Sept 24 Middle and Lower Squeeze Sept 25 Quandary Direct

In the movie Lawrence of Arabia, an Arab boy quickly sinks into an apparently dry morass of desert sand. We see the effects of his head just disappearing under the sand. Shortly into the technical section of the Squeeze, I was sinking into a pothole of quicksand. I tried pulling my left foot out, sinking to my right knee. I shifted to my weight back onto my left foot and now both legs were knee deep into the wet mud. I shifted my weight one more time and now I was in over my knees. I didn’t seriously think I was headed under the mud but I knew I had to do something different. It was at about this point we were joined in the Canyon by David Wallace and his group (David blogs on Tales from Narrow Places). I yelled out that I was in quicksand. Immediately, his friend Eric bogged down just like I was. David literally ran across the mud without sinking making it on to terra firma.

We drove in from Los Angeles on Friday September 23 from Los Angeles. We stopped in Monroe, Utah, just south of Richmond, at the Sage Brush Grill for dinner. Just before getting there, for a buck we picked up firewood by the side of someone’s drive way. We dinned on Country Fried Steak. It was perfect, with mash potatoes and gravy, and served with a vegetable. The breading on the steak was caramelized dark brown to a crunchy consistency. After dinner, we got back on the road and followed the super highway of 70 to the Sinbad interchange. Driving this amazing road with its fantastic rest stops, one could not avoid concluding that Utah senators had really delivered for the State of Utah. We made our way down to the Airstrip at Hidden Splendor Mine in the dark. There were hordes of people camped along the airstrip and around it. This was the weekend of the SUWA retreat. We turned around, drove up the road about a half-mile and parked at a slight wide spot on the road. We slept on a nasty little patch of land.

Our plan for Saturday, September 24 was to do the middle and lower squeeze using the Miner’s claim short cut. We were up early, and drove to what folks were calling the Ghetto, a turn out near the end of the airstrip where the die-hard partiers there for the SUWA retreat were camped out. We parked, shouldered our packs, and we were off at 7:30 AM. From the building structure along the Muddy, it was 15 minutes of hiking up the Muddy before reaching the weakness in the cliff bands that switched back up the Miners Claim short cut. On the way we passed a very nice Fremont panel. The way up is marked by cairns. It was 2.5 hours of hiking before we found our way to the start of the middle squeeze. The middle squeeze was relatively non-technical, narrow, and fun. We are not certain where we transitioned from the middle squeeze to the lower squeeze. However, soon I dropped into a pothole off a hand line to find myself stuck in a pothole. My partner, Jasper, helped my back out and threw a perfectly placed sand filled potshot onto the other side of the lip that wedged into a narrowing groove. This allowed us to defeat this particular pothole. I felt this was surely the start of the lower squeeze. My partner disagreed. It really didn’t matter.

What was clear was that we were soon into the lower squeeze. We had lunch and shortly after this we ran into David Wallace and his three partners including Mark and Eric. These boys had style. They enticed us to jump into a couple of potholes. I can’t say I was happy about that. However, for the most part the canyon was bolted so descending into the potholes was either by down climbing or rappelling. In fact there was so much water that we used very few of the bolt as it was for the most part easy to lower ourselves into the very full potholes. The potholes were filled with varying amounts of water so every pothole exit posed its own challenges. Soon, David and his group raced beyond us so we were left to work our way through pothole school on our own. The weather was glorious. I wore a 3/2 wetsuit and to be quite honest I was a bit cold. Jasper had 5/3 wetsuit and was toasty. The Squeeze is long. I kept hopping we would get into the sun to warm up but it stayed just out of reach. Finally, we made the last set of rappels at about 5:30PM and joined David’s party relaxing along the Muddy. We got out of the wetsuits and headed back to the airstrip.

Of course at this point we still needed a campsite. We drove back up the road and set up camp at the junction of the road that leads up to the start of the Quandary. I brought with me a 6-liter stainless steel pressure cooker. In my ice chest, I had a 1.7 lb of chuck roast. I rubbed it with chrushed, fresh garlic, sea salt, and dried rosemary and set it aside while I peeled and cut three large carrots into large pieces, finely chopped three celery stalks, minced a large yellow onion and a clove of garlic. I browned the meat in olive oil and set it aside. The onion and garlic were sautéed until caramelized. To this I added in an 8 ounce can of stewed tomatoes, a 4 ounce can of sliced mushrooms, 375 ml split of 2009 Rombauer Zinfandel, a beef bullion cube, a quarter teaspoon of thyme, a quarter teaspoon of dried basil, and 15 small fingerling potatoes. The meat was put back into this mix and the pressure cooker was sealed and allowed to cook for 55 minutes. Of course it was great. We had a couple of helpings each and enjoyed it all the more next to a small campfire. We also rehydrated with Bikini Blonde Lager from the Maui Brewing Company. We were so full that we saved the berry pie for breakfast.

On September 25, we slept until 6:30 AM and hit the trail at 8:30 AM. It was again another beautiful day without a cloud in the sky. Our objective was the Quandary Direct and return up Ramp Canyon. This was day two of pothole school. The top of Quandary was dry. As we descended, we encountered more and more water. Finally we got into some technical potholes. There were no bolts in this canyon. There were two anchors set with angles. Everything else was off of natural anchors. While setting up the first rappel, David’s group overtook us. I think they were mostly jumping into the potholes. Again I admired their style but in this canyon, I convinced Jasper to meat anchor me on the few jumps he did. (No we are not advocating jumping into potholes but we did have the benefit of watching 4 canyoneers jump into these potholes otherwise we would have taken a much more conservative approach). There was lots of swimming and messy pothole escapes with potshots, pack tosses, and partner assists, etc. I wore my 5 mm wetsuit and was happy about the extra warmth. Finally, we were out the other end at about 2:30PM. Neither of us had eaten anything up to this point. We had lunch and headed for Ramp Canyon.

It took us 1.5 hours to reach Ramp. As it got technical, we got a bit nervous. I did not bring a route description. However, we did not feel we had a choice. It had to go. Finally, near the head of the canyon, I recognized the climbing problem. It is a set of parallel dikes that rapidly angles up along the left hand side of the canyon wall. There is an immense truck size boulder in the canyon that defines the apex of the climbing pitch. Some of the descriptions of the canyon report this as a 5.1 problem. It is most definitely not 5.1. The crux of this problem occurs about 12 feet above the canyon bottom. The exposure even on belay is a factor. The solution for me was to switch from the using the lower dike to using the upper dike. Jasper who lead the pitch, choose to stem to the boulder instead, which I think may be harder than what I did. Either way, I think Tom Jones’ description of this being a 5.6 could not be more accurate. This is a quintessential 5.6- more awkward and exposed than hard. Don’t commit yourself to climbing this canyon unless someone in your group can comfortably lead and others can comfortably follow this pitch. Almost immediately after this we topped out of Ramp Canyon and were on an ATV trail back to the car. Soon were we were at Ray’s Tavern in Green River enjoying our half pound burgers and fries.

Oh that quicksand in the Squeeze? Obviously I escaped. I knew immediately if I stopped struggling I would not be going deeper very quickly. I flopped onto my belly and with significant effort, cleared my legs. From there, I log rolled myself to the edge of the pothole and climbed out. It required a very big physical effort. My regret is that no one got photos or video of me wallowing around in the mud like a pig. Fun times! Jasper was back during all this and I think he was a little bummed he did not get to see the show. Yes, quicksand may no longer be a plot twist in B movies but it sure is out there.

Ken

Here are the photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/104701912249686618176/SanRafaelSwell