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| Canyoneering | 4.00 Miles |
750 AEG |
| | Canyoneering | 4.00 Miles | | | |
| 750 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | After getting experience in 3 canyons with guides and several guided rappels at Papago Park and Lookout Mountain my friend and I decided we were finally ready do an easy canyon on our own. El Capitan Canyon is great for those just starting out with a guide or who have some experience both rappelling and setting up solid anchors. We brought lots of webbing of various sizes and a 150' of canyoneering rope. Because of the length and ease of setup we went down double strand on all of the rappels.
Using the Route Scout app we parked just past the truck runaway ramp right at the starting GPS coordinates on a pullout. There are several and this is a good one, but there's a slightly better one where you can actually turn around just a few feet further down. We walked uphill to the "Road Narrows" sign and began our descent into the canyon. The route in from here was very dry, steep, and slippery but doable. We had to forge our own trail through a massive amount of dry, pokey brush, very sharp bushes, all while avoiding cacti as the "trail" was not at all clear and heavily overgrown. There's a barbed wire fence you have to climb over, but there's a spot with two boulders on other side to assist with this. After a small down climb we were in the canyon. As we picked stickers out of our shoes something snorted at us so we moved on.
There were quite a few rappels. The first rappel could probably have been downclimbed but we were there to practice. The next rappel was into a small, unavoidable pool that was full of wasps so we climb up canyon left and just went around it. Rappel 2 was into another unavoidable pool full of wasps so we climbed up canyon left and did a 60' or so rappel after rerigging the anchor. You'll want to follow the path to your right rappelling down, but don't do this as you're likely to barn door. Follow the ridge and ease yourself into the slight overhang. A few downclimbs later we thought we were at the end of the canyon... We weren't.
There's a fun little cave ahead where you can take photos and a break in the shade but don't dawdle. You've still got quite a ways and climb out to go. We hit rappel 3 and there was and anchor set up canyon left. First you rappel into a little pool area (which could maybe have been down climbed), where, in dry condition, you could set up another anchor under the large boulder. We decided to keep our original anchor which posed a slight problem in that you had to go far to Canyon left to keep your rope straight so we rigged a little pull cord so I could pull it back. This portion was could actually be carefully downclimbed.
Right in front of you is the next rappel. You can bypass this by going through the cave on canyon right, however, there was a swarm of bees in it so we rappelled off the anchor canyon left. After this there was a chute that you can rappel or just scoot down. Finally, we hit a short rappel 5 where there is an anchor attached to a boulder in a rather suspect fashion. We used the original webbing as a secondary anchor, rigged ours up the same way and rappelled down. Getting down was a bit tricky because one side is very slick, smooth stone and the other is a crack, so have fun with that. To top it off there was a completely unavoidable swarm of wasps that decided my bright orange rope was theirs which made retrieving it interesting.
Rappel 6 was easy and the anchor is canyon left, which we rerigged.
The climb out: We hit what we thought to be the jeep trail and followed it right at the fork. This turned out to be a drainage and, despite having 3 liters of water we were out and getting tired. We reached a drain tunnel and climbed up to the road but in such dry conditions we had to scramble up very loose, falling dirt that almost took us with it. Please please please do NOT take this path out.
Recommendations: Bring LOTS of water, beware of wasps and bees, bring extra webbing and anchors as most are in direct sunlight, wear full coverage clothing so you don't get scraped by all the stabby plants in the desert, and find the correct former jeep path out. |
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