Scorpian Canyon, Death Valley

My canyoneering buds and I have been to Scorpion Canyon in Death Valley National Park before, but that's no reason not to see it again. It's a fine place for a half-day excursion. Easy to drive to. Easy on the approach. And only seven rappels, none of which are extreme in height. Yeah, just a fine day of canyoneering. What could go wrong?

We got semi-lost. Couldn't find the right wash for climbing over a ridge that separated us from the canyon. After a few tries, we got there and then spent the rest of the day doing double-time to make it out before dark. Nailed it.

So I tried something different in terms of photography and shot everything with the lens wide open at f/2.8 for extreme shallow depth of field. A tough assignment because good focusing is necessary and I've probably gotten lazy lately with autofocus and stopping down for mistake-reducing depth of field. But this time I wanted a different look just for kicks. If nothing else, I realized I should only use the technique when shooting nearby action. Anything else benefits from stopping down my usual three stops. Next time.

Start of the trip down a wash in 20 Mule Team Canyon.

Climbing up the wash with the 20 Mule Team hills behind us.

Headed to the ridge we have to climb in order to get to the top of Scorpion Canyon.

Trying to find how close we were to the beta's coordinates. I believe someone concluded we were "pretty close" and so we headed up the slope in front of us.

Going up the wrong way . . .

 . . . coming back down.

The scene inside the wash. We needed to get to the fluted hills in the distance.

Looking down into Mule Team Canyon and the mountains of eastern Nevada.

After finding our way, descending into Scorpion Canyon. Those are the Panamint Mountains way off in the distance.

Jae and Kevin passing a particularly green rock formation.

Jae and Kevin hiking down through the canyon.

Jerri, Kevin and Jae getting near where the canyon narrows and fun begins.

Canyon scene.

A bush that has sprouted legs, or maybe it just blew there.

Jerri negotiating one of the longest down-climbs in the canyon.

Jerri on rappel.

Jae tossing the rope bag at the top of one of the taller rappels.

Jae on rappel while Kevin backs him up.

Jerri on the last rappel.

Photographying Death Valley

Sunrise, Ubehebe Crater

For my pixels, I think Death Valley is one of the best places in the west to photograph. It's got huge landscapes, intimate landscapes (especially inside the hundreds of canyons there) and incredible, however fleeting, light. So I wrote an article for SleekLens about some of the most accessible places to photograph while there. Here's the link: "Death Valley: Photographing the Desert in Winter"

A Tale of Two Stuck Ropes in Erebus Canyon

I have to say that my friend, Rich, is now my hero. About midway through our trip in Death Valley's Erebus Canyon, we got a stuck rope, that is, we weren't able to pull it down from the anchor after finishing the rappel. Big problem. It was our longest rope and we still needed it for an even longer rappel down-canyon. Kevin and I tugged at it for about 10 minutes before Rich selflessly volunteered to clip his ascenders to the rope and scale back up the cliff more than 100 feet to fix the problem. Not the easiest thing in the world of canyoneering. After slowly working his way up the rope, he found the carabiner we used to secure the rope to the anchor had caught on some rocks. He removed it and rappelled back down using both sides of the rope. 

And then! We had another recalcitrant rope a couple of rappels later. And again, Rich ascended the rope and fixed the problem. What a guy.

As for the canyon, it was one of my favorites. It's full of twisted, sometimes colorful marble, great rappels, deep canyon sections and interesting (challenging) down-climbs. Even with the stuck-rope delays, we somehow got out of the canyon after 13 1/2 hours just before the last light shut down.

Early morning approach, starting from Dante's View.

Rich in the early morning light.

Kevin and Rich inputting GPS coordinates with Telescope Peak in the background.

Descending off the ridge top toward the drop-in point for the canyon, still a long way down. That's Badwater in the distance.

Left-overs from a miner's diggings.

A little POV on the first rappel. I stopped to take pictures of the marble wall I was descending.

Jerri on the second rappel.

Annette on the second rappel.

Hiking down-canyon.

Rich stepping down another rappel.

Canyon scene

Jerri traversing a down-climb right above a marble "wave."

Kevin working his way down another down-climb while in the background, Jerri uses a rope secured to "meat anchor" Rich to get down.

Jerri climbing down through a marble slot.

Yours truly on the left with Rich spotting Kevin on a difficult down-climb. We eventually just lowered him down. Thanks to Annette -- I handed her my camera and told her to blast away. She got some great shots.

Kevin straddling a down-climb.

Annette descending one of the longer rappels.

Rich helping Jerri with a painful blood blister on her big toe. The operation was successful.

Rich ascending the first of two stuck ropes.

Kevin on a medium rappel.

Kevin and Jerri reeling in a rope.

Kevin helping Rich over a short but difficult down-climb.

Another scene looking down-canyon.

At 5:00, we were still a long way from the car.

Pit of Despair (No, Really)

Just came back from another incredible canyoneering trip to Death Valley. For the first canyon, we went to the "Prince's Bride" set of canyons near Stovepipe Wells (each canyon is named after something from the movie; last year we did Inconceivable Canyon). The area was explored by the redoubtable Scott Swaney who has more than 200 first descents to his name. He called this one Pit of Despair. It was actually kind of a mild trip. The pit of despair, I suppose, was a pair of potholes at the bottom of two rappels that were filled with water. Kind of unique for a Death Valley canyon.

Camping at Stovepipe Wells. Not what you would call a wilderness experience.

The start of the hike to the canyon. Annette, on the right, is stretching out her back. The mountains in the background is where we're headed.

We're hiking to the entrance to that wash in the left of the picture.

The dreaded Death Valley sticky ring plant. Come near that sucker and you're covered in needles. Really horrible if a rope gets in one.

Poor guy: a mountain sheep skull found in the wash.

Annette making her way through the wash.

Rich and Annette climbing out of the wash.

The group at the drop-in point. Rich is pointing to where we could go if we wanted to run the entire canyon. We were feeling lazy and decided not to get too wild. After all, we had a really hard, long canyon the next day.

The view from the drop-in point to, I believe, the Panamint Mountains.

Starting toward the drop-in.

Kevin leaping off the first big down-climb.

Jerri working her way off another down-climb. She's so casual, she even held an apple in her mouth while executing the climb.

Kevin rigging the rope at the first rappel.

Jerri on the first rappel.

Annette about step off the top of the first rappel.

Rich on the second rappel.

Jerri slipping midway down a rappel.

I love taking pictures of flying ropes and flying rope bags.

An anchor on the third or fourth rappel. Jerri is backing up the anchor in case it should fail (hasn't happened yet, but we don't like to take chances).

Rich finding his groove, so to speak.

Rich working his way past a pit of despair, aka, a pothole.

Another pothole at the bottom of the last rappel.