The Latest Rave is your resource for Utah Canyoneering know-how. From Utah canyon condition reports to narratives of mind-bending epics to wildflower sightings, you will find all the beta you need from Tom and his team on The Rave.
Ramoo was doing a prodigious (as usual) May trip, on which I was invited but, c'mon, this is my time to make hay, as in dough, so alas... But it was INSISTED I participate on one particular project, where certain chunks of metal were inserted in backcountry holes, rather unnecessarily, with our job to remove them and patch carefully with epoxy. Yes, dear friends, nothing like a little bolt removal to get ME motivated.
Read MoreI have some bruised ribs, so I am not up for much right now, but I could not resist getting out to my closest Zion trail to shoot some flowers. It rained last month, almost every day. Now we have had a week or two of hot weather, so the flowers are out something FANTASTIC! All shots here at near the East Entrance trailhead to the East Rim Trail… and actually within 100 yards of the parking lot. SO many blooms out. No mosquitoes. Hot hot hot though…
Read MoreWhat is NOT-Hidden? Why, conspicuous of course. My friend Rick Thompson had attempted Hidden Canyon from the Top last fall, and due to navigational difficulties found him and his companions in a nearby canyon, thus the name... well actually, it already had a name, Grotto Canyon, and was listed in my book with the line "I did it, so you don't have to".
Read MoreWent off to do Dead Eye Dick with Amanda from Zion Adventures on Thursday. Since I had not done the one-car approach, and needed to for the website, WE (as in I) decided to do it that way, by starting down The Narrows, then climbing up a side-canyon to get to the top of the canyon. No problem.
Read MoreAfter a great day in Keyhole (which sounds faintly ridiculous)... Luke came up from Las Vegas, and the question was, what canyons COULD we do. Given the blanket of snow across Zion, Deeps and I kinda thought the only canyon that would be non-epic would be Pine Creek.
Read MoreMr. Deanpaul Russell aka Deeps came down to enjoy our incredible non-winter weather in Zion... except, the day before and the night he drove down, it snowed about 6" in Zion. Winter again! As the weather report predicted clearing in the afternoon, we delayed our start, meeting Jenny down at Deep Creek at 10 am. We geared up and picked up a permit, then headed up to do Pine Creek Canyon. The storm had cleared and the sun was out, melting snow on the slickrock. The flow in Pine Creek was a little more than we were up for, so we drove up the highway a bit, and ventured into Keyhole Canyon.
Read MoreSundance - my annual opportunity for culture and intellectual inspiration. This year I will make one post for each day, the movies seen that day. Day One: Alicia's next door neighbor scored me some tickets, but the first movie for the day was a pickup, and we used the new eWaitlist system to get decent numbers for Lambert and Stamp - a movie recommended by Alicia.
Read MoreThe big day was upon us. Yes, the night was cold and we rang in the new year at the appropriate hour --- for New York. Off to Hite it was, fairly early.
Read MoreIt WAS hot out, but a north-running canyon, early start and projected cloud cover combined to make this reasonable. THIS being exploring a branch of Echo Canyon that comes off Cable Mountain. The team for this adventure was Kody Prisbrey from St G, Jonathan Zambella from Springdale, Felicia Bicknell from Phoenix and me.
Read MoreBrian had done it. Kip had done it. Jonathan had done it. Ram had done it, but I hadn't done it. Looking forward to a second edition of the guidebook, I really ought to do it, even though they had made it sound not-so-appealing.
Read MoreFinally, a storm brought moisture upon us, first time since New Years. Not the best timing, however, as Ram was just blowing into town.
Read MoreFreezefest is an annual gathering of hearty (ie, foolish) canyoneers for canyoneering at the turn of the year. Camping out in single-digit temperatures may not seem like it would be fun, but with proper preparation, plus lots of firewood, fine spirits and good friends, it works out to be one of the funnest events of the year.
Read MoreOur annual INSANE canyoneering festival called FreezeFest is held in North Wash for a good reason - there are a LOT of good canyons within easy reach. For this day, we chose Paradiso out on Ticaboo Mesa, one of the Dante Canyons, possibly the funnest of the Dante Canyons.
Read MoreThe last couple years, Ramoo has put together a wondrous start to Freezefest doing a BIG canyon on Christmas Day - our contribution to the War on Christmas, I suppose. 2010 was Choprock, which I missed, being sick as a dog.
Read MoreMike casually mentioned he had his eye on a certain canyon, a painfully obvious one, in the heart of Zion. "No way", I said. "I've been looking at that for 5 years!"
Read MoreThough Utah's Capitol Reef National Park has a big handful of good canyoneering, Pandora's Box is clearly the BESTest! I hooked up with Ram and Brendan Busch (plus Jonathan Zambella, and Dirk and Nancy Tyler) for a few days out there
Read MoreZion's Subway is a wonderful, beautiful canyon, enjoyed by many people in several different ways. I made a run through on a recent weekend to re-locate the first anchor, bolted this spring but not in the best place (from my point of view).
Read MoreSome good canyons can be found at the south end of the San Rafael Swell. They are especially good, especially fun when full of water - as we expected to find them, thanks to storms tracking across Utah these last two months.
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