My partner and I are planning to do Mystery and Pine Creek next weekend. I would appreciate any information about current conditions. The weather forecast looks promising: clear with high of 60 and low of 40. I understand Pine Creek water can be cold. I would love to hear from anyone who has been done these canyons in the past week or so.
Thanks
Ken
Bryan
We just did Pine Creek on Wednesday. My buddy and I had originally planned on doing Mystery from Weeping Rock up but didn’t start heading up the first set of switchbacks until about 8 which was later than we had planned to start. Talking to the guys at Desert Rat the day before, they said we should be okay if we are on trail by 7:30. It was our first time doing Mystery, had all the beta but we weren’t really sure how long it was going to take us. We were about 2/3’s up the first set of switchbacks (taking us a little longer than we had wanted…boy those switchbacks are no fun!) and realized with the recent time change, there was the possibility we could be trudging through the Narrows in the dark wet with only headlamps for light and since I only had a shorty, that would be pretty dang cold and miserable. Exercising our better judgement, we decided to turn around and headed back down. We were dang disappointed but since it would have been our first time, we wanted to be able to take our time, enjoy the sights and not feel like we had to rush in order to beat the sunset. It’s now on the top of our list for next spring, when the days are a little longer.
Since we drove up from Vegas, there was no way we were going to go back home without doing a canyon. We sweet talked the backcountry desk girl into trading our Mystery permit for a Pine Creek permit. Hit up ZAC for a full wet suit instead of my shorty. Parked at the 2nd switch back and hitched a ride up to the top with a really rad park enforcement officer. Weather was absolutely beautiful on Wednesday, 80 degrees in NOVEMBER! Water is low in Pine Creek right now. I was able to body bridge across most of the the first pool of water before rap one and only got wet up to mid thigh. The pool at the bottom of rap 3 was low too but it’s still a swimmer towards the exit (the water in there is still pretty dang nasty). It took us about an hour through the canyon but spent close to two hours in the boulder field – jumping/swimming in all the deep pools, exploring and taking our time, enjoying the awesome weather. I was really hot wearing the full wet suit and was wishing I had worn my shorty instead. We had the canyon completely to ourselves which was really nice!
(This was probably more info than you guys wanted to read, sorry!)
Bryan in Las Vegas
— In Yahoo Canyons Group, “spinesnaper” wrote:
My partner and I are planning to do Mystery and Pine Creek next weekend. I would appreciate any information about current conditions. The weather forecast looks promising: clear with high of 60 and low of 40. I understand Pine Creek water can be cold. I would love to hear from anyone who has been done these canyons in the past week or so.
Thanks
Ken >