A tale of dirty slots, busted knuckles, and personal redemption! Part II

Part II

     After the falls, I headed back to camp and made plans to do some Astro photography with the guys. We hit the tents early, hoping to shoot the Milky way. At about 12:30 am we awoke to a completely moonless and cloudless sky; unfortunately no visible milky way either.

     First attempt with my 300 Lumen flashlight

      Chris brought a 1000 lumen flashlight with him, I didn't know there was such a thing. What a difference.

     The next morning the skies began to look very menacing and we decided to climb out early and check out a couple slot canyons. The climb out was still a little sketchy, however we brought a rope this time and Greg, Chris and Coltin scrambled up the sloping slick rock. The rest of us used the rope that was lowered down to us. At the beginning of my accent, my camera bag was hanging on my chest and wouldn't you know it, it snagged on a rock and I slipped and busted up my knuckles. It's a little tough to tightly hold a rope, with throbbing bloody fingers! Not to worry though, it was just a flesh wound.

     Once out of the canyon, it was a short mile to the sandstone pour and then a mile through deep sand. Wow, does it suck to walk though deep sand! At the truck, we hand lunch and headed to the dry fork trail head.
     About two miles up the twenty mile section of the brutally wash boarded road, it began to rain and those wash boards became sticky mud, which coated the trucks! The rain stopped right as we pulled into the trail head, so we walked the two miles to Peekaboo slot and up we went, there is a 8ft climb at the beginning. I left the camera in my pack as we negotiated the canyon and at the top everyone started goofing around at the top of the canyon.

     Coltin, clearly had the most air while jumping the slot.

     Back down.

          Once out of Peekaboo, we walked a mile to the opening of Spooky.

     As you can see, it is awful tight and the camera stayed tucked away to stay safe. These canyons like to scratch everything, including sun glasses!

     About half way through we hit a boulder pile that required climbing for Chris, Greg, Jeremy, and Myself. Coltin and Shannon were able to squeeze through between the boulders without having to deal with the climb.

     After the boulders, it opened a little wider and we started to get more rain.

     Right before the end of the canyon, we found the below cavern and small arch. Here's a couple versions of the shots I took.

     At the end, the rain really started to drop, so we elected to walk out above the canyon and head back to the truck.. We made it back to our new camp after a greasy hamburger in town and made plans to visit lower Calf creek falls in the morning.

To be continued...