EISPIRATEN

Bugs - Esme canyon(dry)@Idlehour trail
1 S Harvard(pretty much dry) to Idlehour
lower reaches of Caltech and all the way down Eaton creek to the point of no return
middle section of Eaton past the narrows

other than that both had water that was nice and clear, with good streamflow.

Reached Slide Falls(7 ft deep) to find 8 teens(some of who had said they jumped it anyway). Continued on past them and went to take Razorback ridge back down and turned around at the first freeclimb....reediculous! Downclimb/scramble and then downstream to the anchor for Eaton Falls. False rope installed for rigging at anchor. Cut rope revealed rope was stuffed with basically cotton.

Dropped rappel side of rope, but kids down below think rope was dropped for them to climb

Beat the teens down who took the drainage downstream of Razorback ridge....despite a total time of 1.5 hours. A confession was made that they were in over their heads and were about to ask me for help at Slide Falls. They wont be back to Slide Falls.

edit: The Gully waterfall bolt is on the way to becoming undone....still quite safe right now IMO. Also observed webbing in the gully canyon right just downstream of the Gully waterfall section.

Caltech cyn above the falls(which BTW measured to equal 60ft(67 ft to anchor))


Caltech canyon travel


Eaton well downstream of Idlehour


Log to bypass swim


swim


'the pool', approx 6ft deep


old art and new art observed throughout the lower section


razorback ridge from above Eaton Falls, 2 freeclimbs on chossy rock...on the way back down a rock broke away from my foot...always fun.


false rope anchor at Eaton Falls...I didnt get a picture of the braided cotton inside. I think there was a very thin wire in there as well.

AW wrote: ↑lower reaches of Caltech

Nice! Hadn't heard of Caltech canyon yet but you can bet that I approve of the naming, assuming it's a canyon of suitable quality. 8)

AW wrote: ↑The Gully waterfall bolt is on the way to becoming undone....still quite safe right now IMO.

I'm always hesitant to use a single bolt, and this one has always struck me as suspect. It is surely submerged during high flow. IMHO the safer bet is the rock (usually with quite a few slings around it) canyon right. It does not yield an ideal pull, but I'd rather address that with an extra rope than risk a blown anchor.

AW wrote: ↑lower reaches of Caltech
False rope installed for rigging at anchor. Cut rope revealed rope was stuffed with basically cotton.

I didnt get a picture of the braided cotton inside. I think there was a very thin wire in there as well.

Eeek! I hope your wrong on this -- our group of nine went off this anchor just a few weeks ago. Are you sure it was cotton in there and not white nylon? Looked to me like 6mm accessory cord. The very clean fisherman's knot and nearly perfect equalization gave me quite a bit of confidence.

turtle wrote: ↑Nice! Hadn't heard of Caltech canyon yet but you can bet that I approve of the naming, assuming it's a canyon of suitable quality. 8)

I gave it that name since its on the west side of Eaton, as opposed to Harvard on the east side of Eaton....its not Eaton, but it does sport some nifty sections(there arent any yucky sections)...it will be more badazz once I get there from the rocks above Idlehour.
Here is the public photos/videos for Caltech
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y30/ni ... n%20Feb10/

Eaton Falls rope - it was fluffy after an easy cut for sure,tiny twisted strands. I dont know much about accessory cords, but since it didnt have any bounce to it(dynamic)..hmm. The sheath was a lot tougher though. I doubt there was a place to cut it on rappel, especially since it didnt extend all the way to that boulder. The rap ring wasnt canyoneering rated either...that was what got me nervous since I didnt bring one. I retied that one on the bottom bolt , and put webbing on the top bolt....its all something someone will have to fix on the next trip. Almost everytime I put primo webbing on an anchor, it gets stolen....bastids.

That does kinda look like accessory cord. I don't think someone using good old Home Depot rope knows the Fisherman's.

Thanks for sharing, AW.