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Journal Entry 2: I’m beginning to wonder whether my approach to life
in the desert hasn’t been too cavalier. Does danger lurk underfoot,
ready to strike without warning? Are we destined to suffer an
unexpected and painful death? Should we all live in constant fear and
suspicion? |
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No. Rattlesnakes are generally shy and fearful of humans and will not
strike unless provoked. Some would caution that obtaining this basic
understanding of snake behavior, then using this knowledge to simply
step around the snake rather than step right on his head, is
tantamount to ‘appeasement’. That logic is freaking loony-toons. In
reality, this poor little guy was too cold to even muster a half
hearted rattle, even though three members of our group stepped
directly over him without even realizing it (footprints in the sand 6
inches on either side of the snake attested to this fact). I believe
this snake is a Hopi Rattlesnake, which is a subspecies of the Prairie
Rattlesnake. |
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The group makes its way over hill and dale, sand dune and slick rock
to the canyon of the day, Choprock. From the rim it can be seen that recent
rains have filled the canyon to the brim with silty, brown runoff.
Since dirty water isn’t really a good subject for a photo, here’s a
nice tree instead. |
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We enter the canyon and it soon becomes deeply entrenched and very
pretty. Ram, though he had been through the canyon some 16 times in
the past, was made somewhat uneasy by the fact that water levels were
higher than he had ever seen them (or perhaps it was the fact that
this was his first time through since an unfortunate event that had
occurred in the canyon earlier that year). |
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There are three sections to the canyon, the Riparian Section, the
Happy Section, the Work Section and the Grim Section. The Happy Section is so sunny and
delightful, I could have sworn I saw the figures below holding hands
and skipping through the canyon. |
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La ... la la ... la laaa. |
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Here’s Bruce, still happy. |
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Getting darker and less happy (though they are still smiling). |
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A bit more grimness. |
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And we’re grim.
You can see why this canyon can be challenging. Log jams
periodically clog these tight sections making progress difficult.
Fortunately, on this day, we were able to duck under most of the
obstructions. The water, though brown, was fresh from recent rains and
had a pleasant pine scent (seriously). |
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In case you were wondering, the lens flare in the above
photo is a fake. I added it to hide the fact that the top part of the
photo is overexposed. Of course, it’s also possible this entire trip
report was done in Photoshop (or in my case Paint Shop Pro). Cyber
Canyoneering just might be the future of the sport, and it offers the
added attraction that it can be done in your underwear. |
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We make it through the log jams and bark soup before the canyons
begins to widen again. One fun little activity that can be done when
the canyon is full of water is to remove any logs or rocks stopping up
a pool to release the flood. Ram gets quite a few pools flowing using
this technique. |
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Dave wanted me to get some good photos of him to show his mom. Hi Mrs.
P! |
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We arrive at the final rap and are soon back in the land of the
living. |
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Thunder began within 30 minutes of this photo, and we learned later
from some hikers that the canyon flashed later that day. Were we
lucky? No, there’s no such thing. Because clouds build in the
afternoon, we got an early start and moved at a reasonable pace
through the canyon so that we were out before the rains began. |
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