Still Not Dead
Jul. 7th, 2009 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clovehitchedWe've finished all the technical canyoneering we're going to be doing on our holiday now. Today is a bit of a rest day, as well as packing up our equipment, doing laundry, etc.. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we have the long drive back to San Jose, and on Thursday we fly back to the UK. This week has been so much fun - we've done four technical canyons, and had a great time in San Fransisco and the Bay Area just before we came out here. Going to miss ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gentle_gamer and parmonster when we fly out, but we will be back, oh yes!
My big "what I did on my holidays" entry is still waiting for when I get back to the UK, at the moment I'm mentally exhausted (as well as physically exhausted, bruised, scratched, and sunburned). I'll leave you with a couple of photos and a video from the canyon we did yesterday, Pine Creek. It's the one we saved for last, being the most technically (and, it turns out, physically) demanding:
zoeimogen on the "Great Cathedral" rappel/abseil. That water is too deep to stand up in, and cold! You have to abseil off the end of the rope, and then swim away:
Me having fun on the same rap/abseil. I got to the bottom and decided to see if I could reach the ledge at the left:
And finally, Pine Creek's last rap. This used to be a hundred feet, free-hanging all the way. Thanks to a recent rock fall, it's now only 90 feet. The anchor is over the edge - you have to take in as much slack as you can, and then swing into space, trusting that the rope will take you. I was first down, and so had no bottom belayer to catch me if I messed up, so I rigged for an insane amount of friction. This made the descent rather bouncy, as well as hard work (I had to practically feed the rope through into my belay device in order to descend, and each time I did it was an effort holding the rope with my left hand to remain upright - by the time I reached the bottom, I was exhausted). Here'szoeimogen on her way down from the top - you can just see her up there in the photo:
gentle_gamer and parmonster when we fly out, but we will be back, oh yes!My big "what I did on my holidays" entry is still waiting for when I get back to the UK, at the moment I'm mentally exhausted (as well as physically exhausted, bruised, scratched, and sunburned). I'll leave you with a couple of photos and a video from the canyon we did yesterday, Pine Creek. It's the one we saved for last, being the most technically (and, it turns out, physically) demanding:
zoeimogen on the "Great Cathedral" rappel/abseil. That water is too deep to stand up in, and cold! You have to abseil off the end of the rope, and then swim away:Me having fun on the same rap/abseil. I got to the bottom and decided to see if I could reach the ledge at the left:
And finally, Pine Creek's last rap. This used to be a hundred feet, free-hanging all the way. Thanks to a recent rock fall, it's now only 90 feet. The anchor is over the edge - you have to take in as much slack as you can, and then swing into space, trusting that the rope will take you. I was first down, and so had no bottom belayer to catch me if I messed up, so I rigged for an insane amount of friction. This made the descent rather bouncy, as well as hard work (I had to practically feed the rope through into my belay device in order to descend, and each time I did it was an effort holding the rope with my left hand to remain upright - by the time I reached the bottom, I was exhausted). Here's
zoeimogen on her way down from the top - you can just see her up there in the photo:
