Root Family

Root Family

Mar 30, 2009

San Rafael Swell: Day 3

I actually slept better than I've slept in a LONG time. I woke up a few times out of habit from Bailey waking up, but man, it felt great. I noticed during the night the breeze was picking up and by morning it was really blowing hard. We made our breakfast (which took a long time to burn since the wind was really blowing our burner around), packed up our stuff and did some more rappelling before leaving our campsite.

Here are more rappels from this day. This section of the cliff was much more vertical and easier to do since you didn't have to navigate your feet over a crack.

My first attempt of this section

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell



Jeff's rappel



Billy's rappel



Caiden's last rappel of the day as I gathered the longer rope

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

After breaking down our ropes, it was getting really dusty/windy, but I wanted to show my brothers more of the swell, so we drove up North Temple wash close to Temple mountain to show them some old miners cabins and and old abandoned chevy.

Inside the miners cabin

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

The old Chevy

IMG_2804

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

On our way back out of the wash, you can see how bad the dust storm is (this is looking East, through the reef)

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

We decided to do a little target practice too

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

On our way out the dust was REALLY bad east of the reef. This is looking eastward from the mouth of North Temple wash

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

This is looking North at the reef

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

From the temple mtn road, this is looking south toward goblin valley

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell

A group of cows huddled together. I'm sure they were thinking the cow gods were not looking on them fondly that day

03.29.09 San Rafael Swell



It really was a fun trip. I'm bummed we didn't do Crack Canyon, but you never know with clouds and dust, what kind of weather you're going to get, so we high-tailed it out of there. I wish I lived closer to the swell and we could get there easier.

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.

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell



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

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Me and Bailey

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Alene and Caiden riding the camel

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

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

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Flexing my toothpicks

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Jeff aka "the karate kid"

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

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

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Alene and Bailey made it through a pretty tight squeeze

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Footage of walking through a slot




Posing at the large choke stone in the slot

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Inside the ribs of the beast

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

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

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Me and Alene

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Bailey was so happy to be leaving

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

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

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Russ' first attempt

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell




Jeff's first attempt




03.28.09 San Rafael Swell



Billy's first attempt

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

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

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell



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

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Caiden did a few rappel's later that night too

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell



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)

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

Jeff's shot of the moon through his telescope

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell

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

03.28.09 San Rafael Swell