mtngoat59102
05-31-2005, 07:41 PM
May 31, 2005
Bruce Lacroix and I jumped into Heaps over the weekend. Yea-haw. I had done the Gunsight route previously but this was my first Phantom Valley trip. Once again that canyon meets all expectations for the classic adventure trip it is. We did the canyon as an overnight trip, traveled at a steady but not hurried pace and enjoyed the heck out of ourselves.
We boosted off early from Grotto trailhead, pulling that hill with 40 pound packs is always fun. Even after a year like this the West Rim Spring was only a trickle and it makes me wonder if that spring is playing out. We found ourselves at the first messy rock fall rap leading into Phantom Valley 3.5 hours from the shuttle.
I have to say the entrance into Phantom is messy, lots of lose dangerous rock and exposed down-climbing. It reminds me of canyoneerings’ version of a trip to the dentist. Not fun, but something that needs to be done. The landscape of white sandstone in upper Phantom Valley is really amazing as you look out on the vast expanse of slick rock to the west. Everything is bigger than it looks back there. The raps where longer than they looked, the hike to the watercourse was longer than it looked. I think the vast expanse of that area kinda threw my normal scale for distance off. We passed a sling tied to a scrubby bush mid-wall on one of the raps leading me to believe I wasn’t the only one taken off guard by the length of the raps, I’m glad my rope was long enough not to have to use that anchor.
The hike down the trickling water course of Phantom Valley was scenic and uneventful. I did manage to scare the heck out of Bruce once. While cruising along I looked down to notice a nice 2 foot garden snake wiggling between my feet. The immediate gut reaction was to jump and dance like a 7 year old school girl. Something I’m sure would have produced many laughs if caught on video. Needless to say my sudden gyrations caused Bruce a bit of a startle, I’ll never confess to it but there may have even been a slight shrill screech involved. Bruce must have thought I was under attack.
Anyway, I survived the great snake menace and it was soon time to hit the dry suits. Suiting up in the warming sun after a long hike was not pleasant. I didn’t know Bruce’s face could turn that color of red but soon enough we where in the water and thankful to be comfortable in our THICK fleece and dry suits. The neo gloves a premium bonus. At multiple points in the narrows along the trip we noticed we could see our breath steaming in the air in the canyon. Phantom Valley delivered the goods, beautiful. All too soon, the crossroads emerged and it was time to start thinking about a place to sleep. Every available limb was filled with drying gear and it must have appeared that a band of gypsies had just flown in.
The pleasant sound of the trickling water course sang us to sleep as we marveled at our star filled pocket of sky above the canyon walls. The few ounces of everclear that went in the Tang that evening didn’t hurt either.
The sun was up early and keeping a cold camp I was missing my coffee. When Bruce pulled the two cans of cold espresso drink from his pack and handed me one it was a marvelous moment. In a very macho man kinda way I could have hugged him at that moment as my body sensed the caffeine contained in the liquid even prior to its drinking.
Suiting up in the morning chill was a much more pleasant experience than the previous days brush with heat stroke. Now it was time for the big daddy narrows. I wish I could explain the lower narrows in Heaps but I think I better leave that one to the literary genius of others like Ram. I’ll just try to summarize, long cold continuous swimming and climbing over log jams in amazing beauty. The lower narrows are an over-load to your senses and a strain on your body if your pack is overly heavy. The price an overly heavy pack will extract on you will be high. Heaps is truly one of my favorite trips but do not under estimate the physical toll that this trip can extract. This trip ticked off for us without a hitch and only one flooded dry bag towards the end of day two, opps. A flooded dry bag could be really bad depending on where you where and what was in it. (Flooding dry bags is a topic all its own) Anyway, it’s hard to write anything about Heaps without a small cautionary note because the under taking is great but something that should be considered carefully and not taken too lightly. The margin for screw ups is small.
With the narrows behind us it was time for the big wall. Eating, re-gearing and soaking up sun on the large rock next to the flowing falls was wonderful. The big wall is a place for planned methodical execution of your sequence of events. It’s a bad place not to have a plan. Fortunately, our descent was smooth and easy. Reaching the famed bird perch we rigged some extra (gold) webbing to hang gear and for a re-direct point off two bolts to lower Bruce. I left this gold webbing on the anchor. If you’re there next go ahead and cut it off or if lowering you might be able to figure out how we used it. I lowered Bruce about 100’ to where he was able to rap the remaining 200’ to the ground from below the knot that joined our ropes. Soon enough he located our stashed 300’ rope and I hauled it up and I made the descent myself. Careful planning made the rope pull easy, previous experience in this spot was a big bonus. The coldest I was on the entire trip was standing under that water fall at the Upper Emerald pools in a T-shirt and shorts getting hailed with rain while we cleaned the ropes. Bbrrrrrr.
If you have not enjoyed this canyon as a two day trip previously I’ll never be able to comprehend anything but bragging rights that would make somebody want to do this canyon as a day trip, but different strokes I guess. Perhaps lacking the right gear to go ‘light’ on an overnight trip might make me say, ‘do it in a day’. It’s still hard to imagine why anyone would order a perfect meal and then choke it down in a rush. Chew your food, it tastes good. Our total trip time shuttle to shuttle was just under 18 hours, obviously, excluding the time spent in camp our one night. From the first rap in Phantom to pulled ropes @ Emerald was about 13.5 hours give or take a bit. It’s all smiles today as I reflect back on a couple of marvelous days this past weekend in Zion.
Bruce Lacroix and I jumped into Heaps over the weekend. Yea-haw. I had done the Gunsight route previously but this was my first Phantom Valley trip. Once again that canyon meets all expectations for the classic adventure trip it is. We did the canyon as an overnight trip, traveled at a steady but not hurried pace and enjoyed the heck out of ourselves.
We boosted off early from Grotto trailhead, pulling that hill with 40 pound packs is always fun. Even after a year like this the West Rim Spring was only a trickle and it makes me wonder if that spring is playing out. We found ourselves at the first messy rock fall rap leading into Phantom Valley 3.5 hours from the shuttle.
I have to say the entrance into Phantom is messy, lots of lose dangerous rock and exposed down-climbing. It reminds me of canyoneerings’ version of a trip to the dentist. Not fun, but something that needs to be done. The landscape of white sandstone in upper Phantom Valley is really amazing as you look out on the vast expanse of slick rock to the west. Everything is bigger than it looks back there. The raps where longer than they looked, the hike to the watercourse was longer than it looked. I think the vast expanse of that area kinda threw my normal scale for distance off. We passed a sling tied to a scrubby bush mid-wall on one of the raps leading me to believe I wasn’t the only one taken off guard by the length of the raps, I’m glad my rope was long enough not to have to use that anchor.
The hike down the trickling water course of Phantom Valley was scenic and uneventful. I did manage to scare the heck out of Bruce once. While cruising along I looked down to notice a nice 2 foot garden snake wiggling between my feet. The immediate gut reaction was to jump and dance like a 7 year old school girl. Something I’m sure would have produced many laughs if caught on video. Needless to say my sudden gyrations caused Bruce a bit of a startle, I’ll never confess to it but there may have even been a slight shrill screech involved. Bruce must have thought I was under attack.
Anyway, I survived the great snake menace and it was soon time to hit the dry suits. Suiting up in the warming sun after a long hike was not pleasant. I didn’t know Bruce’s face could turn that color of red but soon enough we where in the water and thankful to be comfortable in our THICK fleece and dry suits. The neo gloves a premium bonus. At multiple points in the narrows along the trip we noticed we could see our breath steaming in the air in the canyon. Phantom Valley delivered the goods, beautiful. All too soon, the crossroads emerged and it was time to start thinking about a place to sleep. Every available limb was filled with drying gear and it must have appeared that a band of gypsies had just flown in.
The pleasant sound of the trickling water course sang us to sleep as we marveled at our star filled pocket of sky above the canyon walls. The few ounces of everclear that went in the Tang that evening didn’t hurt either.
The sun was up early and keeping a cold camp I was missing my coffee. When Bruce pulled the two cans of cold espresso drink from his pack and handed me one it was a marvelous moment. In a very macho man kinda way I could have hugged him at that moment as my body sensed the caffeine contained in the liquid even prior to its drinking.
Suiting up in the morning chill was a much more pleasant experience than the previous days brush with heat stroke. Now it was time for the big daddy narrows. I wish I could explain the lower narrows in Heaps but I think I better leave that one to the literary genius of others like Ram. I’ll just try to summarize, long cold continuous swimming and climbing over log jams in amazing beauty. The lower narrows are an over-load to your senses and a strain on your body if your pack is overly heavy. The price an overly heavy pack will extract on you will be high. Heaps is truly one of my favorite trips but do not under estimate the physical toll that this trip can extract. This trip ticked off for us without a hitch and only one flooded dry bag towards the end of day two, opps. A flooded dry bag could be really bad depending on where you where and what was in it. (Flooding dry bags is a topic all its own) Anyway, it’s hard to write anything about Heaps without a small cautionary note because the under taking is great but something that should be considered carefully and not taken too lightly. The margin for screw ups is small.
With the narrows behind us it was time for the big wall. Eating, re-gearing and soaking up sun on the large rock next to the flowing falls was wonderful. The big wall is a place for planned methodical execution of your sequence of events. It’s a bad place not to have a plan. Fortunately, our descent was smooth and easy. Reaching the famed bird perch we rigged some extra (gold) webbing to hang gear and for a re-direct point off two bolts to lower Bruce. I left this gold webbing on the anchor. If you’re there next go ahead and cut it off or if lowering you might be able to figure out how we used it. I lowered Bruce about 100’ to where he was able to rap the remaining 200’ to the ground from below the knot that joined our ropes. Soon enough he located our stashed 300’ rope and I hauled it up and I made the descent myself. Careful planning made the rope pull easy, previous experience in this spot was a big bonus. The coldest I was on the entire trip was standing under that water fall at the Upper Emerald pools in a T-shirt and shorts getting hailed with rain while we cleaned the ropes. Bbrrrrrr.
If you have not enjoyed this canyon as a two day trip previously I’ll never be able to comprehend anything but bragging rights that would make somebody want to do this canyon as a day trip, but different strokes I guess. Perhaps lacking the right gear to go ‘light’ on an overnight trip might make me say, ‘do it in a day’. It’s still hard to imagine why anyone would order a perfect meal and then choke it down in a rush. Chew your food, it tastes good. Our total trip time shuttle to shuttle was just under 18 hours, obviously, excluding the time spent in camp our one night. From the first rap in Phantom to pulled ropes @ Emerald was about 13.5 hours give or take a bit. It’s all smiles today as I reflect back on a couple of marvelous days this past weekend in Zion.