Allen's Dark Canyon route

I feel like most of the routes in that book have one or two parts that hardly anyone does, like the dry trip over The Block, ugh.
 
I did the Dirty Devil North, and it was not bad. We may give this one a shot including the crawl, but with some variations.
 
slc_dan said:
It's kind of like Allen is on one end of the spectrum, and Kelsey on the other.
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One funny example is where Allen spends a couple pages on this intricate route into No Mans Canyon through difficult terrain and on Kelsey's map it's this little dotted line that might as well be across a plateau.
 
regehr said:
One funny example is where Allen spends a couple pages on this intricate route into No Mans Canyon through difficult terrain and on Kelsey's map it's this little dotted line that might as well be across a plateau.
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"The author first walked this loop in 3.5 hours returning to his car after taking digital fotos in 2003, in 2005 he returned and it took him slightly longer-4 hours."
 
regehr said:
Yeah. I heard a ranger say one time that Kelsey's books get people lost and stuck and they use Allen's material to go find them. I used to have a little list of the worst stuff in Kelsey's books. I think he's gotten slightly better in recent editions, though, perhaps getting older has been good for him.
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He's a puzzle palace.:roflmao:
 
Brendan S said:
Man that is a crawl. Awesome. And yeah, that's hard hiking in that area. I did Gypsum/Bowdie with a packraft last summer and it kicked my ass pretty good.
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Nice work! How was Gyps compared to Bowdie? We thought in downhill mode there were a few spots that required careful nav in Bowdie. It took us 6 hours from the confluence, with a camp halfway thru.
 
Kullaberg63 said:
Nice work! How was Gyps compared to Bowdie? We thought in downhill mode there were a few spots that required careful nav in Bowdie. It took us 6 hours from the confluence, with a camp halfway thru.
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It's pretty similar but a little easier. No swims or pack hauling, but still lots of climbing up high around falls. I found a route down from the south rim (barely). Great little loop though. I did it in 3 days, most would probably want a bit more. I was planning on a nice leisurely wet summer trip with some swims so it was a bit of a shocker that a large chunk of the trip is 500+' above the canyon floor traversing sketchy talus bypassing dryfalls.
 
Really well done, Jan! and your trip too Brendan!
One thing I’ve learned about Steve is that his physical and technical difficulty ratings are pretty spot on - at least in comparison to my capabilities. That makes it a little easier following him around. :)
 
regehr said:
Yeah. I heard a ranger say one time that Kelsey's books get people lost and stuck and they use Allen's material to go find them. I used to have a little list of the worst stuff in Kelsey's books. I think he's gotten slightly better in recent editions, though, perhaps getting older has been good for him.
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Can you please please please find that list and share it? That would be a hoot.
 
LarryBoy said:
Can you please please please find that list and share it? That would be a hoot.
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I'll try to find it but here's one off the top of my head, it's on p 217 of the 6th Edition Non-Technical Colorado Plateau Canyon Hiking Guide. The scale at the bottom of the map is off by a factor of 10.
 
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