Hello and some trip reports Jan 22

[Daymoth]

Right last installment

So ive been wanting to go up to the area around artist palette peak - botax benchmark - blue mountain for maybe 3 years now and ive spent quite some time on google maps checking it out. I dont remember where I read the first beta, maybe the old forum? Maybe Steve hall?

However, the last day was reserved as adventure day to try to get up there. Best case we would make it, worst case we would get lost and have to overnight in the badlands. No expectations, just exploring.

I had two options to try:
Option 1- Stav's route up 20 mule canyon. Problem: "Crumbly  Class 3" as described by a beast of a climber and we are objectively shit at it.
Option 2- Kauri's chuckwalla canyon. Problem, the dryfall that looked very different in different years reports looked daunting.
I asked Stav for some more beta and he kindly sent me photos of the hardest obstacle. In the photos it looked easy peasy. Hah damn you 2 dimensions!

So we started early morning and went up 20 mule. Saw some borax mine shafts. The canyon was golden and gorgeous



At the first obstacle we got a bit disoriented and instead of climbing up the dryfall we went up a steep crumbly chute on the side of Monte Blanco. I was hoping it was some sort of bypass but we totally cliffed out. Nice views tho:


Descending was slow going with the ground flowing under our feet. My husband made it clear how he hated every minute of it. Once back down we climbed the dryfall, that was actually easy.

Second obstacle was quite fun. It took us quite some time to figure out (refer to shit at climbing), but we managed after attempting several different ways.


Finally we made it to the obstacle from Stav' s photo. Welp, we wimped out. It was harder than it looked. We tried to bypass it but the rock was just flowing like liquid. Husband was tired from the crumbly chute so we decided to abort. 
The badlands were shining with glittery white borax on the way out





Will try again next time on the Kauri route or try again this route now that we know how to do the first 2 obstacles. This is going to be my project for a while I guess!

We started driving the long way back home, and got to see a group of these cuties making a commotion in the middle of the road to Trona


And now it feels like its been AGES since I was there and so need some more vacation.

Hope you enjoyed.