We didn’t let the shuttle mishap deter us from our ultimate goal of descending waterholes this holiday weekend. Englestead was just a warmup so to speak for the bigger more intimidating rappel sequence of waterholes canyon.
You have to love a canyon that start immediately off the road, yet you are the only ones in the canyon.
This canyon seems to have a little of everything. Here is a nice tight passage
This pothole came equipped with a cheater log so I challenged Hollon to do a solo escape which he easily accomplished.
The canyon opens up a little from time to time, but the beauty never stops. This is the blue lichen wall.
Given our late start I talked everyone into using wet suits to make the river portion more comfortable. We decided to wear them instead of trying to lash them to our already full packs. The clouds were non-existent so we ended up getting a little overheated. We took to the shade every chance we got.
Here the team works through a skinny down climb. How big you are determines how far out you have to traverse before you drop down.
Jill making it look easy
I love this pothole with the bottom blown out.
This is a fun down climb into a waist deep pool. Not sure why there was such a big effort for Todd, Tom, Ram and company worked so hard to avoid the water? Maybe February had something to do with it? (see:
http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/rave/0902wa/)
Top of the rappel before the big drop.
One last pothole to play in. This one Kelli lends me a knee which provides the missing foothold to escape. Jill awaits her turn.
This arch rivals anything in Zion. IMHO
Kelli surveys the situation. Our goal is to keep all the ropes we came with. I think it’s a reasonable goal.
While I am down in the nook setting up, Kelli comes down to join me.
True to his words, we are able to fit 3 with gear in the nook. Unfortunately they had to wait and wait and wait as I was not having any success in deploying the 360 foot rope. Not having a rope bag meant I was going to have to make a good toss, but on every attempt the strands kept piling up into the rope eating crack (REC).
After several unsuccessful tries we decided to try bagging half the rope in our rope bag that the 200 footer is normally in. Then we would have Kelli descend first and deploy the rope as she goes. This worked for getting the rope past the crack but we didn’t think about rigging her device into a mode that would not twist the rope. As a result she had to tie off every 20-30 feet to untwist the rope before it became entangled in her device. Once she reached about halfway she was able to drop the rope bag. Next time we will make sure to have a large enough bag or stuff the rope into a pack. Lesson learned
Now that we had the pull cord out of the bag I had to deal with that not getting stuck in the crack. It wasn’t much of a problem and only once did I have to tie off to make sure the knot tying the ropes together was free from the crack. Which posses the question of what have some of you done here for rope maintenance on the pull side?
Here is a nice shot of the full wall with me on rappel and Kelli providing a belay. One other note: if you are going to man the top station for others, don’t be wearing a wetsuit. The sun baked and dehydrated me. I was okay and had water, but I could easily see how that could turn it into a situation where you are not thinking clearly and mistakes could be made.
Here is the team feeling accomplished…nope feeling badass!
The canyon tree signaling we are close to the river.
The obligatory inflating of the rafts photo. Yes that is my club 300 (3 man boat). But in my defense I have had it for almost 10 years before I really knew what pack rafting was all about. And this was it’s last trip as it had a hole in it and I threw it away upon reaching Lee’s Ferry.
Waterholes as seen from the river
11 hours total from top to bottom, which included a 2 hour paddle (half in the dark).
Jeremy Freeman
Nice TR! I still need to get over to this canyon, looks great!
FYI @Mike Zampino: I’d love to have included this on the homepage carousel but all your photos are too small; the minimum resolution I can use is 640×428.
Mike Zampino
Hmmm – All I know is that all the potholes were easy to escape with a buddy boost. All the anchors we user were in good shape. There was a big cairn in the center of the slot that I assumed to be the midway exit. We never considered NOT doing the 300ft drop after all that is what we came for. I had heard about the alternate route, but never considered it. I had been wanting to do the big drop for 20 years now (since 1994) when a climbing friend/co-worker was rescued out of waterholes because her trip leader didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t have enough rope to get the whole team down the big drop. (Back then they used to use the mid-wall station on the 300 footer). We did use the new bird perch station. You still need to be mindful of that crack.
townsend
Mike, thanks for your answers. Here is a link to a previous trip report, which was first posted “pre-flood” and then (apparently) amended after the poster did the canyon again “post-flood”: http://www.summitpost.org/waterholes-canyon/716826
He does mention a 13′ deep pothole at the bottom of rappel #2, but said it could be bypassed by rappelling from a (second) set of anchors located on a ledge on canyon right.
Actually, the three “new” rappels (you may have downclimbed some of them), are after rappel #4 (not before, my bad). According to the poster, they are new obstacles “post-flood,” if I understand him correctly. I am still interested in knowing anything about them because the exit on canyon right is after these three rappels/downclimbs. I think he thought that the small chockstone anchor on the second rappel (or downclimb) was sketchy, so I was interested in what your team did.
Thanks for the excellent trip report. Did ya’ll consider the alternative route instead of the 300′ drop at the rope-eating crack? It is discussed at the bluugnome site here: http://www.bluugnome.com/cyn_route/grand-cyn_lower-water-holes/grand-cyn_lower-water-holes.aspx
Luke got the info from Eric Leifer. Luke provides a link to Eric’s site. If I am understanding the photos correctly, check out photos 41 and following at Eric’s site.
Did you use Tom’s anchors, which are perched on the edge for a cleaner pull? See one of pictures at this link here: http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/rave/arizona-strip-waterholes-canyon-feb-2009/
Kuenn
Enjoyable read, thanks for sharing.
For the knowledge base, what rap device was she using?
Mike Zampino
ATS
townsend
The upper section of Waterholes with the escape route down canyon right interests me. Can you go into more detail on this, since it has changed post flood.
1) The bolt (without hanger) coming up from floor at first rappel–is it still there? Bent over? I know one has to at least be careful weighting it . . . less the webbing slip over the top.
2) Supposed to be a deep pothole at second rappel, which I think can be bypassed by a longer rappel from another sets of bolt (on canyon right?).
3) Anything new and unusual about rappel 3?
4) IIRC, your sixth photo is a picture of the fourth rappel (aren’t those humongous metolius hangers on the wall?). Were there any new rappels between the old/pre-flood 3rd and 4th rappels? If so, did you use chockstone anchors? Or tricky downclimbs? (A previous trip report seemed to suggest several new rappels between 3 and 4 and the use of chockstone anchors). Thanks.
Mike Zampino
1) Yes it is still there, but it isn’t a difficult rap. You could back up everyone except LMAR.
2) We didn’t pay attention to avoiding any potholes. So if we avoided it, that was because it was obvious on how to avoid it. We dropped into a few pot holes, but all of them were easy to escape with buddy boosts. A good climber could probably escape alone, but those days are long gone for me. Especially with muddy shoes. YMMV.
3) I am not good at remembering each rappel by number so I don’t recall which one you are refering to. We sometimes downclimb stuff that have anchors and I know there was at least one spot in waterholes with an anchor we downclimbed. So my numbering may be off. I thought rap 3 is off the huge slab by the blue lichen (huge bolts)? This is a easy rap so maybe I have the wrong one?
4) I had a group of very competent friends go through 2 weeks before my group. So I knew everything would be rigged and ready to go. We carried only minimal amount of webbing just in case, but as I thought we didn’t need it. There was 1 spot that looked like a tricky downclimb into a pothole. One of the guys meat anchored the 3 of us into the pothole. Then he traversed canyon right and over kind of a fin. There is a foothold on the oppisite side of the fin that you cannot see, but easily found with someone spotting that person.
Hope that helps. I think I have photos of this obstacle. I will look tonight.
Redrockhikerboy
Mike, I thoroughly enjoyed your Waterholes trip report and photos. The explorer 200’s…those sons of guns are heavy, but they are cheap and they get the job done! I have only done the upper part of Waterholes, then the escape route back to the road. While that is only about a sixth or less of what your team did, it was still a really beautiful section of canyon and I am happy to have dropped on through it. Thanks for the virtual experience of going all the way through and down the big rap sequence. No ropes eaten by the REC…smiling faces all around. Well done!
chris mattera