(February 2nd, Mount Carmel Utah) Late January and February had been quite wintery in Mt Carmel, so I was looking for relief. I had heard great things about the canyons in Death Valley - and tales of epics too. Ram hooked me an invite on the big trip, and off we go. First day (for me), we got invited on an exploration right off. Excellent!!! Nothing better than that.

Early morning, we leave camp at 5 am and drive up to Dante's View, which looks down 6000 feet to the floor of Death Valley at Badwater. Then head north along the ridge for aways. Only two canyons of this massif have official names on the USGS map - Coffin and Bad. Since the canyon we seek is well past Bad (and has a big drop in the middle (The Abyss)), they have named it "Abysmal".

Here's the gang, about to drop off the ridge. Scott Smith, Mike Schasch, Rick Kent, Mark Duttweiller, Steve Ramras, DB and Courtney. (T Jones taking the photo).

Here's out fabulous journey from Space, courtesy of Google Earth.

Down the ridge, into the abyss. First we go down about 600 feet, then across the face of the mountain for quite a way, past a ridge (white arrow) to gain the head of the canyon.

One of the early downclimb/rappels. Could downclimb, but even though the rock is gneiss it is not nice, with some loose blocks, so we did half and half. Here's DB downclimbing to get on rappel...

And then on rappel.

Ram as anchor, Mark as backup.

Mark on Rappel.