican blue palms. Following my nose I could bypass all of these falls on canyon left. Almost every fall I encountered could be jumped with the current state of the pools, which would make for a fun time with some likeminded friends. For this trip I opted to stay dry and enjoy the remote scenery. 

About three miles from the oasis and 3 miles into my hike (pace dictated by terrain, many photos, and many GPS notes), a distinct band of resistant rock descended from the north to the base of the canyon, forming a vertical-walled gorge with an incredibly deep 100-foot long pool with a 50ft waterfall plunging. My drone scouting revealed only one more downclimb above this then intermittent small pools and a few palm groves. Without significantly climbing out the canyon's left for over 600ft vertical, there was no way to continue further upstream. I sat at the edge of this pool for my only break of the hike, drinking from my water filter and downing a few snacks. It was slightly cool in the deep shadows; the falls whispered gently. 

Última Cascada 

My break felt long and restful despite being only 15 minutes. It had taken me 3 hours to get to this terminus and I had a perfect hot spring waiting at the end so I did not linger. I made great time on my return, only 1.5 hours back. The rockfall obstacle was more straightforward the second time and I did an alternative one-way downclimb lowering myself off of a palm stump that made easy work of reaching the Pool of the Virgin. It turned out I didn't need to carry any of the 20+lbs I shouldered and could have gotten away with a snack, water filter, and camera but I was mostly just thrilled to get a nice solo scramble in with high quality scenery and remoteness. Una pequeña aventura.

Back at camp I rehydrated, soaked, and enjoyed the hammock as high clouds and a peaceful calm set in. Heather had a nice mellow day cycling between tent and hot tub. After a bit we set out for a stroll and ended up chatting with Fernando. Between my terrible Spanish I managed to communicate that I had hiked to the last falls. Seeing my picture (which he thought was the fourth falls) we both took out our phones to compare notes. Eventually I convinced him and he was impressed. He showed us the seventh of seven spring sources a short distance up the hill, which amazingly supplies all the water for the south side hot tubs (no springs there). He also mentioned he was around for the biblical flood three years ago and among other things that it was the experience of a lifetime. With that we went on a counterclockwise stroll over to the south side of the campground and then looped through the bottom of the northside. Interestingly the south side was much busier. We stopped to check out each campsite that did not have occupants, again deciding that we had picked the best site for our getaway. Dinner and many more hours of blissful soaking followed.

We had a fairly leisurely second morning between tent and hot tub until about 10am it was time to go. A few drops of rain were a surprise and a good reminder that we seemed to find the perfect window between the Christmas storm and another one coming in over New Year's. We packed up, said adios, and drove out. Halfway along the dirt road I used our shovel to plow down a grading berm onto a spur road to try to check out a canyon I was intrigued by. Initially I tried a very long straight-shot drone flight to reach the canyon section but it actually turned out with the steepness of the fan I actually did not have enough height. I hemmed and hawed deciding whether it would be worth a bouldery ankle twisting 2 mile run to try to fly a drone from the mouth of the canyon. I felt bad leaving Heather but doing the math 1.5 hours was possible to run, fly, and return. The cloud cover meant ideal temperatures, ideal flat light, and zero wind. I decided to go for it. On a knoll at the mouth of the canyon I was able to fly over extensive (seasonally abandoned) illegal grow fields and then into the narrowed canyon section with two unclimbable 115-foot falls and then a monster 250-foot falls with picturesque palm groves above a below. It would take a huge amount of effort to get there but looked stunning and the drone photos were worth the effort. I made it back to the car in 1.5 hours. 

The rest of the drive was long but tolerable. I had carefully scouted a route through Mexicali to get to the border crossing which was slow but probably the best it could have been. It took us 53 minutes to get through the border crossing line, pretty much spot on the 50 minute estimate so we felt like we got through without too much drama. Calexico was a mess with southbound border crossings but eventually we hit the open road. Heather and I both decided we should make sure our next visit to Guadalupe Canyon was not so far in the future as our last visit was in the past. All in all it was three rejuvenating days.

Clear Creek Sept 14

I last visited the Clear Creek tributary of the Escalante in March 2014, a cold but otherwise wonderful trip through a lush canyon ending at an incomparable cavernous hairpin bend and waterfall grotto chamber named Cathedral in the Desert, key symbol of the grandeur lost to the waters of Lake Powell. For that 2014 trip Jeff and I descended a long chain of tricky potholes and then a 90ft freehanging amphitheater to enter the canyon; the lake level then of 3576ft elevation was the lowest since 2005 and was just about perfect to be able to jump the Cathedral waterfall into the lake and packraft out the canyon. As a sign of the times, the lake level for this current trip was 3546ft, 33ft lower than its previous year and an elevation at which the floor of the Cathedral would be fully exposed. I was interested to try the easier sidewall rappel route into the canyon (no wetsuits!), see the Cathedral fully exposed, show Ryan a bit of the wonders of Lake Powell, and confirm my packraft exit still worked at lower lake levels.

We awoke to a clear morning with lovely light growing on Fiftymile Mountain and a surprise in seeing a group of three trucks pile out a bunch of people a mile away right at dawn. My initial reaction was disappointment that we would be sharing the canyon with other people (this is a rare off the beaten path canyon where that should never happen) and that these other people were getting a head start on us. It was much much later in the day that we realized these were actually hunters and we did in fact have the canyon to ourselves.

We did our best to pack light and efficiently but packraft gear and 420ft of rope offset this pursuit slightly. the approach was a pretty straightforward 3 miles, mostly on slickrock. As we detoured around the prominent jointed side canyon (rather than straight down through the potholes like my previous trip), we noticed the group stopped high up on bench to the side (again strange behavior for canyoners but later understood as hunters surveying the land). We found the bolts for the sidewall rappel easily enough, and the rappel itself was surprisingly straightforward down a steep slab that sheep clearly use to enter the canyon. We came prepared for a 200ft rappel as the beta suggested but we found that 100ft was plenty to get us to low angle slickrock slopes.

Rope pulled, Ryan hung out as I had a quick jaunt up to the amphitheater rappel I did last time. I could see webbing on the bolts above so they seemed somewhat recently used. The whole area was a lot more overgrown than I remembered from the last time. From our drop-in we went around a beehive rock to bypass the first drop in the canyon, then crossed and recrossed through the lush vegetation. The whole technical portion of the canyon was only about 1500ft long with no slot- unlike Choprock we did our best to take it slow and savor the sights. A nice subway slickrock patio led us into a chain of wet potholes dropping a few short feet into a waist deep pool. It took some care to not have our feet slide out from underneath us and end up fully submerged but we both managed. The reflections in the pool and the hanging gardens of maidenhair ferns were spectacular.

A few steps further was our next ledge drop into a shallow pool. I remembered this as the one I meat anchored Jeff down and then jumped in with a spine jolting impact I had no plans to repeat. Happily this time a single good bolt was present on canyon left and so we used that for a 20ft rappel to the edge of the pool. More ferns. From here on out there was dramatically more vegetation than a decade ago, clearly a sign of these elevations more regularly being emergent from Lake Powell. It was an interesting contrast. No poison ivy and lots of green to contrast with orange-red canyon walls so I had no complaints.

Another short 200ft further was the last major obstacle before the Cathedral. Last time we climbed our way down a short slot on a knotted boater's rope across a hanging pothole into the pool below. This time we opted to try the less awkward route of descending 60ft off the side using an existing boulder anchor. The reflections, golden light, and trickling water delighted the senses.

Instinctively I held back a little at the penultimate bend in the canyon, giving Ryan the opportunity to enjoy coming upon the Cathedral first. I think overall the light was less dramatic than my last visit but everything else about the chamber was as impressive as I remembered it. With the lake evacuated out of sight around the corner the chamber seemed even more voluminous than I remembered. We hung out for a good long time, eating, drinking, and eventually rigging our rope for the last rappel into the Cathedral. The sliver of light that penetrated to the canyon floor moved rapidly in our time there. Cathedral in the Desert is a great name but if I first came upon it I think I would have gone with The Sundial Chamber. After a while we could hear boaters and when we spotted our first walking around the corner we decided it was probably time to finish the canyon. I went first and Ryan followed. A dozen or so boaters soon appeared to marvel at the base of the Cathedral most asking us where we came from and where we planned to go from here. Scenically I'm not sure if I liked the sandy floor of this trip or the half-flooded chamber of my previous- both had their appeal. We snapped a few more photos and then turned the corner to find a half dozen boats moored against the shallows of the lake and all manners of people and dogs enjoying the beach and water.

To get to the boats we had to swim about 40 feet across a finger of the lake. The water was perfectly lukewarm and I happily swam across. Ryan took up an offer to be ferried across on a paddleboard. I wish I had taken a photo: a guy haphazardly paddling across while Ryan awkwardly tried to balance on his hand and knees, with our two packs forming an overloaded pile in between. It looked 50-50 but they all made it across mostly dry. Happily a nice multi-generational family group gave us a ride on their boat, saving us time and wet gear as we zoomed the 1.5 miles out into the Escalante Arm. It was the good life. They kindly detoured the minimal 0.3 miles to drop us off at my exit ramp, just as easy at this water level. We gave our hearty thanks and waves, carried our packs up to the first ledge, then cliff jumped into the pleasant water to cool ourselves before the inevitable climb up and 4.5 mile journey back to the car.

Very frustratingly I managed to take the exact same wrong turn I did on my last time here! I was lured upward by the creases in the rock thinking I could easily top out onto the slickrock patio above when I should have followed Ryan's lead by traversing further over to some slabs before climbing. Exactly like last time I had to backtrack about a hundred feet of elevation and cross over further before ascending. Almost immediately we began to overheat as views of the lake teased us below. With the tricky part out of the way it would just be a whole lot of cross-country slickrock back to the truck. Partway back we heard a boom and then cheers as the group of hunters clearly made a kill across the canyon from us and we watched them coalesce for what was undoubtedly the not fun part of hunting. 

It took us about 3 hours to make it back to the car. Decisions. It was before 4pm. After some deliberation we decided we were satisfied with our couple trips in the Escalante and opted to drive back to Ryan's for a good night's sleep and the goal of tackling a mine the next day that Ryan had been raving about. We still had a loooong drive down 54 miles of the Hole In The Rock Road. We attempted to grab dinner in Escalante but the one place open was thoroughly packed with a long line to order and so we drove on. The pizza place in Tropic took good care of us instead. Ryan drove through the dark night through a parade of deer. I really enjoyed this canyon (so much more than Choprock). It is fairly light on challenge but tops on beauty. The boaters did us a solid too.

Choprock Canyon Sept 11-13

The South Fork of Choprock Canyon ranks highly on the lists of many canyoneers as one of the best for challenge, commitment, variety, and beauty in the American Southwest. Particularly noteworthy are long dark hallways requiring long swims and logjams that become extremely difficult to surmount when water levels are high. The canyon has eluded me repeatedly (four times!), more than any other adventure goal, since 2008. Several times I had camped near its base at the Escalante River only to have rain, thunderstorms, or a cold shift in the weather cause plans to be abandoned in the eleventh hour. A full seventeen (17!!!) years after my first attempt, it was time to make it happen. This was also a nice opportunity to reconnect with my longtime friend Ryan, who was a part of one of these false starts and who inexplicably I had not seen in over a decade.

An early start from Riverside saw me arriving in Cedar City, Utah around noon. After a bit of catch-up, rock/curio chat, and a tour of Ryan's neat place, we loaded into Ryan's beasttruck 2.0 (same make and model as we used on many adventures a decade earlier but taller so that I felt like I had shrunk) and set off for the comparably short drive to Escalante. We stopped briefly in the coffee shop in town to ask about recent rain and canyon conditions- the response we got from the two clerks was tepid and I was sorry I asked.

We found Hole In the Rock Rd to be in excellent shape overall with only light washboarding and we made good time down the first 16 miles to the turnoff to Egypt. We drove the familiar 10 mile side road traversing above the headwall patios of Egypt 1, 2, and 3 slots, then parked at the roadend trailhead. We were surprised to be the only car at this increasingly popular trailhead and the last entry in the register was from about a week earlier. We carefully high-graded rope and gear to take just what we might need (canned margaritas perhaps being the exception), then set off down the trail towards the mouth of Fence Canyon. Once again the cross-slickrock and cross-sand hike was familiar and the downhill 3.5 mile hike took us a leisurely 1hr40min. Upon arriving at the Escalante I found that I had miscalculated slightly, expecting to find clear water to filter but instead finding a semi-opaque creek muddy from some recent rains upstream. We initially walked barefoot in the river bumping toes on occasional cobble banks, but then crossed and instead dealt with the Russian Olive thickets armoring the riverbanks. With a strong breeze still passing through, we cleared out a couple camp spots under the junipers near the wall of the canyon that would be our climb out to start the next day's hike. We still had a little day left so decided to drink the margaritas to celebrate a trip together in our favorite place, instead of a successful descent of Choprock that we hoped would follow.

At daybreak we awoke to thunder and lightning to the north and south of us. Brutal I thought! Not again! We climbed up the slickrock and watched to see how things would develop over the next hour while we ate breakfast. As the weather rapidly moved past leaving clearer skies in its wake, dismay turned to mild optimism and we figured we should at least try to hike. 

We packed up for the day's adventure and set off up through cliff bands on a long 4.5 mile cross country jaunt to the head of the slot canyon. On the way we were treated to spectacular views overlooking the green ribbon of the Escalante, dense pockets of moqui marble concretions, the skyline of the Waterpocket Fold, dryfalls, and slickrock patios. We made good consistent time with a couple shortcuts but it still took us about 4 hours to go 4.5 miles. The weather seemed to be cooperating when we reached the start of Choprock so down we went. 

As we dropped in we found things sufficiently dry that we could hold off on putting on our wetsuits which was appreciated. What I expected to be a wash walk to the rappel into the riparian section actually turned out to be several awkward slot sections with tricky downclimbs, which caught me off guard. There was clearly going to be more to this canyon than the brief highlights mentioned in the beta. So far I was unimpressed by this 1600ft of canyon but I did enjoy the numerous frogs. 

The prequel slot finally ended at a nice little rappel into a scenic grotto that was the obvious start to the riparian section. Once down it was time for a snack and some water in the shade before continuing on. Several of the accounts I had seen raved about the "riparian section" with many calling it their favorite part of the canyon. It did not take long for Ryan and I to find this to be an overgrown poison ivy jungle we were very unimpressed with. Strikes were unavoidable so we did our best to step on and limbo our way through with minimal but inevitable contact. A different flavor of awkward. Sections were certainly pretty but the poison ivy was terrible and it was not even close to being a pleasant riparian section. Through horsetails, down rockfalls, and past tasty springs we continued to where the canyon narrowed with overhanging walls and waist deep water. This was the end of the riparian section and the start of the "happy section". I struggled to scrunch into my wetsuit, down more water and onward we continued. 

The happy section did indeed have some nice subway-esque hallways, corrugations, and sculpting making for a high quality slot. Swims were generally brief and mostly waist-deep wades. Bathtub rings on the walls indicated the canyon was in a low water mode and was typically 3 feet higher. Though wet, the going was great and scenery top notch. But this was over all too soon. After a short rappel into a mini-grotto with a joint hallway, things gradually deteriorated until we were clearly in the "grim" section...misleading since this was most of the length of the canyon. 

The obstacles in the grim section were numerous and not particularly fun. There were several slots too narrow for our packs. There were several 100ft+ swimming sections. But worse of all were the many many awkward downclimbs and nuisance rappels over, under, and through logjams. Many sections were in the near dark so between the lighting and the obstacle course I took few photos to adequately represent this section. It went on for ages with hallway after hallway. In typical fashion the canyon was often dead straight and narrow when it followed a joint and sinuous and sculpted when it jogged to find its next joint to follow. Neither was an accurate predictor of a pleasant section of canyon and so onward we scraped and swam. 

It was about 6:15pm when we finally reached the obvious 90ft rappel marking the end of the technical canyon. Here we found the existing anchor option to be a haphazard collection of wood wrapped in webbing I was not particularly thrilled about. We began evaluating and rigging to this but I was baffled by its existence. It had been a decade since I last walked up to the grotto at the base of this dryfall but I distinctly remembered bolts for this final anchor. Sure enough once I climbed up to the edge of the drop I spotted those same two bolts on the wall just out of sight. Relieved for a proper anchor, I rerigged and was the first one down. I was all smiles- happy to have finally been through this elusive canyon and all too eager to peel off my wetsuit after several hours' journey. Ryan followed and after about an hour we pulled our rope, filled up on filtered water, and began walking the 2.2 miles down the wash back to the Escalante and our camp. The light faded fast and we were soon navigating by headlight and phone light, still managing to sniff out a petroglyph wall on the way down. Once we reached the Escalante we had the surprise that the semi-opaque brown was now a swollen liquid chocolate- although we had not seen rain clearly the headwaters to the north got lots of action. 

We were well tired by the time we finally reached the remnants of our camp and not at all eager to hike 2 hours up in the dark back to the truck. The compromise was to pack up the last of our stuff and move our camp 15 minutes to the sandy campspot at the base of Fence Canyon. This allowed us to not deal with crossing the Escalante River again in the morning. Down to backup snacks and slightly rationing water, we had a grim dinner and settled in for the morning's light. We made great time back up to the trailhead, waylaid slightly by a couple women needing a jumpstart and greeting a guide/guided hiker pair. With that task complete we filled our face full of the nearest snacks and drove on back towards Hole In The Rock Road, surprised to see plenty of evidence of the washes flashing since we crossed them 36 hours earlier. So that was it, South Fork Choprock finally checked off my wish list. It had its moments but the one word summation is Awkward. It was worth doing but not worth the wait and anticipation after nearly two decades. Perhaps I am thoroughly spoiled at this point but I would probably not even place it in my top 20 Colorado Plateau canyons. Nevertheless it was nice to finally get redemption after so many trips and to tackle it with Ryan.