September 18, 2010

I have to admit right up front that I pushed my boys a bit too hard this time.

I saw this TR on ST a while back, and it looked pretty cool. Dave and the boys (Ky, 12, Ryle and Sawyer, 10) thought it looked pretty good too, so we decided to try it, as the falls looked to be dry. Dave had a spot in Upper Pines we could use for base, and we left from there on our bikes at a leisurely 9 am.



It takes quite a while for the sun to get into the bottom of the valley at this time of the year, and it felt much earlier.

We parked our bikes behind the government stables so we could pick them up after coming down the use trail from Sunnyside Bench. We walked over to the base of the Sunnyside Bench route and prepared to climb. We ran into climbing ranger Eric and a friend of his heading the same way, so we sent them first as we were a party of 5. We scrambled up the 3rd class start, and roped up for what the route book calls 4th class, and it probably was, but I felt more comfortable with my boys on rope.





We used two ropes, one for all three boys, and one for Dave.

The next pitch had a little bit of 5th, and was more fun, and the pitch after that was better yet.



Apparently Ky didn't think I was going fast enough, but I actually made pretty good time.




The last pitch was uneventful, and we were on the Sunnyside Bench use trail.


We headed for the top of the Lower Fall and scouted out our eventual escape, then headed back for the scramble up the upper bench.


After a little bit of scrambling, we were established on the use trail and heading up.


Despite the warning from the other TR, we went too high and had to rap down to the base of the Upper Fall.


It turned out that the Upper Fall was not completely dry, there was a small shower trickling down, and the wind was pushing it all over the place, and we ran around trying to stay under the spray to cool down.


We wandered around on the water-smoothed slabs, and the boys checked out all of the potholes. It was amazing thinking about the spring flows pounding through there.








We ran into Eric and his friend there at the base of the Upper Fall, and it turned out that they were heading into the gorge as well. We all started down, the boys in the lead, and when we got to the first rap, the boys were already at the bottom. They had down climbed some slippery slabs in their bare feet. “Come on Dad, it’s easy.” I tried their route, and soon felt myself greasing off toward an ankle-tweaking fall onto solid granite slabs, and Eric, who was behind me, grabbed my daypack and pulled me back up to solid ground.

We pulled out the rope and made the short rap, and continued down the water channel. The next rap was short as well, but much steeper. Eric and his friend went first, and we didn’t see too much of them after that. We threw down our rope, and Ky wanted to go first. I was a little nervous since it was unknown terrain, but let him go ahead, and he did fine. Dave and I lowered Ry and Saw, then rapped down ourselves.





A short scamper, and then another short rap, and then a long overhanging rap. I rapped first, and then Dave lowered each boy to me, and I tied them into the second rope and lowered them off of the big drop, maybe 170 feet. Dave came down, and his rope got stuck, and I had to go down and pull it out and prusik back up.





Dave and I rapped off, and we were at our first pool. It was about chest deep for Dave and I, but for the boys it was a swim.





After a short scramble over boulders, we found a knotted rope to help get down over a set of chockstones, and shortly after that another knotted rope to assist over a twenty-foot drop.


Another pool, this one was a swim for everyone, and now things started to become a little bit grim. The leisurely day had slipped away from us. The sun was low, the little boys were cold, and they had had enough of this adventure. We were looking at two more swims, in the dark, in cold water when we were already cold, and Ky and I were thirsty, and we were out of water, and Dave was low.

It was ironic that we were swimming through all of that cold water and could not get a drink. We stripped the boys out of their wet clothes and that helped them warm up. Both Dave and I realized we had taken our headlamps out of our packs, and we put our heads together to decide what we should do in the quickly gathering darkness. We didn't take any more photos from here on out, as we had double-wrapped our cameras to keep them dry, and we just left them in our wet packs. It was almost dark anyway.

We could see the end of the gorge, the top of the Lower Fall, and we just needed to get there. I lowered Ky over the edge to take a look, and kept lowering, but all he could see was a pool, and he did not want to get wet again. Dave and I hoisted him back up, luckily he's not much over a hundred pounds.

We convinced the boys that we would be better off to just tough it out, do two more swims, and then we’d be out of there. The other TR showed a route around the pool, but we didn’t see it, and there were two nice bolts right where we were, so that’s where we decided to go down.

Sawyer was looking through his pack for some warm clothes, and discovered he still had his headlamp in there from our Snake Dike trip. That made our decision easy, we went forward. Dave rapped off into the gloom and found a small ledge above the water. I lowered each boy over the edge, it was probably 150’ down to the ledge, and Dave pulled them onto the ledge. I did a double-rope rap and joined them. We slipped into the cold, dark, water and swam across, the longest swim yet. We had brought plastic bags for our packs, to keep them dry, but by now we all had holes in our bags, and our packs and all of their contents were getting soaked. The ropes had become thoroughly wet, and were too heavy to carry across, so Dave tied them together and I towed the line across, and then pulled both lines across each time we came to a pool.


A short scramble to the next pool, we were all shivering, and I lowered the boys one by one to a hidden ledge just above the water. Ky slid in and swam about 2/3 of the way across to a large rock, and I rapped down and followed him. Ky and I jumped back in and finished up the swim, by far the longest of the day. Ry, Saw, and Dave were right behind, and we all pulled out and laid on the warm rocks.

We put the sopping ropes in our packs, now twice as heavy at least, and headed for the Sunnyside Bench trail, and we were soon back to our bikes. We had left our jackets there, and it felt good to put those on and pedal to the Visitor’s Center for some water, and then back to camp for some dinner.

This turned out to be an adult-sized adventure, and my boys stepped up and acted like the young men that they are. I am proud of the way they handled an unpleasant situation, they just did what they had to in order to get out. And I can't forget to thank Dave, the trip wouldn't have happened without him. He helped motivate the boys when things got tough, and he helped with all the chores, rope management, rope carrying, route finding, and all the rest. Thanks Dave!

The next morning, Saw and I were riding our bikes down to the store, and I asked him if he had fun. He said “The first part was really fun, but the last part wasn’t so fun.” I then asked him if he wished we had never gone, or if he was glad we had done it and suffered through it. His answer was immediate, “Dad, I’m glad we went.” His brothers agreed.