TR- Smiling Cricket- Part 3

Nice write-up! And good timing too. I’m outta here real quick!

— In Yahoo Canyons Group, Steven Jackson wrote:

Just happy to be the strong back on this adventure. I didn’t carry anyone. My biggest thrill of the whole trip was getting into the canyon and having 3 working as one. Great teamwork really is it’s own reward. I was so wound up I was just ecstatic to be in the canyon finally. I was actually at my most relaxed in there working the problem with you 2. The waiting had me about ready to crawl out of my own skin. Cameraderie, teamwork and trust, provided the passage that we enjoyed! I’ll go any where with you guys. Magnificent canyon as well, but the friendships built in places like that I find are the reasons I return! Thanks again for a wonderful trip Ram and Tom. > Spidey

— On Thu, 10/30/08, adkramoo wrote: > From: adkramoo To: Yahoo Canyons Group

Date: Thursday, October 30, 2008, 2:11 PM

We have talked and lived the canyon for days before we went. Spidey

for weeks. Our hope and plan is to “buy margin,” time wise, by pushing

hard through the place. Save time and make distance now. Time to

fiddle later, when it gets hard. Jason said it was easy early and got

hard late. I suspect that it does the same thing as Baboon….gets

hard when the tall walls recede. We know this is hours away. We slide

into our roles quickly. We come to a drop, into a pothole. Can Spidey

climb or be captured going in? Do Tom and I have to rap or not? How

hard is the exit? Spidey Matrix moves? Knee, shoulder stands? Pack or

sand bag tosses? This is guess work for trained eyes. Miss and it

costs time. Then the best way to get others out quickly….. Tom works

rope and systems like a champ. One person, any of us, shoots forward

to figure out the next hurdle.

A pothole comes. Spidey exits up, off of Tom. I offer a knee to Tom.

Spidey a hand from above. Tom flies up!! His knee flies up too. Right

into my chin!! I fly to the side. I see stars. My teeth were rattled.

No blood. This surprises. It is 5 days later and it still is very

tender to the touch. If my tongue had been…..well it wasn’t. I am,

we all are, reminded that “full speed ahead” has its dangers. Focus. A

slide into a swimmer, with a natural bridge is noteworthy for its

beauty. Keeper after keepers keep coming. We keep going after it.

Rushing through such a place? A shame, at a very real level. Concern

for time pushes the other direction. But something else is happening.

A DEEP joy and bond develops. We are moving hard as a team. Team work

is its own end and reward. We are loving the big puzzle of a canyon,

as we are the pieces, moving through the board, with creativity and

occasional inspiration.

I stand along side Spidey, in a deep pothole. He eyes the rim and I

see a plan form in his mind. He kicks his muddy shoes, low on the

wall, to clean them off. Two globs of mud…only two, fly up…..In a

flash, each glob finds one of my open eyes! A miracle shot. The right

one would tear for 45 minutes before washing out the last of the mud

bath. Just lucky, I guess. Tom and I share a glance, as we watch

Spidey do his magic. He is born for a place like this. Every hole

calls for a different approach. On two occasions, the acoustics in the

canyon are just right and we hear our brethren, AJ, Jonas and Marty

somewhere up canyon. They sound very close, but then are gone.

After a bit less than two hours of concentrated work, I note the

canyon walls start to recede. It has escaped no one. The final third

of the canyon is ahead, with its reputation for difficulty, exposure

and danger. We slide into a groove, follow it 15 feet and the bottom

drops out. The oval shaped pothole is a deep one. It is the famed one.

It is decided that we will take our time here and see if it can be

passed naturally. We have bought our time margin. I am in the rear

here and do not come forward to peek. This calls for my partners

specialities, not mine. I will only make myself nervous. Sand bags

come flying back to me. I sit in the pot and follow instruction. Fill

half way. Little or no rocks. This proves to be slow work, as the sand

is mixed with two inch stones.

The high bypass is commented on by my partners. There is no love in

there voices. I wonder what the geometry of the place is like? I will

find out soon enough, I’m sure. Spidey stems up about 8 feet. A bag

hangs below he feet, coming from his waist. He works the

pendulum…first back, then forward, then back……The release point

must be perfect. I hear it is a long way. The tosses go. They come up

short. They empty the bags a bit. A third full? One quarter full?

Spidey up high again. I slip out of the pot with my camera. I catch

the silhouette of him preparing and then tossing. The best pics of the

day? Coming soon. The bag reaches and slips over a lip, far away. A

few efforts with the second bag and it is also over. I have a third

bag ready. They say “not needed.” I argue for it. Overkill and margin

and all. I am out voted. I give it up. I know my place.

Now I finally come forward. What I see inspires awe….and fear. The

drop is maybe 15 feet to the water. The water that will prove to be a

swimmer. It is estimated at 18 feet, at an angle, over to the opposite

lip. The pot is perhaps 24 feet wide at its widest. From the water to

the downcanyon lip is 18 feet.The angle from water to the lip is maybe

an 80 degree angle. Beyond the lip is flat slickrock section going

downcanyon for almost 20 feet to the first hidden drop off. The ropes

lead to this drop. The sand bags lay below, out of sight. Will they

hold? We shall see. Spidey raps off of Tom. Confirms the pot as a cold

swimmer. Strokes over to the ropes and starts to pull. The rope and

hidden pots give a little. Spidey says “It’s no good!! They will pull

out.” Tom says “Maybe. Often then need pulled a foot or two to catch.”

Spidey tries this and low and behold!!!!.. …. the pot shots hold!!

Now all of us mortals would attach some ascending gear and gently jug

out. But Spidey is not one of us. He goes to batmanning. Batmanning

from under water? Up an 80 degree wall? For 18 feet out of water and

24 feet all together? Your kidding, right? No he’s Spidey! Quick as

can be, he is up and out. I am in awe! Whoops fly about for a few

seconds, then reserve reasserts itself. Business remains. Now Tom

comes up with some innovation. He suggests an escape plan for me and

Spidey builds it. There are two ropes coming from the downcanyon side.

An etrier is attached to each. Each rope is attached to Spidey. One

etrier is set at water level. I climb up the 6 feet. Then switch

ropes, to the the other etrier, that is set 6 feet up from the water.

Up I go. Then the other etrier is brought up the the right level and I

switch back and forth from the weighted ropes twice each and voila, I

am over the lip. Amazing! Easy! Then the packs are zip lined over the

pot. Finally, Tom anchors off a log, raps in and stair steps out. The

ropes are coiled. I empty the bags conspicuously near the edge of the

pot lip. I hope it is seen as evidence of our solution, for our

friends, just a wee bit back, upcanyon. The pothole problem from

arrival to moving on, has taken 45 minutes. Before we exit the area, I

check out the bypass route, up high. It is a frightening prospect. It

appears that the second and downcanyon bolt is 25 feet above the rim

of the pothole. The climb from bolt 1 to bolt 2 is near vertical. I

understand there are 5 chipped hook holes leading up there. Up there

where I hope never to go! Ever!

We are pleased with ourselves, but aware that other challenges are

just a ways down canyon. We slow our pace and allow the place to soak

in a bit more, feeling we have a margin of error not enjoyed earlier

in the day. Several more escapes come quickly. A horn or a wart out

the side bypasses the most fearsome looking pot yet!. Finally a bit of

sun reaches down to us and we lounge and soak it in. Now the canyon

starts a ferocious series of drops. Rap after rap. The anchors here

inspire no confidence. The natural options are near nil. A grand

finale rap lands us in a deep forested alcove. Land of the living

revisited. The ropes are bagged a few minutes before Noon, after 4.5

hours in canyon, of hard driving focus, on the task. Naturally, we are

in a jungle now. Poison ivy dodged…… hopefully. Spidey climbs a

cliffy ramp and is out. Tom and I know that our shoes don’t stick like

Spidey’s. Same brand, you say? Well, yeah, but it doesn’t work the

same way for us. How does he do that? A short stroll and we are in

camp. The suits and wet gear are laid out for drying, on logs in the

sun. The foam pads and tarps are stretched out, as are we. We start to

eat all our back up rations. Lemon cookies are the valued prize.

Exhale. A big one. Smiles. Even bigger ones

By 3 PM, our gear is dry and packed up and we start our hike out

toward the cars, over eleven and a half miles away. Spidey is still

spry. I hold a place in the middle and act like I am waiting for Tom.

Fact is I am beat up and tired. Finally we free Spidey to head home

and hopefully get to church the next day. Tom and I hike almost 2/3 of

the way out and camp a final night, before exiting up and out the next

day. Then the 8 hour drive home. A very satisfying finish.

This getting out by noon on this supposed monster of a canyon…… I

have some things to say about this. It might seem that we dispensed

with it easily. This is far from the truth. We cheated. We were not

canyoneering, we were Spiderneering. You haven’t heard of it? Well,

I’m sure my words are inadequate in providing the image. If I knew how

to work the video on my camera, perhaps it would reveal some of it.

Tom and I pushed ourselves very hard. We made many contributions to

the effort. And we were mostly carried on this fellas back.

Another aspect of this type of canyon is….one spot can grind the

whole game to a halt. It has happened to each of the other parties at

the monster pothole. Sometimes for many, many hours. Conditions were

easy for us. Water was low. We had the luxury to set up our clever

solutions in dry comfort. The lower water made the holes deeper, but

we only had about half a dozen difficult swimming exits. The potential

to times that by 5, is REALLY easy to imagine. And we were chilled in

there, in these dry conditions, working as hard as we were. Image

being slowed substantially, while swimming much more. Then being

benighted? I shudder. I shiver. We were one unsolved problem away from

that. It has happened to talented groups in there already. It is a

canyon that will show a different face every time. Usually when a

place becomes known, it shrinks a little. Not this one. While my

imagined obstacles have been put to rest, the memory of the real ones

is sufficient to garner huge respect, each time.

The throw that Spidey made from the high stem, over the pothole is

estimated at 40-45 feet. Throwing is often one of my jobs. I

wonder….can I do that? What percentage of us can? I would never

enter this canyon guessing. I would never enter this canyon without

anchor experts. I would never enter this canyon without a strong back.

I would never enter this canyon without a super climbing athlete. I

would never enter it “cold” either. By cold I mean…. Never with

someone who wasn’t an old trusted partner. And just as important, not

without a few days of “shake down” together, in other canyons nearby,

before entering this one. It is quite the commitment too. I hope it is

visited infrequently. Be less trouble thaqt way. To get to the canyon

head is 12.5 miles, with the last mile a 1,000 foot ascent. Throw in

the warm up days…….. sounds like a 5 day commitment following my

advice. One final note. The bolts in here are over 25 years old. They

are in the watercourse. They are button heads. They are crap. They

were placed by climbers, a long time ago. Even if one were to think

that replacing all the bolts is a good course of action, it is tricky

business. One time a bolt might be a few feet above a swim. The next

time, over a 20 foot pothole. The place defies easy definition. It is

a chameleon… always with the possibility of giving out a poisonous

bite. Still my mind wonders to it. Done all natural? Complex potshot

anchors and creative potshot retrieval. Take an overnight pack. Plan

at least 2 days. Wear a drysuit for warmth. Now that would be something.

Finally, thanx and apologies to AJ who found the empty freeze dried

dinners I forgot to locate and pack out. Embarrassing. And many thanks

to Jason, who shared the info, found his adventure and like always. I

owe you a good one. And love to my partners, who know all the steps

and dance so eloquently.. …

Ram

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