Bill
.
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2012
- Messages
- 991
It was a surprisingly "warm" February night in Escalante and aside from the wind rattling the tent I slept very well. I woke up before my alarm went off and noticed that the sunrise had already started to light up the clouds. I ran to the truck, grabbed my camera fired off a few shots, and then started making my breakfast. Within the hour we were driving down the road towards the Harris Wash trail head.
We left the truck at 8:30 and the two of us started hiking north up towards the Read Breaks. Every time the canyon turned towards the west the bottom filled with snow and that was a bit worrisome knowing that we had a fair amount of climbing ahead of us that day. Two miles in we ran into the first slot and a half dozen climbs in the 4' to 8' range. Nothing too hard but there was one climb that wasn't something I would be too interested in trying alone due to the fact that my frame was unable to make the tight squeeze under a large chockstone. Clint was able to make the squeeze and assist me from the top so we continued up canyon. We worked up a pretty nice slot in the main canyon and came across the large dry fall that leads to the Big West Fork of Red Breaks. Of course I left the beta in the car and we missed the "proper" bypass as we came up canyon so we did some improvised route finding from the main fork. Once we reached the high point between the forks we saw the correct trail on the opposite side of the canyon was completely covered in snow and the decent to the canyon floor looked a bit sketchy compared to our alternative.
The Big West Fork gets right to business, cool slot, 6-12' up climb, tight squeeze, and repeat again. The further up we went the harder things got. We reached a point where there was a large climb in the 13' range that had a real awkward start follow by a slim shimmy up a stone filled crack that my 6'2" 265lb frame would not fit into. Clint made it up no problem and set a hand line so I could struggle my way up. At this point the canyon was starting to get to me while the slot was becoming more amazing with each bend. Up next was a wide stem about 12' above the V shaped slot between two chockstones complete with a pretty tricky dismount. I went first and made it, Clint went next and got a bit rattled before the dismount but made it with a little help. At this point we were deep within the Big West fork where I was bruised, scratched, exhausted, and terrified that I would have to climb back down what we just came up. Add in the fact that we hadn't seen anyone else in 24 hours and once I noticed I tore a hole in my osprey pack I almost started to cry. We continued on and the slot became very dark to the point were we almost got our head lamps out.
A few bends up canyon we hit the skinniest section of the slot that Clint narrowly passed. I explored around for a way to chimney up and over but that wasn't a possibility I went for it, scooting 1 inch at a time 15 feet in I got stuck between my chest and shoulder blades with only the tip toe of my left foot touching the ground. Clint found a rock and got it under my foot so I could stand and get my self unwedged and back moving up canyon. A dozen short bends later we were out of the slot, we scrambled up to the rim on the west side and laid down on nice flat rock for our first break of the day. There was a bit of cursing directed at MK for calling this a walk through slot (obviously hes much smaller than I) and general consensus was "that was the most beautiful place that I will never go again". We got over and decided we still had plenty of time left to complete our desired route to the Cosmic Navel or Escavolcano. We hiked east route finding and scrambling in, out, and across all the drainage's of the Red Breaks and finally we made it to the snow filled Escavolcano. Moments before we arrived the wind picked up and the blowing sand made things quite miserable. We spent about 5min looking at the geological oddity where I took a series of panos and we carried on our way.
Its hard to tell from this shot but if you look in the saddle in the lower left you can see Clint.
The long sandy road walk back felt like a bad choice but I'm not sure how much more scrambling I would of been up for. We made it back to the truck just after sunset and the daily tally was a little over 12 miles in 10.5 hours. We drove back to camp and spent the night standing around our large camp fire trying to say warm discussing how beautiful that slot really was. Again that night the consensus for the Big West Fork was still "that was the most beautiful place that I will never go again". Now that two weeks have past our views have both changed. I would definitely do it again but with a larger group or 3-5 people and maybe even bring some aid gear to help the larger folks like myself up the tricky stuff.
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Featured image for home page:
We left the truck at 8:30 and the two of us started hiking north up towards the Read Breaks. Every time the canyon turned towards the west the bottom filled with snow and that was a bit worrisome knowing that we had a fair amount of climbing ahead of us that day. Two miles in we ran into the first slot and a half dozen climbs in the 4' to 8' range. Nothing too hard but there was one climb that wasn't something I would be too interested in trying alone due to the fact that my frame was unable to make the tight squeeze under a large chockstone. Clint was able to make the squeeze and assist me from the top so we continued up canyon. We worked up a pretty nice slot in the main canyon and came across the large dry fall that leads to the Big West Fork of Red Breaks. Of course I left the beta in the car and we missed the "proper" bypass as we came up canyon so we did some improvised route finding from the main fork. Once we reached the high point between the forks we saw the correct trail on the opposite side of the canyon was completely covered in snow and the decent to the canyon floor looked a bit sketchy compared to our alternative.
The Big West Fork gets right to business, cool slot, 6-12' up climb, tight squeeze, and repeat again. The further up we went the harder things got. We reached a point where there was a large climb in the 13' range that had a real awkward start follow by a slim shimmy up a stone filled crack that my 6'2" 265lb frame would not fit into. Clint made it up no problem and set a hand line so I could struggle my way up. At this point the canyon was starting to get to me while the slot was becoming more amazing with each bend. Up next was a wide stem about 12' above the V shaped slot between two chockstones complete with a pretty tricky dismount. I went first and made it, Clint went next and got a bit rattled before the dismount but made it with a little help. At this point we were deep within the Big West fork where I was bruised, scratched, exhausted, and terrified that I would have to climb back down what we just came up. Add in the fact that we hadn't seen anyone else in 24 hours and once I noticed I tore a hole in my osprey pack I almost started to cry. We continued on and the slot became very dark to the point were we almost got our head lamps out.
A few bends up canyon we hit the skinniest section of the slot that Clint narrowly passed. I explored around for a way to chimney up and over but that wasn't a possibility I went for it, scooting 1 inch at a time 15 feet in I got stuck between my chest and shoulder blades with only the tip toe of my left foot touching the ground. Clint found a rock and got it under my foot so I could stand and get my self unwedged and back moving up canyon. A dozen short bends later we were out of the slot, we scrambled up to the rim on the west side and laid down on nice flat rock for our first break of the day. There was a bit of cursing directed at MK for calling this a walk through slot (obviously hes much smaller than I) and general consensus was "that was the most beautiful place that I will never go again". We got over and decided we still had plenty of time left to complete our desired route to the Cosmic Navel or Escavolcano. We hiked east route finding and scrambling in, out, and across all the drainage's of the Red Breaks and finally we made it to the snow filled Escavolcano. Moments before we arrived the wind picked up and the blowing sand made things quite miserable. We spent about 5min looking at the geological oddity where I took a series of panos and we carried on our way.
Its hard to tell from this shot but if you look in the saddle in the lower left you can see Clint.
The long sandy road walk back felt like a bad choice but I'm not sure how much more scrambling I would of been up for. We made it back to the truck just after sunset and the daily tally was a little over 12 miles in 10.5 hours. We drove back to camp and spent the night standing around our large camp fire trying to say warm discussing how beautiful that slot really was. Again that night the consensus for the Big West Fork was still "that was the most beautiful place that I will never go again". Now that two weeks have past our views have both changed. I would definitely do it again but with a larger group or 3-5 people and maybe even bring some aid gear to help the larger folks like myself up the tricky stuff.
View larger map.
Featured image for home page: