— In Yahoo Canyons Group, Justin Eatchel
I’m sure Ryan will “wade in” too. I do love the cross country trip into east. I do it differently than both of you did. Shorter but more ascent, probably similar times. You have the ruins and all and it is pretty,in the upper section, but it takes an awfully long time to arrive at the tech section. Once in the tech section, it is pretty short and 2 of the 4 raps are mandatory (for me anyway) raps, one of them ugly, so there isn’t too much downclimbing to be had. The west fork can be downclimbed all the way. Admittedly, there are some stiff climbs, but most have the hidden hold, funky step over or crawl through that make it easier than it appears (YMMV). The descent of the west is a wonderful, full body, physical experience and the tech section is considerably longer. I still contend that the best experience is to go down the east and up the west, setting the first drop in west before heading over to east. The up climbing of west is a problem solvers delight. These opinions are, of course, all subjective, but I suspect that part of the magic of Justin’s day in east, may have been that the canyon is not betaed at the same level and that he enjoyed the process of discovery, probably in addition to nice weather and good company. Just feel there is much more meat on the bone, in west. Ram
Ryan
> I recently hiked both forks of Cheese, but I preferred the east > fork. Just out of curiosity, why do you prefer the west fork?
I’m sure Ryan will “wade in” too. >
Yeah, what Ram said.
I enjoyed the east fork, especially the ruins. The west fork though, from my memory, simply had more narrows and sculpted sections. I remember a couple of sculpted potholes in particular that were stunning.
When I did the west fork, we did it from the top all the way to white, so got quite a bit of bang for our buck. I am not sure how Tom’s shorter west route compares.
Ryan