Gallery: Gravel04 Part 4

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Day 4

Clear weather in the morning showed us to be in a beautiful campsite. We spent the morning exploring up a side canyon. Marshal never showed up so at noon we entered and descended the "super slot". Steve Allen described it as the most difficult on the plateau with numerous difficulties. Other beta indicated that it was very interesting but nothing exceptionally difficult.

	Camp		Shadow.
	Inscription.		Danny at the base of a large fall. We found a route around on the left side.
	The upper canyon had a series of sunny pools. Andrew jumped in and swam through them all.
	Jumbled blocks at the stop of the super slot.		First rappel. We though we would have to go into a pool but Andrew found ledges we could walk around.
			Lowing packs on a zip line. Pullies would make this easier.
			Me on rappel.
			Traversing the ledge.
			Disconnecting. From here I walk the rim and run over the slope in the forground.
	Mid canyon.		Some wet narrows. We stemed on these ledges until they got steep. From that point we were able to lower packs to dry ground below us.
	I went back and swam through the pool to catch the packs.		Andrew and Danny swiming the pool.
	Cold.		Next narrows involved a rappel into a pool. We gave up on floating packs on therm-a-rest and just packed them as waterproof as possible. Here's Andrew's pack.
	Andrew disconnecting from the rappel.		A balanced bolder.
	The two very small pillars it rests on.

We got out of the narrows and hiked for a half our or so then came to another set of narrows with a beautiful pool. We decided to camp here, wait for the sun to hit the narrows, then swim through them. We were here for a full our before Danny noticed that there were ruins on high ledges across the canyon from us.

Entering the narrows involved climbing down a steep ramp. We probably could have gotten out, but it would have been difficult. Mostly we were committed to swim the whole pool. I started out. In 20 ft. I remembered some statistic about how long a strong swimmer can survive in cold water. Later I learned that the same though went throuh Andrew's and Danny's minds at about the same spot. A couple times I tried to find shallows to stand in, didn't, and decided that swimming all the way was my best chance for survival. It was a long cold swim, but I was not excessivly chilled by the time I got out.

	Ruins.		Ruins.
	Pumping water.		Entrance to the narrows.

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Page last modified:  Sep 05 19:07 2010  by  Tom Unger