February long weekend

[Daymoth]

So the next day was going to be the warmest. We had never checked out moonlight and the report from Bluegreen and the several Kauri reports looked intriging.

Ah the Grapevines' aluvial fan. Here we meet again. I hate you so much. Thankfully the gravel was way more compacted than in Red Wall and the approach to the main canyon is half the distance. It was also full of cactus.

The main canyon is HUGE! And the walls remind me of the walls in medieval castles. It was 9 am and the heat was already a bit unconfortable.


We checked the first side canyon to the east and oh boy it is SO GOOD. Highlight of the day. It narrows into tall white walls with overhangs full of wasp nests. Its freaking crazy. Super special.





We then continued up the main canyon and explored some short offshoots that quickly became impassable.

We then made it to the second east side canyon ( I think Kauri calls it first south canyon). The gravel here was deep and a PITA. We made it through a narrow slot just to find that the "easy dryfall" described was actually impossible for us to figure out. Oh well, plenty canyon to see here so we kept going upstream.

Then a bunch of clouds came in and cooled down a lot. They even dumped some snow on the Panamints. It was unexpectedly very nice weather. It would have been unconfortable on the main canyon otherwise.

We made it to the third east canyon - the moonlight bridge canyon. I was surprised at how long it was. It kept going on and on and on and on. It was not narrow and dramatic as the first one but was still very nice. We checked some narrow side shoots but they all quickly ended.  We finally got to the bridge. DUDE its WAY bigger than I though. Impressive. 


It was like 2pm by then and we where tired and satisfied so we slogged our way back to the car. 









To be continued...