UT: North Wash – A less snowy trip to North Wash

A couple friends and I ran through some canyons over the long weekend. The weather was way better than back in Boise where the highs are in the teens. We spent Friday just driving. After a long detour in SLC (someone forgot their bag of everything warm at the house) we rolled into camp at the Whispering Sands.

With eight hours of sun light it meant early starts, so up at 5:00 making coffee then out the door for Poison Canyons. The temps were in the mid 30s which was amazing. We hiked into Constrict 9 first. The anchor consisted of two 30′ (wowza) slings tied to two separate boulders, the ring was extended over the lip but massive grooves have appeared from when it was likely not. Everyone went down and the pull was decent. On rap two there was a deadman and a semi healthy tree present for an anchor. The pull looked just terrible. We rigged it with a fiddle stick, knot just floating out in space it was perfect, pulled right down.

The anchor on rap three was beautiful and had a very direct pull.

A few more downclimbs and we were out of the canyon to the confluence. We used the slickrock exit to travel back up to Slideanide drainage.

We walked around the rim and downclimbed into Slideanide. The first optional rappel was silly and looked like it would only add to grooves forming. We spent the next two hours downclimbing pretty much everything. A couple hand lines for the awkward starts but no raps until the very last D.C which looked kinda spooky. There was no decent anchor present so we found a large boulder up high and fiddled off of it. We had spotted an exit right at the bottom of Constrict 9 that looked “easier”… well it was not. Required some kinda sketchy fourth class which my buddy Joel led the way. Toward the top it looked like a dead end but alas we were up top in half the time. That said, I wont use that exit again.

Then back to the hotel for some good ol Idaho beer and a burger. We spent some time arranging packs and figuring what we would do the next day.
Skye