Looking up Pocket Rocket, as Dan sets up the top-rope anchor


  
Past the crux and heading up the super fun, pocketed rock (photo at left by Dan) and Dan setting up his rappel after climbing the route for the second time


  
Dan raps

Hiking up Day Canyon was an unexpected delight – what a stunning environment! I so much love that the Moab scenery continues to overwhelm me even after repeated visits and seeing numerous canyons. There is something to leave you wide-eyed at every turn in this part of the world.
 
Eventually, we arrived at the very distinctive form of Raptor Tower, Boognish being a much smaller (but still significantly) tower attached to Raptor. Dan arrived at the base of the tower first – I was running around all over the place trying to see everything in visual range from every angle possible. Dan would be tackling this route alone (with me belaying), so I didn’t need to reserve my energy for any strenuous climbing.
 
Glad I decided against climbing it, because strenuous it was!! The 5.10 sport route was consistent 5.10 stemming and chimney technique from beginning to end and included a very tricky move at the end, similar to, but much harder than Molar Tower. Dan powered up the route. I was exhausted just watching him – I can’t imagine how he felt!
 
Since I wasn’t climbing the route, Dan decided to rappel it and remove the quickdraws on his way down. He reached the bottom only to find that we could not pull the rope down – couldn’t budge it a single centimetre. Someone was going to have to prusik up to the top (or other form of ascent), dislodge the rope and then rappel down another side of the tower. Unfortunately for Dan that someone was not going to be me – not that I lacked the desire; simply the strength, stamina, and technique. Of course Dan stepped up for the onerous and extremely strenuous task. Using his ATC as an ascender and another round of stemming and chimney climbing Dan was able to re-ascend the entire route – a decidedly Herculean effort! He then rappelled the adjacent face and we pulled the rope down with ease. Beautiful hike out and there ends our Moab trip – or does it?

   
  Hiking up Day Canyon starts well and ends even better



There is already some green in Moab - a far cry from what Calgary looks like during the same time period


  
Because Moab is essentially a desert, water doesn't seem to be in abundance. It was nice to see this stream running through the canyon.


  

Delightful scenery!


  

There's Raptor Tower at the left; Boognish Tower is the on the lower left side of Raptor




 

  
Dan at the left makes his way up to the start of the climb. I veered off to the left at this point to explore.

  
 Although from many angles Raptor Tower appears to be attached completely to another mass of rock, it is clearly its own tower from other angles.
Boognish at the far left


  
Stunning rock, lines, colours, etc........


  



  
  Making my way over to the start of the climb

Looking up an absolutely beautiful slab of rock that is part of Raptor Tower 

  
Another stunning side of Raptor. Part of the Boognish chimney climb can be seen at the left.

Dan takes in the superb surroundings before he heads up Boognish

    
From inside the chimney, looking up the climb

  
Dan can be seen near of the top of the climb


  
There he is


  
Couldn't get over the sheer size and beauty of this sandstone rock


  
 


Dan is now ascending the rope by himself (obviously no belay since the rope is stuck) and almost at the top again



Dan raps the other side



Looking up Day Canyon. Still more terrain to check out another time.







Another round of terrific scenery on the hike out



Sunseed Canyon

I was pleasantly surprised, upon returning to the townsite, to hear Dan suggest we tackle another canyon route before the Sun sets not only on the day, but also on our trip. Sunseed Canyon was the route of choice, partly because of its close proximity to Moab and partly because of its relatively short length.

The trip started with a steep grind up the terrifically scenic Moab Rim Trail. This trail with popular with everyone: two legs, two wheels and four wheels. An engrossing view looking down on the entire town of Moab waited at the highpoint.

As Derek Wolfe describes, the remainder of the route is a tricky exercise in route finding. There are many little canyons and pathways up there and taking the wrong route could have ended up very badly. After some backtracking, a great deal of re-reading the description and checking GPS coordinates, we did find the correct canyon and started down. Like Lost and Found Canyon, this one did have some tricky downclimbing, but then we only ended up doing one rappel instead of two.

With the Sun getting dangerously close to the horizon, we arrived at the only rappel of the day – advertised as a 60 m, mostly free-hanging rappel onto a ledge with a few metres of tricky downclimbing to get down to the canyon floor. Dan went first. I became a little concerned when several minutes later he had not completed the rappel. I waited a few more minutes until finally the familiar “off rappel” echoed up the canyon. Then another statement echoed up the canyon: “The ropes don’t reach the bottom”. There are many sentences you don’t want to hear when canyoneering and that one pretty much tops the list!   

Dan had made it down to a ledge, but it was not the one described and he was still a good distance above the canyon floor. Thankfully, we clearly weren’t the only group to experience this “shortcoming” and an intermediate rappel station had been set up. Dan had rappelled past that station because it was not mentioned in the route description. As such, Dan waited patiently on a ledge, while I rappelled down to the intermediate station, pulled the ropes and then set up the second rappel. Dan was then able to reach the bottom and I followed. Whew and thank you to those who put in the other station!    

We then enjoyed yet another easy and super scenic hike out. Unfortunately, the Sun had along sunk below the horizon, denying me the opportunity to take my usual glut of unnecessary and repetitive photos – no worries there – I’ll be back for sure!

And there DOES end our magnificent seven day stay in Moab. What a trip! I don’t think either of us could have been happier about what we saw and experienced.  A monumental shout out to Dan, not only for getting me up several routes I would have had no hope of leading myself, but also for being a super adventurous and super cool climbing partner, great friend and all-around awesome human being (he doesn’t know it yet, but next year he’s going to pull me up Castleton Tower – can’t wait, Dan!)     

The colours and rock scenery at the beginning were outstanding












Stopping to catch my breath (photo by Dan)



Lots of four wheel traffic on this route. A line of vehicles were still descending in pitch black conditions at the end of the day



Moab appears over the other side



Some pretty cool rock scenery also appears






A common scene - Dan re-reading the route description






Dan has figured it out



I'm too mesmerized by the scenery to care that much!
 


Typical terrain in the canyon



Dan spots the rappel station. We had to scramble around the left side to get to it.



Where you would have ended up had you slipped while scrambling to the station



Dan's (supposed) last rappel for Moab. Little did he or I know the ropes wouldn't reach!



Looking up the last (two) rappels



Same as above. The rappels go down the left side.

Thank you Moab - until  next time!

The End