While we were in Colorado, kids came! They came to Cedar while we were in Colorado.
Damian came on the Tuesday the third. Nick came on Friday night, October 6th. We didn't get home till later in the morning on Saturday.
Saturday morning, Damian ran the St. George half Marathon with a friend. Nick climbed the face of "Lady Mountain" in Zion with friends. And few ropes. Yikes. Very steep and sheer. Mike and I slept.
I visited Mom, napped again,caught up on newspapers, visited with Damian and Don from Herriman. Kind of felt like a tired slug all day. I'm not used to all-nighters. I did nap on the plane, and we both napped in Mesquite NV.
Nick left for home Sunday morning.
Sunday after Church and dinner with Damian and Mom, she and I drive up and over Cedar Mountain to see the fall leaves. We saw some!
June 4, 2023
Cassidy Arch canyoneering experience
Cameron Brown organized a trip for several old friends from Cedar High (and some others) to do some hiking and canyoneering in and around Capitol Reef National Park for June 2023. He had previously organized several similar trips, and many of the participants had descended many canyons together. It had happened with such regularity, in fact, that he titled this the “Desert Rat Reunion 2023.”
The participants (“Desert Rats”) for this trip:
Cameron Brown
Sean Madill (a classmate of Cameron’s from SUU, the two of them learned canyoneering together)
Preston Leavitt (started joining the Desert Rats a couple years prior, and provided the housing this year)
Garrett Stewart
Kent Turek
Mike Terry
Spencer Brown
Tyler Cowart
Nick Liebhardt
Brady Hall
Charles Hart
Justin Hunter (started joining the Desert rats just a couple times prior)
James Lisonbee (a coworker of Garrett who joined the Desert Rats maybe 1 year prior)
If not otherwise noted, the Desert Rats above are considered original to the group. Some of them came infrequently, though. Others had more experience on ropes (rappelling) than just our excursions.
As noted above, Preston provided the housing. His family has a “cabin” of sorts in Loa, Utah. It is really a converted fish processing plant that his dad had intended to use as a base for chartered hunting trips. I believe that business endeavor either never formed or it floundered. Either way, at the time of this reunion it was made available to the various branches of the Leavitt family through a calendaring system, and it was often occupied. Preston was able to secure it for this trip with minimal cost to us. We just had to pay a few hundred total for cleaning.
The cabin was great. I arrived there somewhat late Friday evening. Most of the other guys were already there, chatting around a huge table in a large central conference room type area. There were probably 8 bedroom directly circling the conference room, plus another long corridor of bedrooms one direction, as well as a 2nd floor with 8-ish more bedrooms. Probably 20 bedrooms in total. No problem at all to house our 13 guys.
After I settled in, we all consulted for planning the weekend. There was a chance of rain every day, and some of our intended canyons had a high risk of flash flood. We wanted to hike Cassidy Arch on Saturday, Fern’s Nipple on Sunday, and then Arch Nemesis on Monday. Arch Nemesis had the highest risk of flash flood in a short narrows section. Fern’s Nipple was an ascent to a small peak. Cassidy Arch is a well-traveled canyon with little flood risk. The weather forecast made it look like the chance of rain tapered off as the days progressed, so we chose to hike Fern’s Nipple first.
The hike of Fern’s Nipple was certainly a challenge, and we did get rained on at the peak, but nothing particularly noteworthy happened otherwise.
Sunday was our day for Cassidy Arch. We confirmed the decision Saturday night.
Cassidy arch starts with an ascent to the actual Cassidy Arch. You then rappel 132 ft right next to the arch to start the canyon descent. There is another 132 ft rappel soon after the first, then a 23 ft rappel soon after that. Then throughout the canyon 4 more of 40 ft, 50 ft, 50 ft, and 40 ft.
When we got to the top of the arch, there was what appeared to be a large group still getting people down the first rappel. Our group would be waiting, which isn’t a big deal. We didn’t want to wait too, long, though, because Brady actually stayed at the cabin for the day to go to church. I was concerned that if we were behind a large group the whole time, it could really slow us down. I guess I forgot that we were a large group of 12 ourselves. I talked with the guys at the end of that other group to make guesses as to how they might affect us. They has a couple inexperienced people, but had some very experienced people helping them.
I learned that the group ahead of us was about 12 people and that they had 2 ropes of 100’ each. They tied them together to do double-stranded rappelling on the first rappel, so this mean that they had to wait until everyone was done before they could set up the next rappel. I offered to let them set up one of our ropes on rappel #2, which they would then leave for us. They declined. In thinking of this later, I realized that nobody should ever put their life in the hands of an unknown rope. They have no idea how old it is or if it is in good shape. It was smart of them to not accept that, even if it meant speeding up their day as well.
They did accept my invitation to have one of their guys provide a fireman’s belay for me as I’d be the first on rope in our group. That way I didn’t need to use an autoblock system. I had used one previously and didn’t like the way it slowed me down. I prefer to go down fast on the rope.
After a few other guys came down, I left the others to belay #1 while I set up #2 (as soon as the other group was gone). The approach to #2 was a side-ways sloped sandstone surface over to an anchor that was practically on the cliff face itself. There was a stretch of about 30 feet walking over to it that looked as though you could slide down a fairly steep angle for 50 feet before you likely slid over an unknown cliff, if you slipped. My shoes were good, so I didn’t feel too uncomfortable getting across to the anchor. I secured myself to the anchor and encouraged the next few guys to make their way across and set up for the drop.
I had secured myself to the anchor via a short 4-ft leash. It was not ideal. I had to crouch pretty awkwardly to stay leashed in. After getting Spencer and maybe Sean down, I heard that Tyler was having issues on #1. I could actually see him on the rope from where I was. I was told that he was stuck. I had Mike and Garrett in line to go down #2, and they decided that there was nothing they could do to help Tyler. There was no way back up. In fact, it would be best for them to just get down, because Tyler will be tired after getting stuck, so we will want to get him out of the canyon fast. So Mike, Garrett, and James went down.
I waited a long time for more news. I could still see that Tyler was not moving. It was approaching 30 minutes of him on the rope. I was able to get some communication back and from between the bottom of #1 and the bottom of #2 by yelling. I heard that they may need to call search-and-rescue (SAR) for Tyler. We figured it would take at least 45 more minutes for them to get there, in the best case scenario. There was no service at the top of the arch. Someone would have to get to the trailhead and possibly need to drive from there to the visitor center. It was not looking good.
Within another 10 minutes, I got word that SAR was actually on scene and helping Tyler. I was able to see him come down, and I came back up to the bottom of #1 to assist in any way needed. The SAR guy was named Russ. He secured Tyler to his own device and lowered him down. Then Russ ascended his rope again to the top!
Charles waited until Tyler was down safely, then helped Tyler get across that approach to me. Charles took a lot of coaching to get across that slick sloped approach. He was not confident in his shoes, and it had been raining. In fact, it had been pouring on me while I was leashed to #2.
Our mindset was that Tyler was very tired from being stuck on rope for 40 minutes, so we kind of hurried him into #2. We didn’t force him into, it, though. We did ask him if he really wants to continue. We could call in a rescue team if he needs it, and he could get lifted out. He wanted to continue, just insisted that he needed a minute to rest and he’d be ready. So I got him roped up and sent him on his way. Charles was halfway across that slick approach while Tyler rappelled. It was raining again at this point, but we were not sure if it’d stop, so Tyler had just decided it was better to go. Before getting word that he was off rope, I heard some very concerning screaming from below, followed by a THUMP, then the line going slack. I looked back and Charles and we both knew that was not good at all. We were very concerned that something terrible happened. We did not have a radio at the bottom of #2, though. There was one at the bottom of #1 and the other was still with Cam as he was to be the last one down #1. I just waited at the top of the rappel to hear news. I could not see the bottom of the rappel itself, but I could see the canyon floor a little way back from it. I had been able to yell back and forth with others if they were in the right spot. I eventually heard some chatter. Indistinguishable, of course, but it did not sound like an emergency was happening. I eventually got word that he was okay and off-rope, so we got Charles on rope and going.
After Charles was down, I believe I just had Cameron and Preston. I got a short explanation that there happened to be a search-and-rescue volunteer there at the top of the arch. While Tyler was on the rope, Cameron knew it may not go well. If things did go well, Tyler would be tired and we’d need to get out of the canyon ASAP. So Justin and Kent did not descend. Instead, they ran back down the trail to the cars, with the intent to be our last-resort of calling SAR if we were not in contact with them by 6 pm.
I also learned that the 300’ rope on #1 had been stuck upon trying to pull it down, so Cameron cut it. Sad, but not critical since both ropes were 300’ and we’d have no further need of any rope over 100’.
I left Cameron to be the last one down, as we typically do. After I got down #2, I learned what had happened that scared me and Charles.
The rain was coming down fairly hard as Tyler descended #2. Spencer was on belay. Tyler lost his footing a little, and it caused a bit of PTSD from #1. While on #1, he was stuck, so he had to hold himself upright as long as possible, and used both hands above his device. In a typical rappel, you never do that. You always have a brake hand below your device to slow yourself. After hanging on #1 for so long, he had gotten mixed up on protocol. As a result, he moved both hands above his device when he slipped. This removed almost all friction, and he dropped like a rock. At that moment, Spencer happened to be wiping rain off his glasses and adjusting his own footing, so he did not see Tyler’s situation in the split-second that he needed to. The yelling I heard was Garrett yelling, “BELAY, BELAY, BELAY!!!!”
Spencer quickly tightened up the line, and it was almost too late. He was pulled into Tyler right as Tyler basically hit the ground from 40 ft up. Spencer may have broken his fall. They were both remarkably alright. We discovered later that Tyler’s impact dented his metal water bottle in his pack and exploded a can of chicken.
After #2, we continued to work our way quickly and still cautiously while being compassionate towards Tyler’s physical and mental well-being.
Rappels 3, 4, 5 and 6 were mostly uneventful and beautiful. I did rip a rope bag on one drop after sending down the bag then realizing I put the rope through an incorrect location. As I pulled it back up, the weight of the water ripped the handle mostly off.
Rappel #7 had an old foot bridge and a down climb section that made it possible to not even rappel. We thought the footbridge from the 70’s looked a bit sketchy, so we decided Tyler in particular was better off rappelling. It was an awkward lip, though, and he got his device stuck. It was a fairly short rappel, and super lucky that we could just have someone else climb up and down. We called for Cameron to join us as quickly as possible to rectify this situation. He decided to set up a 2nd rope next to him, rig Tyler into that, then cut the original rope. Sadly, this was the OTHER rope, so now Cameron would have cut both 300’ ropes on this trip.
As we set up the secondary rope, Garrett and Spencer were below. At one point, we were double checking the system. We had Tyler actually tied into the 2nd line, and he would be lowered down by Garrett and Spencer like a climbing belay rather than a rappel. Spencer noticed that his end may be a bit short, and asked if that would be enough line. It would not have been. That would have been another terrible situation. So Cameron clambered back up to get on rope, went back down to Tyler to move the rope through, and got down again. All this time, Tyler was hanging over a lip of a cliff that cut away underneath him, so he had nothing on which to support his body weight and couldn’t even lean forward effectively. This was an awful position.
We got him down, though.
We finished the technical portion of the canyon, and it was nearly 6 pm. We really should have been done by about 3 pm. Since it was so close to the time that SAR would presumably be called by the others, Spencer and I ran back to the trucks. All trucks were there, which confused us, but we took his and went to the visitor center to try to reach Justin and Kent. Still no service there, so we started driving out of the park. When I was able to reach someone, I learned that Justin and Kent contacted Brady, who came to get them from the park. The rangers in the visitors center actually advised them to plan to wait until 7:30 to call SAR, based on their knowledge of the situation. That was good advice.
I went with Cameron to return a couple radios to Russ, the rescuer. It was great to get more of the story at this point. There was still so much that I hadn’t learned while going through the canyon. Russ was with a group waiting to start the canyon behind us. He saw that Tyler was stuck and quickly said to Cameron that he is volunteer SAR and is there if we needed him. We know that hanging in a harness for too long can lead to severe complications or death, so after maybe 15 minutes of trying to coach Tyler through getting unstuck with minimal progress, Cam gave the go-ahead to Russ. Russ rigged himself up and got down to Tyler, who was kind of splayed out. He was so wiped out that he had a hard time holding himself upright. There was a real danger of him falling out of his harness upside down if he leaned too far back with no strength. Russ had also given Cam 2 more radios and his contact info at the top of the rappel. He was really concerned with us all, given the size of our group, the apparent errors on the first rappel, and the rain that had started as we descended a slot canyon.
We all had a good discussion that night around the conference room table. We identified some errors.
Number one, Tyler had not rappelled in several years. He was not as comfortable as many of us. We overlooked this and stuck him on a free-fall 130 ft rappel from the gate. We should have started with something simpler with rappels on Saturday to warm him up. He also used a rappel device that was new to him. Anyone rappelling needs practice at home or in low risk situations with their gear. It was not wise to strap him into something new on that drop. In the free-fall portion of the rappel (where he had nowhere to put his feet), he got twisted and the ropes then twisted into the device and cinched down under his pressure. The use of a new device was at least in part my fault, since I mentioned to him that some of the heavier guys have not liked using an ATC in the past.
The drop on the second rappel was another “perfect storm” of errors. As mentioned above, we hastened to get Tyler through the canyon because of his physical weariness. We did attempt to account for his emotional stability, but that consisted of just asking him if he really wanted to continue. We really should have also reviewed safe practices in more detail. We also did not adequately relay our concern to those at the bottom of #2. As a result, his belay was a typical slack for us. For Tyler in this situation, it would have been better to give a lot of tension and control the drop speed for him, rather than require him to control his speed. Combine his depleted strength with trauma from the previous hanging situation, with a habit of not needing to have a brake hand from the last situation, plus the rain causing momentary loss of focus for both Tyler and his belay, and of course a slack belay to start with.
The issues on rappel 7 could have been avoided if we had tied in Tyler for a climber’s belay and controlled his descent for him. Pinning his device how he did is an easy mistake to make for someone out of the habit and exhausted when going over an overhang like that.
We all were very grateful that everyone made it out alive. We certainly better understood the importance of everyone taking upon themselves the necessity for education and practice beyond these trips.
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