YoFest - North Wash and Lake Powell

Monday

A long drive to a familiar campsite in North Wash. We wake up in the morning and start with an old friend – Leprechaun Canyon! The team for today is Tom and Tom, plus Randi from So Cal and her daughter Rachel.

Leprechaun CAN be good for kids, but Rachel did not have such a good time. A little much for her first squeezy canyon. Here, Rachel slides down one of those elevator-type things.

Okay, we can get a smile out of her ONCE in a while!

Rachel cruising throught he narrow stuff. Gendron was down on his belly, squirming like a snake here!

To the Boats!

Our gang for the Monkeys. Half of us did Burning Monkey, half did Naked Monkey. We did Naked.

We dropped into Burning Monkey, and our group kept going, right up the other side. A little handline to help out...

Alicia pulling up!

We hike up onto the ridge between canyons, and get this nice view. Hey, there’s a little arch down there – let’s go check it out!

Pitney arching his back above Lake Powell.

Naked Monkey is noted for having an interesting section of potholes. Took us a bit to get going, but we figured them out. Here, I provide a “sequence” anchor while Alicia rappels (she’s the easy one). This way, only one person has to do the downclimb/jump. On this pothole, it was a pretty easy downclimb with assistance from below.

Another pothole, and I take the plunge. Flat sand floor, just at neck height – the problem is to stay high and not get the head wet. Success! Photo: John Hart, with perfect timing.

We soon get to the final rappel. No obvious anchor, so we start looking. On a bench up and right, there was a sling around a block, but the climb up there was a little too stout for my taste. What to do, what to do…

There was a crack and block kind of thing near the top of the drop. Removing a bit of sand, we cleared a big enough slot to get a sling around it 100% secure. We tied this off, then extended it to the edge for the BIG RAP.

Here, Bette is casting off over the edge. Note that the sling is choked up and the rope clipped off as a "courtesy rappel", so that people hooking up can start their rappel in a comfortable place. On this rappel, we changed the position of the rope after each victim. The last person (me) unties the sling and resets the rope so that it is at the lip, and does the careful slide over.

Roger and Jane await their turn on the rope. Photo: John Hart

Photo: John Hart. Bit of a long rap. Last year, it was into the boat – this year, onto a large mudflat.

Then we got to wait around for 4 hours for our retrieval boat to show up before dark - and it did! Good thing, too, it was going to be a cold night.

Sunday

The boat drops us off, we climb up Moki steps and head out across the desert. John comes up with a GPS unit at the right moment, and we figure out where we are and where we are going. Past the Giant Head. Cross five or six drainages. Up, down, up, down. Keep an eye on the sky - nope, not going to rain around here. We find a side canyon and scout - YES - it drops into the main canyon without major difficulties...