It's been close to 3 years since I did this trip, but I'm re-vising the blog post because I realized when I first posted it I was in a hurry and only had time to post links to the sets of pictures on flickr. Here is the revised post:
Ever since I had read about Eardley Canyon in the Kelsey guide I had been fascinated with wanting to attempt this canyon. I had never been canyoneering before in my life. I had done some rappelling down some cliff faces in camp, but that was the gist of it. To prepare for this trip I did a lot of reading and studying of pictures and videos on-line to figure out the basics to it. Being that Eardley did not feature any insanely long rappels (i.e. multi-pitch) and some relatively non-keeper potholes, I figured I'd risk it and give it a try. I brought along a few of my brothers and a brother in-law for the trip, all of whom had never done any canyoneering either, so it was looking like a recipe for disaster, but it turned out to be fairly tame (except for the hiking and one of the potholes; story to come).
We headed down to camp at the straight wash area on a Friday afternoon. I'd never been to this area of the reef before, oddly though my first experience to the San Rafael Swell was driving down the road that leads to here, only to stop at the section that drops down to the Tamaracks and turn around (we had met up with some friends who were coming back from there).
Drive out to camp area
Setting up camp
Our camp mate
After setting up camp, we ran over to Goblin Valley to ding around a bit.
Nate, climbing through the cave
Nate, riding the turtle rock
Billy, enjoying the view
Jeff, playing "punt the football and we'll head in that direction" game
My punt
Tyler, trying to kick over the hoodoos
Jeff, trying to kick over the hoodoos. Check out my holder skills (very dramatic)
After Goblin Valley we ran to Hwy 70 to meet up with my brother Russ who had to work that day. I took a few light painting shots of the Hwy while waiting.
After meeting up with Russ, we ran back to camp and set up a fire.
Messing around with the light
The next morning we got up early and prepared for some major hiking. We headed up straight wash and checked out the petroglyph panel
Arriving at the mouth of Eardley Canyon, we looked up to see what we would be coming out of.
It was after this that we were in for our LONG ascent up the reef face along the right side of the canyon.
Looking down on the last pool we'll hit (longest rappel)
Looking back at straight wash
Zoomed in shot of my truck waiting for us at the trail head
Making progress - Did I mention how horribly out of shape I was in??
Looking down at some pools we'll be passing through
More progress being made - Did I mention the hike up the reef was LONG?
Finally at the descent area of the canyon. We took a break for some pictures and lunch
Above the reef
Russ, the Karate Kid
Looking down at the descent into the canyon. It was STEEP and very rugged/loose
About half way down. If I recall correctly, it was an 800' descent
So grateful to hit canyon bottom, I had to give it a kiss
Eardley Canyon was pretty wide through here filled with HUGE boulders. It was a lot of rock hoping for quite a while before it narrowed up
Starting to narrow up
Our first taste of water
Time to get wet - There is a section of 10 wader pools to cross through before you hit the technical section
More wading
Billy, wondering what he was thinking joining us for this trip
Jeff is liking the trip so far
Rappel 1 - Probably could have down-climbed this one
Russ' rap
Nate's rap
Billy's first ever rap
My rap
Rappel 2 - This one was a bit of a Keeper.
Prepping to go in
Russ on Pool 2
Nate on pool 2
Billy on pool 2
My rap on pool 2
Trying to work my way out of the keeper
Rappel 3 was a jumper (no rap needed)
Billy went first - We were kind of mean to him, yelling at him where he needs to go. I think the cold water disoriented him :-)
Russ and Nate went next
Rappel 4 - Jeff went first but was nothing more than a climbers crack to go up to get out (see behind his right shoulder). The rock was so slick that he had a hard time pulling himself out as the pool wall was straight down. I went after him and had to give him a boost to get out, then toss a hand line down for the rest of us to pull ourselves out. I was a bit nervous on this one
Jumping in from the lower spot
Rappel 5
Rappel 6 (last one) into the large pool. This one had a somewhat dead man anchor under the water wrapped around some large rocks. I re-inforced the webbing on this one. Since it was the last rappel and the longest, I went first to test it out. Looking back on this I feel like such a wuss using my 70mx11mm rope. We could have done the 30m down to the first pitch, then slid down the other section. Give us a break as it was our first time :-).
Billy coming down
Nate coming down
Russ on the last pool
Pool 6. I'd imagine this is a nice swimming hole in the dead of summer, but we were still in early June and it was cold
Russ
Jeff
Nate (the nerd)
Me, with my "I own this place" sign
Group shot
One last look at what we came down
Last look at pool 6
Finally met up with Straight Wash
Ever since I had read about Eardley Canyon in the Kelsey guide I had been fascinated with wanting to attempt this canyon. I had never been canyoneering before in my life. I had done some rappelling down some cliff faces in camp, but that was the gist of it. To prepare for this trip I did a lot of reading and studying of pictures and videos on-line to figure out the basics to it. Being that Eardley did not feature any insanely long rappels (i.e. multi-pitch) and some relatively non-keeper potholes, I figured I'd risk it and give it a try. I brought along a few of my brothers and a brother in-law for the trip, all of whom had never done any canyoneering either, so it was looking like a recipe for disaster, but it turned out to be fairly tame (except for the hiking and one of the potholes; story to come).
We headed down to camp at the straight wash area on a Friday afternoon. I'd never been to this area of the reef before, oddly though my first experience to the San Rafael Swell was driving down the road that leads to here, only to stop at the section that drops down to the Tamaracks and turn around (we had met up with some friends who were coming back from there).
Drive out to camp area
Setting up camp
Our camp mate
After setting up camp, we ran over to Goblin Valley to ding around a bit.
Nate, climbing through the cave
Nate, riding the turtle rock
Billy, enjoying the view
Jeff, playing "punt the football and we'll head in that direction" game
My punt
Tyler, trying to kick over the hoodoos
Jeff, trying to kick over the hoodoos. Check out my holder skills (very dramatic)
After Goblin Valley we ran to Hwy 70 to meet up with my brother Russ who had to work that day. I took a few light painting shots of the Hwy while waiting.
After meeting up with Russ, we ran back to camp and set up a fire.
Messing around with the light
The next morning we got up early and prepared for some major hiking. We headed up straight wash and checked out the petroglyph panel
Arriving at the mouth of Eardley Canyon, we looked up to see what we would be coming out of.
It was after this that we were in for our LONG ascent up the reef face along the right side of the canyon.
Looking down on the last pool we'll hit (longest rappel)
Looking back at straight wash
Zoomed in shot of my truck waiting for us at the trail head
Making progress - Did I mention how horribly out of shape I was in??
Looking down at some pools we'll be passing through
More progress being made - Did I mention the hike up the reef was LONG?
Finally at the descent area of the canyon. We took a break for some pictures and lunch
Above the reef
Russ, the Karate Kid
Looking down at the descent into the canyon. It was STEEP and very rugged/loose
About half way down. If I recall correctly, it was an 800' descent
So grateful to hit canyon bottom, I had to give it a kiss
Eardley Canyon was pretty wide through here filled with HUGE boulders. It was a lot of rock hoping for quite a while before it narrowed up
Starting to narrow up
Our first taste of water
Time to get wet - There is a section of 10 wader pools to cross through before you hit the technical section
More wading
Billy, wondering what he was thinking joining us for this trip
Jeff is liking the trip so far
Rappel 1 - Probably could have down-climbed this one
Russ' rap
Nate's rap
Billy's first ever rap
My rap
Rappel 2 - This one was a bit of a Keeper.
Prepping to go in
Russ on Pool 2
Nate on pool 2
Billy on pool 2
My rap on pool 2
Trying to work my way out of the keeper
Rappel 3 was a jumper (no rap needed)
Billy went first - We were kind of mean to him, yelling at him where he needs to go. I think the cold water disoriented him :-)
Russ and Nate went next
Rappel 4 - Jeff went first but was nothing more than a climbers crack to go up to get out (see behind his right shoulder). The rock was so slick that he had a hard time pulling himself out as the pool wall was straight down. I went after him and had to give him a boost to get out, then toss a hand line down for the rest of us to pull ourselves out. I was a bit nervous on this one
Jumping in from the lower spot
Rappel 5
Rappel 6 (last one) into the large pool. This one had a somewhat dead man anchor under the water wrapped around some large rocks. I re-inforced the webbing on this one. Since it was the last rappel and the longest, I went first to test it out. Looking back on this I feel like such a wuss using my 70mx11mm rope. We could have done the 30m down to the first pitch, then slid down the other section. Give us a break as it was our first time :-).
Billy coming down
Nate coming down
Russ on the last pool
Pool 6. I'd imagine this is a nice swimming hole in the dead of summer, but we were still in early June and it was cold
Russ
Jeff
Nate (the nerd)
Me, with my "I own this place" sign
Group shot
One last look at what we came down
Last look at pool 6
Finally met up with Straight Wash
We slogged the 1+ miles back to the trailhead and we were all beat by this time. I think the trip took around 8 hours to do. We all showered with our solar water bag and hung around the campsite that night, then packed up and headed home the next day. I had toyed with the idea of doing Zero G canyon (aka little Iron wash), but we were so beat by this time I didn't even want to think about it. That will be on another trip.
I have a few regrets from this trip. First, I have to confess that it's something my wife has always wanted to do and I regret not doing this with her first. I'm hoping to get out with her on some canyoneering trips soon. Second, I wished I had worn better shoes/socks. Since we were going to be trudging through dirt and mud I figured I would wear an old pair of socks and some old worn out tennis shoes. I was regretting it by the time we worked our way down into the canyon.
Over-all, I loved the trip and loved the experience and look forward to more trips like this in the future.
