It's 5:15 AM and just like Matt promised last night, he's crawling out of his tent right on schedule. I won't belabor it, the guy's a nut. Geography is his anti-drug. On our drive down from Salt Lake he recites every prominent peak along the Wasatch, its elevation, a description of the climb. Matt hasn't descended our objective yet, the South Fork of Choprock Canyon, but you'd think he had. On our warm-up through the well-trodden and classic Neon Canyon he briefed us.
There's likely to be at least 6 or 7 rappels, depending on what we're comfortable down climbing. First the canyon will be short and wide, with sections of shallow slot. Then it will deepen and narrow. In the slot proper we'll meander through the "Happy Section," where the water is usually only waist deep. We might decide to put on our wetsuits here. Then the character of the canyon will change dramatically and we'll enter the "Grim Section." This is where a guy died once. That was under very different conditions, Matt reassures us.
We've entered this particular nook of Escalante canyon country through the Egypt trailhead. We're surrounded by some of the most famous slots in the world. We're like kids in a candy shop, except we pay for the candy with hours of slogging through the hot desert and the sweet reward is wading through freezing cold, chest-deep pools of brackish water in the dim canyon bottom. It's fun, I swear. There were a number of cars at the trailhead, mostly just photography junkies and their wives, but one group has entered with the same itinerary as us. I can't decide if I appreciate or begrudge the knowledge that a group will be hot on our trail all day.
Once we've climbed the broad slab of red Navajo slickrockthat leads up and out of the Escalante's cool wash, I'm glad we left so early. For now the seven o'clock sun only bathes our faces in a welcomed warmth. At our highest point on the bench we stop to survey our Choprock route.
Matt points into the distance, tracing and describing each of it's branches. He motions further east, placing the Henries, the Orange Cliffs, canyonlands stretching to infinity.
Mostly Matt from LifeUnderSky is a good guy to go canyoneering with. He's level-headed and canyoneering is a bizarre sport maintained by eccentric people. I like to remind my companions that it manages to incorporate all of the most dangerous aspects of rock climbing into one always adventurous and sometimes scary hobby. Most climbers avoid rappels at all costs. Most canyoneers do too, I suppose, but they replace them with sketchy down climbs through shafts of slimy sandstone. Approaches typically involve class IV-V scrambling, stretches of crawling across scalloped edges of sandstone and route finding through poorly cairned desert scrub. Descents are unpredictable, they hinge on recent rain, catchment area and availability of natural anchors.
After a few hours of hiking along the seam between chossy Kayenta and Navajo we scramble down a final slickrock slab to a sandy, shaded wash. Here begins the South Fork of Choprock Canyon, we're informed. We rest and fuel, but the break is short because we know there will be better places to spend our time today. Cathedrals of red rock streaked black and white like the hide of an enormous Balinese Tiger wait for us down canyon, we practically run through the first stretches of shallow slot with the thought of it. Choprock continues gently downward, undulating between sections of narrow and broad canyon. The canyon bottom is sandy and the sun is now high and hot above our heads, soon the walls will rise high enough to shade us but for now we roast in the midday heat.
The only water in the Happy Section is still below our waists. We enjoy theopportunities to cool our feet in the shallow pools. After a few sections of narrowing slot and mellow wading we're presented with a few shorter rappels culminating in a longer abseil into Choprock's famous "Riparian Ballroom." The Ballroom is a huge, rounded alcove not unlike the rotunda of a state capitol. I need a wool blanket. We rappel past trickling springs and maiden-hair fern growing from cracks in the bright red sandstone. Poison ivy grows in the thickest, tallest shrub form I've ever seen. Cottonwoods tower over us, clinging to the edges of scummy black pools that fill in the curves of canyon wall. We finally don wetsuits and submerge chest-deep into one of these things. Spider webs crisscross across the pools. This doesn't feel like slickrock desert anymore, we imagine instead that we're searching for Charlie in dense, wet jungle. Tamarisk chokes every square inch not already occupied by something hardier.
It's at this point that the foretold change in terrain would occur. Long, sustained narrows emerge. We elevator down 20-plus foot shafts, using our elbows, shoulders and knees to control our speed. We encounter numerous logjams at choke points throughout the slot. These are Choprock's unique danger; when the water is low you pass easily under, but when water is high they become potentially impassable barriers requiring you to go from treading water to shimmying up and over. Usually the canyon walls flare out, or bombay, below the jams, only adding to the challenge. This is where parties have become permanently stuck. "Keeper" potholes also pose a danger in Choprock. The water is low during our descent so we avoid both risks, but higher water can turn a mucky pool on the canyon floor into a Venus flytrap for humans.
Even at low water conditions the canyon isn't without technical and thought- provoking obstacles. None of the rappels in this section are straightforward or free-hanging. Each is debated as to it's necessity, but we ultimately rope up everywhere we find an anchor. All require an awkward, squatting start, clinging to the break end with one hand while pushing into position with the other. Some end in a swim through a hundred feet of pothole. I'm carrying the rope today and the sensation of rappelling into deep water, pulling the rope and stacking it without touching feet to ground is definitely a new one. Each time my pack fills with a few gallons of water. Out of the ice-cold water we stop to drain our bags and warm ourselves on blocks of desert sun.
Choprock ends in one long, spectacular rappel into a final sandstone amphitheater. A murky pool fills the bottom of the sphere, it reflects green and gold. We splash down the rest of the wide canyon to its confluence with the Escalante. At 12 hours round-trip we're exhausted. Good thing we left so damn early.
