I did the descent down Sheep Canyon's headwall today all by my lonesome while our resident mega runner did a run up Baldy for her second time in 2 days. Climbed up Kimchi Ridge (western wall of canyon), which was entertaining with my 'approach boots'. The moves were never above about 5.7 but the exposure, carrying a pack, thick shoes, and being alone means the experience was much more rich than doing a harder sport or trad climb. Woulda been easy and fun, if slow, if done as a tradventure route with a partner. Did a lot of that here in the past. Topped out and handrailed to the dropin.
The first anchor (the really nice one around the tree) was gone, replaced by one close to the edge. Saved 30ft or so but wasn't as nice. Two pieces of webbing and if the trend is still alive as of late, probably like 3 links. Guys, one link is fine...
Rapped down towards the tree only to find there was some slung up stuff on a bush higher up. Bigass rock sorta held in place on top of bush. Couldn't quite remove it safely, so I had to carefully descend to the tree.
Webbing on tall lonely tree (Cedar?) was old and faded, but link was good. Replaced webbing with new stuff.
Took that into the crack, cleaned up ancient anchor bits that were no longer any real good. Rebuilt anchor lower down with webbing scavenged higher up and one link.
I came out of the canyon with about 30ft of old webbing, 5 or 6 rapp rings (all were steel ones except one rolled aluminium), a nonlocker (biner), a locker, a Prusik, and some trash.
Folks low in Icehouse Canyon, PLEASE PICK UP AFTER YERSELVES!! Serious man, waterbottles aren't that heavy! I'm gonna start yelling at people and being a dick next time I see folks trashing our land.
Also, people in general: you don't need so many links and so many strands of webbing! There is a point pretty early on where you're going from safe to paranoid, and making things a mess. One nice strand of webbing around a tree or pinch etc, one link. There are not many situations in established SG canyons where you'd need more. We're not talking fancy stuff here. No need for those huge $5 links with a 3,000lb drop test either. 1760 is damn fine. If you need to use more than one rap ring, then perhaps you should start carrying links instead.
Anywho, not my intention to sound like a dick but hey, a guy's gotta speak his mind every so often.
Some pics...
Scramble up
Headwall
Kimchi Ridge from dropin or thereabouts.
Some of the rings
Yarr! Shink shink!
Be safe guys (but not too safe, that's just ghey).
