Scorpion – Black Mountains of Death Valley
One of the more scenic areas in Death Valley is located in and around the North End of the Black Mountains. The area includes Zabriskie Point and the back country in and around Twenty Mule Team canyon. Here the Black Mountains are covered with the volcanic ash, hematite and iron oxides that produce the red, blue, pink, purple, yellow and oranges hues.
Scorpion Canyon cutting through this layer of the Black Mountains is by most accounts a pretty decent canyon to canyoneer with some fun rappels, down climbs and great scenery. Most do this canyon with shuttle vehicle placed out on Desolation Canyon Road off of the Bad Water Highway.
What really makes this canyon spectacular is the view on an early morning climb up from the Twenty Mule Team road off of Highway 190. The land below unfolds into colorful rolling hills with purple, pink, blue mounds, hills and mountains, distorted and etched cliffs and a desiccated and tortured playa that stretches for miles. It is an amazing view that even a non-canyoneer would enjoy with the easy approach.
Thanks to my sons Lorin and Justin for their Horse Power, picture taking and enthusiasm
Thanks to BluuGnome for the Beta
More pictures at
https://picasaweb.google.com/114970282734125511588/ScorpionBlackMountainsDeathValley
Doug French
Mountaineer
Boy Scouts on my mind. All about EARNEST, even in canyoneering.
Anchor fatigue in DV? Oh so glad to hear others experience it. The cairn anchors tend to all blend together after rap 15 or so.
ratagonia
I only brought 30 feet of webbing, and used it on the first couple anchors in the first canyon.
Ghosting in DV makes little to no sense, especially in the ‘trade route’ canyons, which is what we are talking here. Better to leave well-built, concise anchors.
I think that cairn might have been better in the place that dark ropebag is hanging out. But yeah, in DV, one develops anchor fatigue. After 20 raps, hard to get all that motivated to replace anchors that are sloppy but safe.
EARNEST? You must come from a climbing background. Canyoneering anchors are rarely redundant. Rather than spending time and effort making a second anchor, your time and effort are better spent making your primary (and only) anchor as good as possible.
Tom
Mountaineer
I recall replacing some, but not enough. About time for me to order another spool or two as well.
ratagonia
Yeah. That is a crazy anchor.
1. Brightly colored webbing: in a National Park, that is a no-no.
2. just so much to criticize.
Sounds like you did not clean this thing up. I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe we should do a class on how to make beautiful, concise, safe anchors, rather than extravagances like this.
Tom
french_de
Yes, I regret not being able to clean this one up. By the time we had gotten to this anchor my sons and I had already cleaned up about 20 anchors in three different canyons (from blue to bright red, some missing quick links ). I think I went through almost 150 feet of black webbing and 60 feet of grey. We had already used 40 feet of black webbing on the anchors leading up to this one. All I had left with me was my emergency light green stuff you sold me Tom and I didn’t really feel like using that. The first anchor in the canyon had some crazy blue non tubular stuff. One of my pictures shows that anchor with our new black webbing installed. Thanks for your kind and understanding comments
Here are some of the anchors we did clean up in the canyon with our Black webbing.
Mountaineer
Whoa – great pics for sharing some of those views. Lots of work up, just to go back down. 😉
I noted you have a wide angle on that V anchor for your backup line, careful there. Curious, how was that cairn anchor suspect? What made you nervous about it vs. an inline meat anchor backup?
french_de
Thanks for your comments!
Not Sure what you mean though by lots of work up just to go down. Isn’t that what we all do in most canyons. If I understand your statement – The canyon has one of the easiest climb ups of any of the Death Valley canyons that we have done. The climb up is one of the most scenic in the park and is the added attraction to this canyon. It isn’t always about rappelling. The climb up puts you in drainage that you can proceed down to Scorpion or take a right and go up to Vinegaroon. Placing a shuttle vehicle at the end in Desolation canyon park area and driving back to the 20 Mule team parking area is worth it in my opinion. It is only an 11 mile drive back on a paved road.
Also, I’m not sure what you mean by the V anchor statement ?? There is more to that anchor than the picture shows. There is the main rock cairn backed up by two other anchor points. Over done probably. But careful – YES. Those other anchor points are located in the only other feasible places from what we could see. There isn’t even a good place for a knot choke anchor. We used one of the backups to tie our safety to. The webbing in all anchors was new so we did not replace any of it. I had already used over 150 fee of black webbing in Death Valley up to this point so I was happy. Almost ran out of the stuff.
Now that being we said did investigate the other rappel on the other side of the split drainage. I think that is much better and safer rappel but it is over 200 feet and we did not have the ropes for it on this trip.
Here are some more pictures of that anchor
Mountaineer
Awesome! My comment was sarcastic on “all the work to just go down”. Yes, canyons usually have a climbing element to them to hike. 😉 Seems Death Valley has some of the steeper ones, so fun to hear a canyon with an easier perspective.
The additional pictures help, angle looks more reasonable in this other view. I have never seen a backup two point anchor attached this way, then combined to the main anchor point. Looks like you nailed the ‘R’ in EARNEST.
My statement was more around your process to get to that point. In the end, you came up with the best result for what you deemed safe. Did you try pulling with 2 people (safely) on the cairn? Did it slip? Did the watercourse lend itself to a locking boulder?
french_de
The fact that that rock pile sits on a down angle created some doubt in it’s overall stability. I thought the equalized backup of the other two was really good and had been tied very well. It was all new webbing, it look very recent. We were a little short on webbing at that point and decided that it was good to go. We wanted to make sure we had enough to finish the canyon if we had to. Up to this point we had been replacing anchors left and right for the last few days. We got some good practice in. Further up canyon there is point to tie in on a rock slab but would take about 10 to 15 feet of webbing so as to be able to have a good rope pull. I want to go back to this canyon and investigate the rappel on the other side of this split drainage. I think it is a better place to anchor this drop. But it looked like a 200 + rappel and we did not have the longer ropes with us.
Mountaineer
Good to know, thanks for your thought process. Perhaps some appropriate webbing to have ready for the next team to setup as such.
Anchor building certainly requires skill: EARNEST = keeping everyone safe. But there is more: protecting the environment, and minimize trash left behind. Add an ‘S”, EARNEST’S? for “Save the Environment”?
I admit, I’ve set long webbing anchors over pot holes in the past, to clear a lip and thus to minimize rope grooves. Or I’ve used a deadman with a simple piece of webbing, but still left behind. On occasion, on those grey raps (i.e. where a retrievable could work), it bugs me a bit if I leave webbing behind. More now as I gain experience with retrievables.
Could I have ghosted the drop, and still be safe , but kept it clean for the next person to experience? Or have used a sketchy partner capture?
I’m off topic a bit on your trip. Sigh. Thanks for the discussion.
french_de
I was going to mention this in one of my trips reports but forget. We pulled out at least 150 feet of multiple colored webbing from about 20 different anchors. It was amazing! And a lot of it was brand new. Some of it we left because it was new and we began to run short. I went through almost a whole spool of black webbing in 4 days and that was being as conservative as possible. We never came across new and black webbing. It is all circus colors. I can’t be the only one replacing webbing.
My experience so far (and I am always in learning mode) is that a lot of DV anchors are hard or impossible to ghost????
What colors did you come across when you did DV a few weeks ago?
Mountaineer
Seems more difficult to ghost DV than other areas. We also found a multitude of webbing colors out there.
french_de
I’m curious how much of it did you end up replacing? I tried to do my duty out there last week but heck I ran out of black webbing before my trip was over. I could have brought 2 spools and it wouldn’t have been enough!!! I will say that my sons and I got some great experience redoing a lot of anchors.