TR- Smiling Cricket- Part 2

So the day arrives. I join Nick and the Wolf for a crack of dawn Trail Canyon descent, then drive over to meet Tom and Spidey. They are late enough not to know that I was also late. I push hard for a 5th day for the trip and am granted it by my buddies. I want to miss nothing. Tom and I wanted a 4th partner, but alas, one of us has to carry in a rope. ;-) The bad news is that it is me. Our packs weigh nearly 50 pounds. Spidey’s pack weighs 20 pounds more. We make camp in fading light after 10 miles of hiking in the afternoon.

The next day is the Dog. Tom found it busier and nicer than he remembered. Spidey thought it good, but was wrestling a bad premonition that he should be heading home. Without him, there would be no Cricket. He was also like a race horse that would sprint out, if the reins weren’t held in, so anxious was he to get at Cricket. Me? I struggled with the heavier pack. After the better part of a week stemming in Leprechaun packs, I found the extra weight and bulk challenging. I was thrilled that I wasn’t in anything harder than the canyon I was in. Tom too. We called it “No Canyon for Old Men” on this day.

Our substandard performance gave us cause for pause and we made plans to ramp up our game. Spidey still wrestled with desire to get after it and other anxieties. In the early AM we headed for Baboon. Knowing the way, some added intensity, lower water and suddenly we found ourselves through the canyon by late AM. We hiked out into the sun and and left our gear drying in the sun. We had worked much better as a team. There was more work to be done this day though. We first planned to hike to camp, pack up and head back to the drying gear. We had then planned to hike up to the canyon rim, set the 180 foot rap that Jason had found and camp up there. While getting us the earliest possible start into the canyon, this would have forced us to do the 1000 foot ascent, back to our sleeping gear, at days end. If we could make it out of the canyon. Not an appealing prospect. Truth be told, it was cold at night. The nights were long. The canyons were lower water compared to April but still quite wet. We were in terror of the bivouac prospect. Beyond miserable…it might have even been dangerous. Spidey suggests and we signed onto, the idea of moving camp to the base of the canyon, hike our now drying canyon gear, food and all, up to the rim, set the rap and return to the base of the canyon, with the plan of repeating our ascent route up to the rim, in the pre dawn, half a day after scouting the route, pick up the gear and then descend the canyon to our waiting low camp…if we were lucky. If we were good. If the Canyon Gods allowed.

We established a base camp at the base of Cricket, packed our canyon packs and explored a complicated route up toward hopefully finding an entry. Ramps, fins and ledges led up to two significant canyon crossings, which luck would have it, were right in the easiest line and appeared to be the only crossings. When we finally got to the rim, after 1.25 hours, we spied a weakness, a little below the spot Jason had used. Crossing joints, we worked our way, somewhat miraculously down to a spot where our last man, Spidey, could slide/climb 10 feet into the canyon! Great news and a time saver. We were only 100 yards, perhaps a bit more, from the other entry.

We cached our packs and headed down the hill, landing in camp, at the base, at 5 PM after a full days work. Our other potential partners, who were coming in that day, were planning to camp at the rim, but we had no way to contact them. Looks like they would be on their own. We had heard that the numbers of the other group had dropped from 7 to 3 or 4. And as we relaxed in the afternoon sun and gathered water, their they were on the slopes of Cricket. They called down to us. Us, up to them. Tried to let them know of our change of plans, but the words were lost in the distance. They came down to our camp and moved in. It was AJ, Jonas and their friend Marty. They seemed miffed at our change of plan and having lost some of the hill they had climbed. Felt badly, but plans do change and there was never a firm commitment to join. Spidey and Tom, their intensity at fever pitch, after our 3 day build up, seemed disappointed at the soliitude of our group of 3 being broken. This I took as not being personally aimed at our new camp mates, but more reflective of of the preparations and a very real anxiety and uncertainty about the next day and its potential for failure or misery. I felt badly for the tension. Hopefully it gets let go by all who were there, as just a common byproduct of canyoneering near the edge.

We decided that we would hike up to the rim, hopefully starting at 6 AM, with an eye for being at the canyon by 7:15 AM. AJ and his group decided to leave 1/2 hour before us, because they had to carry packs up. I slept well, compared to most nights before a serious project. AJ and group decided to take larger packs with some bivy gear. We decided that we would go light and fast and hopefully beat the clock. The next AM, the other group got out on time. We were 15 minutes late. Following a complex route in the dark, one we traveled 14 hours earlier, was great fun. With night hikes, one must really resist the “earlies” and remain patient. We crested the hill at dawn and showed our traveling mates the entry. They were doing great finding their way in the dark, sight unseen, but I suspect that we could have saved them about 20 minutes with our help. Hope so anyway, to make up for them dropping off the hill the evening before.

With our packs already packed, we had the advantage of needing less preparation time, so with rapping off of Spidey 25 feet into the canyon and spotting him, we entered the beast at 7:30 AM. There were no sign of footprints. I called ahead to my buddies, using our traditional mantra, on the burly day….”we are in it now!” At just short of a jog, we were off…….to be continued