Pictures and Story by Dave "Wyoming" Pimental
Monday, April 14, 2008
When we got back to the desert I was pretty amped to bang it out and be on our way. We were meeting the Ransom Brothers to do the exploration at first, but Dan's vehicle was giving some troubles and Penny and I would be alone for the start of the trip. I still figured Piglet would be ideal; several partner-assisted downclimbs and the final 50' elevator would require very little in the way of logistics and gear. We would rather have more back-up but it shouldn't be a problem to pull off this little project with just the two of us. After all, it's just a few tricky downclimbs, a few rappels, and the final 50 foot elevator.
We geared up with the stuff I thought we would need and buzzed right up the approach to the head of the canyon. We set the first rappel, headed down through several nice problems in the beginning sections, and quickly made our way to the fun stuff near the end of the canyon. The downclimb to the final section, which had turned me back during my scouting, did indeed prove to have an overhung portion at the bottom which is not very easily reversible without setting an anchor for a handline. With Penny spotting me, I was able to jump on down the last few feet to the sandy bottom.
Now we were in unknown ground and enjoying the corridor before the last drop. It is a wonderful little walk around the corner to the edge of the drop off where the slot twists to the right and drops out of sight. Penny rappelled first off a meat anchor and I was going to follow by skittering right down the final elevator shaft to the bottom. At least that was the plan.
As soon as Pen began rappelling down the elevator, she began to have her doubts. I soon heard a small voice come up from below, saying:
"Um, I think you should probably set that drop to ascend and come down and check this out".
I replied "Huh?"
Up from the depths: "Well, I don't think this is the elevator you saw and then there's another 50 foot drop but it doesn't look anything like you described. There's a pothole at the bottom and not sand like you said."
I am astonished; how could that be? "Really?" I ask, hoping she's just giving me a hard time.
"Yeah, really. The water goes off around the corner" comes whooshing up the canyon with the next breeze and I'm starting to get concerned.
Of course, I rappel on down and she's entirely correct; this isn't the place I described and it looks like we have another 50 foot elevator before the final one that I looked into.
Now we're both getting concerned, but we're masking it by saying things like "Yeah, sure, there's just the 50 foot elevator and that's all there is to it."
So we're laughing and joking about how silly I can be and things are becoming quite merry. The canyon has turned out to have more to it than I suspected and I'm certainly feeling like I've been put in my rightful place amongst all the other fools in the world. There's an undetermined depth of pothole water below the second 50 foot drop, in a series of at least three 50 foot drops, in distance where I had convinced myself there was nothing but smooth sailing. We are running out of rope and to top it all off we don't have wetsuits because of my overly-optimistic under-assessment (mis-underestimation) of the canyon.
Sure enough, we are backing out and happy to find ourselves doing so without too much difficulty. I, for one, am much chagrined and sheepishly embarrassed that I misjudged the canyon to such an extent. I also feel the need to get back and finish that last 50 foot elevator. I think it's just one more 50 footer! It's beautiful in there and our own antics make us laugh; Piglet has become Merry Piglet.
