We cruised down to the north wash for a one day blitz that included No Kidding and Morocco. We finished No kidding as a group of 3 in 4.5 hours car to car. The weather was beautiful and we felt no rush with a 9:00 start time. High 40’s and sunny. Canyon was dry as a bone with the exception of a little frozen sand and a little avoidable mud in the plunge pool below the last rap. The hero of the day was the mini shovel we took with us from the back of Bryce’s car. Made filling potshots and sand traps a breeze.
A group before us may have had a similar plan (I heard something about an ice axe) but were obviously less careful about not letting scratch up the rock in the initial narrows. Always put protection on your tool …
We took 3, 5′ pieces of garden hose and had no trouble avoiding rope grooves. They are starting to show up. Just a reminder to be careful, as this is an ugly but easily avoidable problem.
All in all, a great, scenic, technical canyon.
https://picasaweb.google.com/100565283613041319091/NoKiddingJanuary302014
Bootboy
The scratches were light, so probably not a big deal. I guess I’m just indirectly reminding folks to continuously be aware of the impact you have on the places you travel and consciously working to minimize it.
Ram
Scratches, most of them anyway, can be buffed out by hand. You see it caused by rappel devices on down climbs quite often. Grooves, on the other hand…depends on the depth and the frequency of water flow, the later not often enough in this drainage. I hope folks will be careful.
GLD
That would be us, I won’t ID the other in the group. Once we realized it we placed the tool inside the bags for the rest of the canyon.
All I can say is sorry and we’ll pay better attention to equipment clipped to the outside of packs.
Bootboy
We only noticed scratches in the initial narrows. Nothing below rap 1.
Bootboy
Yessir. That is a rope groove. We were obviously careful to avoid creating any new ones.
I’m on the left.
Ram
Is that a groove to the right of your hand? Sigh! certainly no reason for one there. Is that you on the left in the picture, Bootboy?
Bootboy
That’s why in my pictures you’ll notice me holding the trap up off the ground for my partners thus eliminating movement AND at the same time, distributing the weight on the contact area between 4 flat webbing straps, not 1 rope.
See attached image
ratagonia
Using a SandTrap, the rope tends to move a bit as the Trap moves up to position, as each rappeller starts. Both sides tend to groove up the rock, unfortunately.
Tom
Canyonbug
Very nice trip report. This is a great canyon. Making me anxious to want to go back in there again. It’s been too long since I’ve been in No Kidding. Thanks for the post.
Mountaineer
Nice job! Looks a lot more dry than when we did it. A shovel for frozen sand I’m sure made the day.
Great idea on the garden hose. A webbing sleeve over the rope to slide through seemed to work well for us.
ratagonia
While it protects the rock, especially the super-soft rock in immature canyons like this, be advised that using a hose or sleeve on the rappel rope also increases the force on the anchor. This is one reason it is very useful on the pull side, making the pull easier. We have found the pull side also creates rope grooves if un-hosed.
Thus, perhaps, the suggestion that the hose/sleeve might not be appropriate for the last person on a less-than bomber anchor – though the hose on the pull side allows putting more sand on Trap.
Tom
Bootboy
We only hosed the retrieval ropes. My approach to it was pretty logical – if the rope is going to be moving with tension on it, hose it. This naturally applies only to the retrieval rope. We only ended up using the hose on a couple raps because we were able to position our anchors and plan our pulls in a way that we could completely avoid running the retrieval line over edges.
Like I said tho, rope grooves are starting to show up. Those who enter this canyon need to be able to assess and mitigate the potential for grooving. To me, it’s another piece of the puzzle that is LNT canyon ethics.
Ram
Setting your album to slideshow for you. Nice job
Impossible to find the RSS link
Bootboy
Oh yeah, Morocco was good too.