UT: North Wash – Leprechaun: East and Middle

(Warning: This TR is long. I guess I enjoy telling stories.)

This past week was spring break for the University of Utah. As a result, my friend Jake from South Carolina flew out to enjoy a week of canyoneering with me. The five canyons we did will be split into four reports.

To start off I wanted to warm Jake up with an easy canyon. Since I had gone down Leprechaun’s East Fork once before, I knew it was fairly simple. The one problem I see with the canyon is I can never find the right way to the top. Both times I’ve gone up there I have gotten lost and had to do up sandstone I don’t enjoy going up. Anyways, we got to the top and I let Jake go first. I figured why not let him get the “first person” experience since I already had and I would be leading all the other canyons.

After a hesitant start, Jake quickly got into the swing of the canyon. East Lep is great because its “tight” parts are fairly short and usually don’t go too high. Before we knew it we were out and ready to face our next target.

Knowing Middle Lep is skinny, I wanted us to carry as little stuff through the canyon as possible. I stashed my Spry pack and decided to canyon with my gear inside my rope bag. Jake just had a small book bag so I figured he’d be alright…

Up the buttress we went. Having already done similar once and both of us out of shape after the winter, we were huffing and puffing. Canyons seem good at making everyone old. At the top we struck it across the desert, frequently losing the trail and getting exasperated. At the cairned scramble to the top of the west prong at Middle Lep’s head we were dead afraid that we were headed into the wrong drainage and wandered around until we got a view down canyon good enough to feel assured we were where we needed to be. After a quick backtrack and scramble we found ourselves at the first drop.

The first drop went smooth. The second drop went bad. After letting Jake go down I got the bright idea of rapping back to wall off a munter. After all, the drop was small and the drop was a DC until a couple persons off the ground. Plus the anchor was weirdly situated! So I set up my munter and get ready to go, get down maybe a foot and my munter mitgrates between my legs. I had forgotten that do do what I wanted to do I needed the rope to be in front of me instead of behind me. This being my first time messing up on a drop, I was surprisingly calm. I was able to wedge into the crack and settle things pretty quickly. I got to the bottom and met a worried but grateful face. Just another problem solving moment for a canyoneer!

Down canyon we went. After the first two drops the canyon quickly became tighter than anything I’ve been in before. We were huffing, puffing and cussing just by the time we hit the junction of the two prongs! Me being 6’00, 145 lbs and Jake being 6’4″, 170 lbs we were making quick work of the canyon. Sticking to the bottom most of the time we squirmed like worms down and through everything. We lucked out on going through the canyon at such a time to get pretty sunbeams and reflected light within our crack. If either of us had wanted to risk our cameras, or my GoPro hadn’t run out of battery, we would have captured it. At the third, “Flake anchor,” drop we caught up with a school group of 9 from Wyoming that let us use their ropes and play through. I thanked our lucky stars because that anchor had loomed in my head for days.

Past the third rap and under a bunch of high stemming Wyomingites (seemed tiring and pointless to me) we slithered on. Now the canyon was narrowing further and both of us were struggling on empty fuel tanks. One time I stop and realize Jake is not visible. I call his name and get a response that he is stuck maybe thirty feet back. The canyon was too narrow for his backpack to pass over a chokestone and Jake was too lanky to get over the thing with the bag in his hands. A quick squirm back, a pack pass, and Jake is over but the canyon stays narrow enough to cause him angst. We’ve been in the canyon so long we forget what it is like to not have rocks pressing in on our fronts and backs. We’ve forgotten what it’s like to walk forwards. We take so much satisfaction when we encounter a boulder in a wide spot and can chimney across the canyon. The canyon bottom becomes dark and I freak out not having my headlamp to see if the bottom is right there or DOWN THERE. Luckily, I had forgotten I gave my lamp to Jake to hold. Lamp passoff and through the dark we go. We trully cave as we pass under boulders. Then, lo and behold, the East-Main confluence. We both fall down into the wide and charish every ounce of it!

Middle Lep is the most awesome canyon I’ve ever descended. It is technically simple but requires a ton of physical labor. It was an awesome start to an awesome spring break.

While we only had GoPro video and pictures for a small portion of the canyon, here is a quick video of what we got. It’s my first ever GoPro video so it’s not the best. There is also a bit of swearing. I’m learning how to mute that for future vids. Maybe music would work…