Bear Canyon & The Mazatzal 24

Sometimes the summer in Phoenix drags on slowly, especially when you're not heading to a job each day, and sometimes it picks up momentum and starts to fly by. The last week or so has seen the momentum start to roll.

Last Saturday I joined my friend Mark O'Brien in leading a group of 7 fairly new canyoneers through Bear Canyon up in the West Clear Creek Wilderness. The majority of the group was made up of coworkers of Mark who had done a previous trip through the Salome Jug a year or two ago. We also had my friend Moses, a fellow guide at 360 Adventures join us for this descent. Moses is a crazy downhiller who's been itching to join us on a Canyoneering trip this summer and I figured this trip would be perfect. Also joining us this day was our usual canyon crew: Clint, Mike, Greg, Jess, and Michelle! This would be the first canyon trip for both Jess and Michelle who were both recovering from some pretty bad ankle injuries from earlier in the year.

With a group this large we decided to break into two smaller groups, the more experienced group leading the way by 15-30 minutes followed by our larger group. This would allow the first group to evaluate all the anchors, rebuild any as necessary, and keep the larger group in motion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This trip was one of the best canyon trips I've had in a long time. It's always great to introduce new people to the amazing canyons or Arizona and more importantly, it was great for Michelle to finally join us after a summer out of the canyons letting her ankle heal.

Monday brought another long day in the outdoors, this time doing further exploration for the next Adventure Race in our Red Energy Adventure Racing Series, the Mazatzal 24. This will be the second race in our series and will be an amazing 24 hour race with Mountain Biking, Trekking, Kayaking, and Coasteering! I can't give away too much information, but click on this link to check out the Facebook site until I get the new website up and running. In the meantime, below are some photos from the course.

 

 

 

Lastly, I've had Ouray, Colorado on the mind for a few weeks now. A small group of my canyon friends and I are heading up to Ouray for the annual ACA Canyon Rendezvous this weekend. I missed out on this trip last year when I wasn't able to get off work but this year's should make up for last year's absence. We're planning on descending canyons in Page, AZ and Cedar Mesa, UT on the way up, descending some classic canyons in Ouray, a possible exploratory canyon in Ouray with the local guidebook author, climbing Mount Sneffels (a 14er in Colorado) and then a short stop in Durango on the drive home. Look for plenty of photos from this trip in the coming weeks!

ADOT and Christopher Creek

Last week I finally had my first Canyoneering guiding gig for 360 Adventures since May due to an Achilles injury I've been nursing for the last few months. Two families who didn't know each other, three kids ages 7, 9, and 13, and three adults. Plus we were taking them through Christopher Creek. 

Christopher Creek is not that difficult to descend, but it can be difficult to guide depending on the group you have. Luckily we had two guides, myself and Chuck Chapman. 5 rappels plus threatening skies throughout the day would make us earn our pay today! I've never worked with Chuck before, but I've talked with him a few times and he seemed like a pretty stand up guy. By the end of the day, I would be able to call him a friend.

 

 

 

The access to the canyon is right in the middle of the current widening project on Hwy 260 that ADOT has going on just East of Payson. We played nice with the contractor, but being that we are permitted by Tonto National Forest to commercially guide this canyon, they let us play through and we figured everything would work out. Little did we know, but this would probably be the last time we could legally access and exit the canyon until the project is complete.

From the very beginning we could tell this was going to be a fun group, they wanted to jump anything and everything we would let them. No one freaked on the rappels, and they said it was one of the best trips of their life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After getting home late that night and catching up on the daily dose of Facebook, I headed over to Drunk Cyclist for a little cycling news and humor and saw the following headline: 

"My Life is Better Than Your Vacation"

After a day that had a 4am wake-up, getting home at 9pm with personal gear still to clean, and realizing that I probably only made about $10 an hour today, I just smiled and had another IPA.