CA: Death Valley – Purgatory 2-16-15

One of the best parts of a Death Valley fest, aside from escaping winter for a bit, is you never know who you are gonna do canyons with. Half your partners are often folks you have never met before. This group of folks had 4 I knew and 4 I did not. We had people from California, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado. I did know the canyon. Purgatory is in my top 5 canyons in the valley. I did not know the approach route. In fact none of us did. I approached it from the top once and the bottom established approach goes around Abysmal. So when we slipped just north of the mouth of the canyon and probed whether the route above was practical, we did so with the delight found in a thing being uncertain, in its outcome.

What did the approach reveal? After a short fan of loose rock, we found steep and VERY sharp limestone. My shoes felt stuck to the stuff. Would not want to slip on it and make contact with your skin. Ah but it allowed you passage up a steepness that might have had issues if it had not been such solid rock. We were engaged in the usual race to get up as much of the 3,000 vertical feet to the top of the canyon, before the sun slipped over the top of the hill.

Our experience was different than the Abysmal approach. After initially being steeper, the angle laid back a little and it seemed to angle up toward a low pass that the sun came through. direct sun and way earlier than the route less than a half mile to my left, visible and still in shade. Compensation for the sun was the lower angle, but more so, the route followed a delightful rib, with easy but engaging scrambling. Next time I will start the route a bit earlier, but would also be delighted to follow this line again.

Once in the canyon, we encountered the usual fare. Raps and raps and bypasses and raps and bypasses, watching the valley draw closer as we entered into the afternoon, all on the exceptionally good rock. This rock makes this part of the Black Mountains so exceptional. At the end of the technical section, we told the story of several years back when, someone left their keys and expensive camera up three raps and how we worked magic and loose rock to find a way into the canyon 5 raps up, and redo the bottom part, getting the gear when we did so. The fella who left the stuff? I will not name names. We met Mike and Abby who waited for us to come out the bottom, A shower at the resort preceded eating out at the restaurant. Another early start and late finish in the valley.

Cars at the bottom

Can you see them now?

SHARP and textured Limestone on the ridge

The sun has found us

Hi Rich

Colorful

Laura and Tom

11,000+ feet of relief

Carol …Erik and Rich beyond

DV pioneer Rick Kent

Teri

Luke not there but still present

The man, the myth

Jeff and Laura

Teri on rap

A REAL pothole in DV!

Our canyon.