EISPIRATEN

Dima and I took the next logical extension of his earlier PL and P trip by attempting to ascend Devil Gulch. The goal was to follow it all the way to the NW ridge of Rattlesnake but we didn't get close. Ropewiki had a trip report documenting the bottom half of the gulch: http://ropewiki.com/Devil_Gulch.

We followed the PL and P into the gulch as far as we could tell. Based on the USGS trail, it might have been slightly higher on the wall. It wasn't long before we hit a ravine with no obvious way across. We debated dropping a few hundred feet down a scree slope and trying to get back up to it across the ravine, but decided to just take the scree slope into the gulch and start up from there. I dropped down the scree and Dima left a big gap between us to avoid knocking rocks down on me. We entered at a small waterfall and it was at once both beautiful and terrible. Thick, healthy trees grew in the gulch, but the ground was filled with decayed trees, boulders, leaves, poison oak, and water. The decayed trees were so rotten that even 2' diameter logs would not support my weight. We fought slowly upstream until we hit the second major waterfall as described in the canyoneering report. It was a 20' fall with a long, deep pool below it. We followed a side wash on the left, then did some light class 3 on loose dirt/rock to bypass the waterfall. I did the calculus of our rate plus the odds of running into a waterfall we could not bypass and suggested we turn around. Dima would have continued, but agreed to head back. We decided to follow the gulch out.

Looking down into the gulch

Scree slope down

The 2nd waterfall and pool

Looking down from the waterfall bypass

Looking up from the turnaround point.

Heading out

Top of Devil Gulch Falls, the rock in the center is supposed to be the rap anchor

The descent was as slow as the ascent and it took us over an hour to reach two-tiered Devil Gulch Falls, 15' for the upper tier and 60' for the lower. Dima recalled a fixed rope bypass nearby, but we couldn't find it. We backtracked to the first steep gully that looked climbable and started up. It was a mix of class 2/3 dirt and crumbling rock with some cactus and dead shrubs to keep it interesting. Half way up, Dima scouted right for the bypass with no luck. I continued left to reach the spine, following it over the top to get around Devil Gulch Falls. We descended more or less straight down on animal trails.

On the way back, we searched the wall for the Horseshoe Annex and found a cairn, steel cable, and use trail up to the adit. At the entrance, we found sheep bones and continued slowly, announcing our presence with "Hello, Mr. Mountain Lion". Hearing no reply, we proceeded deeper into the main tunnel. We passed other tunnels branching left and right, stopping more than 100' deep into the main tunnel where we had to crawl to continue. Overall, the main tunnel of the mine was in good shape. Based on this 9.5 hour trip, I would guess a full ascent of the gulch over Rattlesnake would take me at least 15 hours, IF there were bypasses available for whatever lurks above. The upper half of the gulch remains a mystery.

Escape gully

Horseshoe Annex Mine

Sheep bones, the Hermit took the head

Heading into the mine, we only followed the main branch

Cool trip. I wonder what lives in that long pool.

That is just crazy wild.

So here's the thing. I think we were on the old trailbed when we hit the ravine. The trailbed on the other side of the ravine was clearly visible: it was cut into solid rock on the same level that we were on, but the cuts just abruptly ended on either side. This wasn't a washout either: this was a solid rock ravine, so I don't know. Maybe originally there was some sort of wooden bridge or something. When doing this again, I think the way to do it would be to stay on the trail for as long as possible, even if it requires an annoying bypass of the ravine. In the end you'd meet Devil's Gulch relatively high up, far above the falls ropewiki describes.

Inside the mine, directly next to the bighorn vertebrae lie tiny little vertebrae and a partial skull of some raccoon-like thing. The size differences amuse me.

Finally, I lost my sunglasses when I fell into the river, but the world made up for this by gifting me a selfie stick 15 minutes later. It works!


Rather, it sorta works. How is one supposed to focus when using these things? Blindly focusing rarely works, hence the leaves in the background are in-focus in this image, instead of us. Or are my standards simply higher than that of the average selfie stick user?

Nice report. Happy to see water there. I've been to the top of Devil's Gulch. There was a rope there last time I was there about 2 years ago.

Yeah, there was a rope last month too, but we didn't see it for some reason. We could have looked harder, I guess, but the longer bypass wasn't all that tough.

Wow, you took that hard way. Impressive.