Zero G | Eardly | Monkey Business | Oct 2023

Pregnant Emma was too pregnant to make the journey and Juan Diego managed to injure himself remodeling (hopefully wearing the pony-tail helmet for safety), so this trip was just Andy, Brad, Brent and Cristina. I hope the inaugural adventure didn’t scare off Ben & Ritziko and that we’ll have another group gathering in the future.

Thursday October 5th

Traffic for Andy sucked so it was an 8:30 departure from Englewood. 10:00 departure from Silverthorn after the Ransom exchange with Jan & Jorge and meeting miniature Quigley. Early lunch at Chomps. Chomps guy was in a good mood!

3:35 Zero Gravity Trailhead
No other cars parked here for our 4:00 start. Sunny but pleasant hiking weather. We decided to cut this short canyon even shorter and found an easy drop-in halfway where we were immediately met with a swimmer. Lots of water today. The sometimes challenging keeper was almost entirely full which made it and the rest of the canyon easy to get through. We used existing webbing for one down-climb, otherwise no gear needed. I didn’t even carry a pack which felt very weird. The last section slowed us down per usual as Brent, Brad and I wedged ourselves along the slot waiting on Andy to rig the rope. I used the handline and swam to shore. The boys all avoided the pool entirely for the first time.

NEXT TIME: wait up higher while Andy is perched on the chokestone then have everyone make their way down or over to the exit.

6:00 back at the car, a fun two-hour warm up in cold water. We set up camp just down the road at the crop of cottonwoods and decided to keep it as our base for the rest of the weekend and roasted our wet shoes by the fire.

Friday October 6th – Lower Eardley
This was my very first canyon in 2006(ish). I smashed a knee and a knuckle badly enough I skipped the next day. We also did the entire technical section and the hike back to camp in the dark with only a glow stick and camera flash (until the camera died). The following year, we repeated the canyon and I repeated the injuries, but we arrived at camp with some daylight left. We likely didn’t use the best route down on those trips but this time we found a juniper and cairns, which were slightly ahead of the RTR waypoint but his traverse suggestion seemed sketchy. Turned out the entire descent was sketchy. Steep and sketchy and slow going, but so damn pretty. It was crazy to look across the canyon at what seemed like an unscalable massive wall of boulders while we were on the other side scaling down. Brad was bewildered by the story of two ten-year-olds making their way down this “shortcut.” Only one way to find out whether the shortcut was worth it: next time we go the long way.

8:30am – started the hike from camp (only added 10ish minutes to the official trailhead)
9:30 – reached the entrance/exit, recent water flows at the mouth of the canyon. Looked like it flashed a couple days prior!
9:40 – began the climb
10:30 – reached juniper with webbing, we’re 3.5 miles from camp at this point.
10:55 – first rap down
12:00 setting up 3rd rap after some downclimbing and a meat anchor ladder assist. Reached the bottom just before 1:00 for lunch, clocked .2 miles in an hour.
Wetsuits on to start the canyon at 1:45, 5 hours from the start of the day.
2:45 first rap. SO many swimmers and muddy pools that had to be navigated verrrrrry slowly. Andy took a full dunker and his new pack tried to drown him. We all had a good laugh then Brad took the same dunk.
5 raps in the technical section (we must’ve skipped one). The entire canyon was a waterpark which made for a good time. There were some mossy slides and slippery footholds but we managed to make it to the exit with still plenty of the sun we’d been chasing. All knuckles and knees intact. Redemsh’n
4:00 exit
5:30 camp
9 hours, 6.9 miles

Brad & Brent rated this one highly for their first attempts. Andy said the conditions made this go (his 5th or 6th?) his favorite to date.I was so sketched out by the inhospitable means of entry I wasn’t so sure the technical section was worth it. But of course now as I type this a five days later, I’d gladly do this one again tomorrow. Eardly keeps its place on the worth repeating list.

Saturday October 7th – Monkey Business
Twice in the same year! Brad missed the spring trip so this was his first go, but the rest of us were sure we’d be able to finish it in less time with four canyoneers than our previous group of five.

8:30 camp departure
9:50 parked at Monkey exit – longer than the 45 minutes Andy guessed but a nice drive
10:10 start walk down the road
10:40 drop in – parking closer to the exit didn’t add much time at all. We caught up with the group of three who used a shuttle to get to the trailhead. Wearing a skirt must’ve slowed down the lady from Boulder. We didn’t see them the rest of the day.

Brad led the way and raced ahead through the first section of problems. It gets squeezy and super narrow at times, but was thankfully dry.
11:40 we reached what we thought was the first rap like we thought it was the last time but it is NOT. Ignore the rope grooves and downclimb next time. It’s hard to see where you’re going but once over the ledge it’s totally doable. Newbies can use a handline if needed, but experienced spotters below would suffice.
12:30 first actual rap off a deadman that we had no memory of using in the spring to a 2 ½ stager. The webbing is extra long which makes for a tricky start to get on belay, but this length is necessary for the pull at the bottom. Someone left a second suspicious looking deadman on a precarious ledge halfway down the final stage but it was likely set up because a group pulled the rope too early. Don’t use it.

We reached our shaded lunch spot @ 1:00-1:30. If lunching here again, stay in the first pothole. But if we get an earlier start, lunching on the hike out would be ideal.

2:00 – we reached the last rap (climb up on right to bypass last narrow section)
2:30 – began the hike out (HOT). The boys commented on how fast I walked and why can’t I always walk this fast and I don’t know if they were still making fun of me but I TRY, ok?

Began climbing up the gulley at 3:00 behind a very big, loud group, but were entirely out of the sun 🙌 The scramble seemed more difficult to me this time around and it looked like there had been a fresh rock slide…so maybe it was a different scramble? Either way, we managed without incident and marveled at how much elevation is gained so quickly. The sun found us at the slickrock exit which prompted a shade break. Soon after we reached the top and could see a parking lot of cars and vans at the spot I had pinned in the spring. It turned out the big loud group was 18 women in separate cars on a Meet-Up to do Just Kidding, and the vans belonged to a church group we did not encounter. I lamented the takeover of my not-so-secret camping spot and we reached the car at 4:20. One full hour longer than it took us in the spring…though that was just a guess. Either way, it was 6 ½ hours well spent.

The last night at camp is always my favorite. We drank too much to stay up too late and still slept until 6:30 Sunday morning. Since we were north of Duke’s we stopped at Tamarisk in Green River instead and it’s decidedly better but expect a weekend wait. We stopped at the GJ Love’s because Andy is president of their fan club. Another Silverthorn stop to collect Ransom where leaf peeping traffic started but the express lane helped and we were back in Englewood at 4:30. Thanks for another wonderful trip, boys. I love our Utah time so much.

Other notes and things to consider:
While bringing only one rope is risky, it was plenty for this trip. This group is happy to single line and one wet rope is much lighter than two. Andy’s new backpack was super helpful for flaking and setting up single line raps.
New canyon apparel idea – the G Sling
We brought one blue and two green water jugs and had a full green jug to spare after a one 1-liter shower per person. Better to have extra than not enough.
One cooler full of food and one full of beer was the perfect amount for four people.
Cristina’s mission is to figure out how to easily re-heat breakfast burritos because dehydrated meals are sad (albeit time saving).
Andy & Cristina are the champions of desert pong.
Everyone slept not-so-great the first two nights but much better the 3rd. This means we either have to each bring a van for comfort, or stay longer so our bodies adjust to tent sleeping and by the 5th night we’ll be golden.
Early October was absolutely perfect.
We’re talking about using the Monkey exit as a basecamp for another trip to also do Just Kidding and/or the Irish Spring Canyons.
We’re also talking about fall-only trips as spring means bugs.
Brent & Brad are the losers of desert pong.

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Notes my phone took at the Monkey exit that don’t need to go in the blog but I’m keeping them here because it’s funny.
Oh that’s a nice cold beer. It took us to remember to pack cold beer somewhere with you we got helmets are similar we got helmets. Yeah there’s a water bottle is that pretzel? Thank your pocket pets.

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