San Rafael Swell: Day 2

So, after a horrible nights sleep (well, mine wasn't as bad, plus whenever I was sleeping I was snoring so loud it would wake up my brothers in their tent 40' away from us), we got up and found it to be pretty cold. That gave us motivation to scale the reef behind our campsite to see if there was a viable anchor on top to tie off my climbing rope to do some rappelling later in the day after our hikes.

Alene stayed in the tent to stay warm with Bailey. Jeff, Billy, Caiden, and I headed up to the top of the reef to inspect. We found a GREAT group of LARGE rocks to anchor off of. We worked our day back down the reef, made breakfast, then dinged around teaching Billy how to rappel off a smaller wall (about 15'-20' tall). Caiden did really well again.











We then headed out for our two hikes. We first stopped by Goblin Valley state park. That place gets more and more packed with visitors every year. It didn't help that we were there on a Saturday.

I'm not going to list all of the pictures we took, but here is a link to them (along with past times we've gone). The first 13 of them were from this trip.


Goblin Valley

The brotha's



Me and Bailey



Alene and Caiden riding the camel



Russ, riding what I like to call "turtle rock"



Flexing my toothpicks



Jeff aka "the karate kid"



After Goblin Valley, we headed on over to Little Wild Horse canyon, which is probably the most famous slot canyon to visit for the "average" person. The hike was great, but I'll say this: NEVER GO TO THIS CANYON ON A SATURDAY. We used to be able to go here on a saturday and maybe run into a dozen people, if we were lucky. This day we easily passed over 100 people in the canyon. LOT'S of Boy Scouts too.

Again, I won't post all of these pictures (I took most of my pictures here), so I'll post the link to the photos and a few of my favorites. Again, the first 40 pictures in this set were from this trip, the others beyond that were from previous trips


Little Wild Horse Canyon

Me and my brothers on the trail into LWH



Alene and Bailey made it through a pretty tight squeeze





Footage of walking through a slot




Posing at the large choke stone in the slot



Inside the ribs of the beast



We stopped a couple of miles in to each lunch, then turned around and went back out.









Me and Alene



Bailey was so happy to be leaving



We got back to the campsite and by then Alene and I had to decide if we could go through another night with Bailey. We decided it was best that Alene go to Green River, get a hotel and hopefully she and Bailey can get a good nights sleep. I was sad to see her go because I know Alene wanted to be here. However, it was probably best (I'll explain why on Day 3).

For the rest of the day we ended up anchoring my 90m rope to a couple of large rocks that were big enough for me, Russ, and Jeff to hang from the rope, so we figured we would be safe. We're not experts, but it was fun rappelling this large cliff behind us. It wasn't 100% vertical in all places, but still fun to do.

Here are is the link to our rappelling and some of the pictures and video clips:

Rappelling

Alene waiting her turn while Bailey hams it up for the camera



Russ' first attempt








Jeff's first attempt








Billy's first attempt





Alene's attempt (she bolted after this for Green River)





My first attempt. This section was easier compared to what we did the next day (a little more vertical)





Caiden did a few rappel's later that night too





Later that night we just ate dinner and chilled around the fire until it was time to doze off. Jeff and I attempted to take some night time pictures. Jeff's were much better.

My shot of the moon (too shaky, even on a tripod, but I think it has to do with the focus)



Jeff's shot of the moon through his telescope



Jeff's tent with the stars behind it (I'm posting the large version to show the details)