I've always been a sucker for what I call "megascapes." Places where the landscape just looks huge. The Spur is definitely one of those places. I had only been out there once before, but I remember the views east out over Canyonlands to seemingly stretch forever, until the La Sals finally broke the horizon. To the north, the Book Cliffs. To the west, Temple Mountain and the Swell, then farther to the south is the Henry's. And from some views, you can see the Abajos as well. It's huge out here.

Eric and Mike had never been out here before, so it didn't take much to convince them it was worth the drive. The fact we now had some beta on a few more options for canyons out here was just icing on the cake. The plan was set. East Fork of Water, down to check out Horseshoe canyon, and then the next morning, out to Low Spur.

The Spur is worth the drive, but the drive is still a bit of work. The road was in reasonably good condition, but I am still not convinced that a passenger car can get out there without risking losing an oil pan. By in large, the road is passable, but it was not without a handful of pretty rough spots between Hans Flat and the Spur Junction. Best to have high clearance, methinks.

With a high clearance, or especially with a 4WD, the options on the Spur are greatly enhanced. We, unfortunately, were lazy in figuring out the road conditions, and blindly took Mr. Kelsey at his word. As it turns out, most of the Spur road all the way down to the Horseshoe canyon trailhead was passable, with a decent rig. We decided not to risk it, but instead walked to the whole road back. (About 4 miles.) Not really a big deal, except that we cut out a side trip to the Great Gallery because of time constraints. On the walk back, we realized that the road, while very rough, was certainly doable, and could shave at least an hour, if not two out of the day.

If we could do it again, we'd set up a shuttle at the Canyonlands trailhead, descend Water Canyon all the way to Horseshoe, head upcanyon to the Great Gallery, and then head north back to the car spot at the trailhead. Would make for an ideal way to bag a canyon, and see the sights.

But I digress. Back to the canyon. This is another one I had high hopes for, but was unable to glean enough information to discern if it was a really good canyon, or just another canyon.

The approach was fairly quick. About an hour, and we were at a location where it would be very easy to walk to the bottom of the canyon, and head on down. Problem was, there was very obviously a slot above canyon as well. Turns out, this is mentioned in the book, but it was obvious it had never been descended. We figured, we're here, let's do it. We came to do a canyon. And based on prior experience, we weren't sure how much canyon was really here anyways.

1st rap was off a small tree on the left LDC. About 40 feet to the bottom. A short walk takes you into some nice narrows for a few minutes, and then to another drop, of around 50 feet. What a perfect place to practice some natural anchor skills. I farmed up a good sized boulder, and Mike and I hoisted it over a few potholes. Eric rolled it down canyon and we buried it under the lip of the pothole. Perfect fit. We rapped down, and thus concluded all 150 yards of the upper slot. Probably not worth doing, unless you want to play with some ropes and build some anchors. Nice little warm up, not much more.

Heading down canyon, the canyon quickly slots up. Gets pretty darn tight for a hundred yards or so, and then the best features come into play. A couple of bolts on the canyon left anchor a 25 foot rappel, into a nice keeper pothole. Came as a pleasant surprise for us. The lip was about 6 feet above the sand, and the sand was sticky mud. Eric was unable to escape by himself, even with a pack toss. The lips is overhanging and cuts horizontally, before going back to vertical. Purchase is tough to get with the mud down there. The other option to avoid going in would be to do a small dynamic move across the pothole while on rappel. The move looks pretty manageable, but we deemed the penalty points to be higher than we were comfortable.

The pothole was quickly defeated with a quick game of "Toss the Dwarf." Eric was up and over quickly. He anchored a set of slings for footholds, and we sequenced the rest over. Tough to say how difficult the pothole could be in different situations. If the sand gets scoured down lower, it will get tougher. But judging from other reports we've read, no one has encountered too much trouble with it.

After the pothole is a couple of fun downclimbs, then a super dark section. Before long, the southeast fork comes in on the canyon left, and there is a possible escape. 100 yards down from the confluence is a little crack in the ground. Upon further inspection, the slot drops right down out of the floor. We arrived to find a small chokestone that had been slung for an anchor. The thing was hideous. Lucky no one was injured rapping off that thing. We tidied it up, and slung a tree about 15 feet back from the lip. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of webbing, so it would be helpful for the next group to extend the webbing to prevent rope grooves. We had used a fair amount on the anchors earlier in the day.

A few more downclimbs, and some nice slot, and there's the final rappel. In typical Robber's Roost fashion, the exit is a beautiful overhanging rap into a huge grotto. I estimate it was about 80 feet, mostly free hanging. The lower canyon is a nice hike, with plenty of hiker trails from wanderers coming up from Horseshoe canyon.

Once at Horseshoe, it is about a 45 minute walk to the south to get to the Grand Gallery. If short on time (like we were), you can head left for about 10 minutes, and still see three really great panels. After that, it's another long hike back to the Horseshoe trailhead, and up the old Phillips road to the car. All told, took us just over 8 hours, without a car shuttle. Certainly time could be saved by skipping the first two rappels, and by placing a car spot at the Horseshoe trailhead on the Spur road.

Overall, East Fork Water was a worthy objective. When combined with Horseshoe, it makes for a really nice day, combining perhaps the best petroglyph panel on the Colorado Plateau, with a fairly casual slot canyon.

Lost Park - Bluejohn - E. Water - Low Spur - Smallcatraz - Li'l Bull - Chambers