4/16/2010 - UT, Powell Canyons

Photos:  http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3888400007/a=38054161

 

    The weather was looking great, and Jen and I were planning on heading down to check out two canyons that have been on my hit list for a while; Good Day Jim and Hard Day Harvey.  They were supposed to be really good, so I was looking forward to the trip.  Marty was able to join us; so the three of us headed down in my Jeep.

 

Friday 4/16:

    We met up with Mark on Friday morning, and headed towards Good Day Jim around 9am.  There was a pretty stiff downclimb near the start, and the canyon started shortly thereafter; before 9:30am.  We had a great day with perfect weather; sunny and near 70.  The canyon was definitely good, with some great sculpting and fun downclimbing.  We got to the first keeper pothole around 10:15am.  Marty and I did a partner assist move from on rope, and were able to bypass the water filled pothole.  A pretty cool move.  Marty helped me up, and then we had Jen and Mark rap part way down and then we hauled them up so none of us had to enter the pothole.  Neat problem to solve.

    More fun in the canyon followed; including downclimbs and avoiding water for fun.  The canyon had a lot of fault fracture corridors; much like Heaps.  Neat canyon.  By the time we hit the big keeper pothole (now around 12:30pm), we were all pretty warm as the canyon had lots of sun exposure.  The big keeper was full of water, and looked like a swim.  It looked inviting, so we decided to go into it.  It definitely was a swim, and the water was cold!  I swam across and was able to make a balance move to get out.  Jen slipped on entry and dunked into the pothole.  Gave her quite the shock, and she was very ready to get out when she got out to the other side.  Marty came through next.  Mark chose to climb around it instead of making the cold swim.

    The canyon was definitely cool.  Not as difficult as I thought it would be; but it definitely had some beautiful features; especially the sculpting and great potholes; some with windows.  Some good challenging pothole exits too.  We hit the breakdown rappel after the confluence around 2:45pm. and then enjoyed the beautiful views with flowering bushes in the canyon near the final drop.  Got to the final drop around 3:15pm, and took a small break.  We knew we would be coming this way tomorrow; so we stashed some water here.  That way, we could carry less water through Hard Day Harvey; which is supposed to be a much more challenging canyon.

    We hiked to where we could see Lake Powell, and debated on going down there.  Jen was already starting to feel a little tired, so we decided to not drop down to Lake Powell; but instead started our exit climb around 4pm.  There were some great views on the exit hike, but it was definitely pretty long.  Jen was definitely feeling tired when we hit the final steep upclimb around 6pm.  We got up that, and was back at camp around 6:30pm.  A great day.  Mark headed off to Escalante, and we enjoyed a good dinner and chatted about tomorrow's plans.

 

Saturday 4/17:

    Saturday morning, Jen wasn't feeling up to a day bigger than yesterday; so Marty and I drove down to the Hard Day Harvey trailhead.  We did last minute gear preparations, and started heading in around 8:15am.  The canyon starts pretty quickly, and we were at the bottom of the first rappel by 8:30am.  There were some cool rock pedestals, and then the canyon started to slot up.  There was some really soft and crumbly sandstone; likely due to all the moisture this winter.  We were careful about that; as the canyon had some stemming right from the beginning.

    Hard Day Harvey definitely had some cool sculpting and nice potholes, but it also had a lot more squeezing than Good Day Jim.  There were some fairly strenuous sections, including lots of good downclimbs, some upclimbs at tight areas, and some traversals above water filled corridors.  There was a neat window in a sculpted section, a few exposed stems over silos, and a bunch of not that exposed stemming above tight passages.  Plenty of squeezing through tight passages too.  Long, sustained squeezes.  Fun stuff!

    There was a really cool and rather exposed downclimb; as well as a really neat breakdown rappel, which we got to around 10:30am.  This rappel was from fallen boulders, and took you past a small room with a pool, down into a sculpted corridor with more water.  We were able to stem over or climb around most of the water.  Until we came to a section of canyon that opened up into a room, and it had a pool.  We either had to get into the water, which looked like it would be a swim; or make an interesting jumping move.  We decided to go for the jump.  Marty went first, and made a great jump but instead of landing on a sandy shore, he unexpectedly sank into stinky mud up to his thigh; and almost fell backwards into the water because of it.  He managed to stop himself and crawl his way up onto higher and harder ground.

    Now it was my turn.  Boy, when I was up there, the jump sure looked bigger than it did initially.  I had to go back down and regain my energy to prepare for the long jump.  Made the jump, and got far enough so I only sank in a little above my ankles.  Big thanks to Marty for (unintentionally) scouting that jump for me.  We continued climbing, downclimbing, and skirting water until we hit a nice and sunny open corridor and decided to have lunch around 11:30am.

    After lunch was more canyon, including a pretty sculpted rappel, followed by some strenuous traversing high above water filled corridors.  We then hit a deep and dark section, which had some more squeezing and then an exposed downclimb that some people rappel.  More great canyon, including some potholes.  None were too difficult to get out of though; and soon we hit the confluence with Good Day Jim at 12:30pm.  We were at the Chokestone rappel shortly afterwards at 12:45pm and back at the big drop before 1:15pm.  We had more time today, so we hiked down to Lake Powell.

    The shore of Lake Powell had a bunch of shells, and we reached the water around 1:30pm.  We rinsed off our gear, and laid it out to dry in the sun.  Enjoyed a nice, albeit chilly swim, and then warmed back up while having lunch and letting our gear continue to dry in the sun.  Saw some pretty good sized carp in the Lake.  Packed up and started the exit hike around 3:15pm. 

    Got a great view of yesterday's exit climb, and then continued on to today's exit hike and was rewarded with some fantastic views of Lake Powell.  The Hard Day Harvey exit definitely had more difficult navigation, as it wound through fins perpendicular to the canyon.  There was certainly a lot more elevation gain and loss compared to the exit we took yesterday; but some great Powell views to offset the extra effort.

    We took a break around 5:15pm.  Took off our shoes, relaxed, and had a bite to eat; with the final cap within sight.  Had to hike down one more deep valley, and then found a break in the final cap to climb up.  We were hiking on the top cap around 5:45pm, and made it back to the truck around 6:15pm.  A fantastic canyon, and a great day.  We drove back to camp, and had an incredible dinner which included chili in home-made bread bowls that Jen made.

 

Sunday 4/18:

    Sunday morning, we woke up early, packed up and started heading out.  We were planning on doing Woodsy and Woody canyons today.  We might be meeting up with another friend, Rom, who was in a nearby area.  We got to the trailhead around 8am (our arranged meeting time.)  At the trailhead, we did last minute gear prep, and waited for the other group.  We waited until around 9am, and then decided we needed to get moving as we still were going to do the long drive home today.

    Hiking into Woodruff canyon was straightforward, and we stashed some water on the easily identified upclimb onto the slickrock; as we would be coming back the same way later.  We reached the head of Short canyon around 9:30am.  It looked like a nice sculpted drop; but it also looked like it's name.  Short.  Really short.  We bypassed it, and made our way to the head of Woodsy canyon around 10am.

    Woodsy was a great canyon.  Started out with some stemming, avoiding some water in a pothole, followed by some high stemming.  The canyon was pretty, and had some tight spots.  We got to a pretty exposed downclimb or easy rappel around 10:30am.  More canyon followed, and then another easy downclimb that had an anchor around 10:45am.  There was a cool pothole with a pedestal around 11am (similar to the one in Witches Cauldron.)  There was water in the pothole, and it was a pretty good stretch to stem over and get out on the other side.  There was more canyon, including a neat sculpted section and a tight section.

    Overall, Woodsy was a great canyon, with lots of variety.  A big bang for the buck, especially since the approach was pretty short.  We hit the exit around 11am.  We then hiked farther down Woodruff to the start of the climb to Woody; now 11:30am.  We definitely didn't take the most efficient way to the head of Woody, as there was a decent amount of elevation gain and loss, but it really wasn't that far either; and we were at the canyon head around noon. 

    We stopped for some lunch on a hill before Woody, and heard voices.  We ended up running into Rom's group.  They had gotten a late start, and had hiked overland to the head of Woody.  They continued downcanyon, as we finished lunch.  Marty and I went and upclimbed some of Woody while Jen finished lunch and relaxed.  We got back to her, and the three of us started down Woody around 1pm.

    There were some interesting downclimbs and problems to solve; as well as some great potholes.  Got some good partner assists in, and enjoyed the beautiful canyon; complete with several windows and bridges.  We caught up to Rom's group around the rappel.  They had buried a potshot and couldn't retrieve it.  We freed it for them, and then let Marty and Jen rappel off me.  I then set a hook and rapped down on the hook.  A perfect ibis hook placement allowed for an easy retrieval and we continued downcanyon.

    Jen found the climb out of the chained keeper potholes challenging; and we had to do some good partner assist techniques to get her over.  There was a small window you could go through, but it was underwater, so it would be a cold swim.  Marty and Jen started to get chilled, so shortly after those potholes, they were going to put on their wetsuits.  I still felt fine, so we continued on a little farther, until we caught up with Rom's group at the final crux keeper pothole.  Jen and Marty changed, and I worked with Rom's crew.  They landed a second potshot, and I landed a third.  The pothole didn't look that deep to me; so we made a plan to exit the big keeper pothole.  Sure enough, it was only waist deep, so I was able to climb out the other side unassisted.  We got everyone out around 3:15pm and continued downcanyon.

    There's a little more canyon; potholes, sculpting, and stems.  We reached the final downclimb around 3:45pm.  There was a short rock scramble, then the canyon opens up.  Jen and Marty took off their wetsuits (both of them wished they hadn't taken the time to put them on afterwards) and then we continued hiking downcanyon.  Got to the confluence with Woodruff around 4:15pm, and hiked back towards the car.  Had a little difficulty finding the water stash, but found it and made it back out to the car around 5pm.

    A bit longer of a day than I was expecting; since we still had at least a seven hour drive home.  It was still well worth it in my opinion though; as both canyons were really pretty and a lot of fun.  Especially the partner assists and pothole escapes in Woody.  Good times.

 

   
Hope you enjoy the pics!

A.J.

 

Photos:  http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3888400007/a=38054161

Group Room (multiple albums): http://ajoutdoors.snapfish.com/snapfish