Death Canyon, March 10, 2002, Part Two

Some interesting bowls were found in the upper part of the drainage. A good place to film Mountain Bike ads.

 

John and Alicia enjoying some interesting rock placements. Hmmm, how did this happen to happen?

Now the challenge is to find a way into the middle of the canyon. We follow a slot, but it ends in a 40 foot drop, not quite downclimbable. Since we're having such a good time poking around, we decide to look further, eventually sweeping all the way around the head of the drainage and finding a rib that permitted downclimbing into the canyon's middle section, not too far upstream from the dryfall.

Not this one.

Yeah, this one looks good. A corner in the buttress allowed easy access to the middle-canyon bottom.

We get down in, follow it a way, then it slots up nicely. A bit of downclimbing leads to the last drop.

Alicia sets a sling around a chockstone, usable for the final short drop. We messed around with setting a guided rappel, just for fun, though the geometry was not advantageous. The key point here, though, is that the Emperor, going last, did not even get his feet wet. (And they wonder why I run the show...) Zip back out to the car and call it a day. Alicia heads home (sorry hon) while the rest of us head for the Escalante-Dominguez-Grand-Staircase National Monument, for a little early season slot action.