Death Valley

(2023-03-30, 02:02 PM)Bluegreen kayak Wrote: [ -> ]Okay, those are some awesome pictures, and I badly want to go there on my next visit to the park. How sure are you about the mile southeast canyon mouth? I'm trying to pin it down on Google Earth.

Thank you very much for sharing so much beautiful nature with us.

Here is a little ways up the canyon, so it's clear which one as there are some forks.

36.66005, -116.89035

And there was one moderately dicey dryfall to climb up at the start. It's not a difficult climb (left side of dryfall) but some material is loose and so care must be taken.

And I think even that climb could be bypassed like 100ft earlier on the left. Shouldn’t be a problem.

Thank you both, it was about where I thought it was but now I feel more certain. Something to look forward to in the fall!

Yesterday was The Day of the Bridges.

We hit a couple of canyons in the Kit Fox Hills that Capt. Satellite had identified as having LPBs (Low Probability Bridges).  And then we were going to go back out to the Princess Bride suite of canyons to chase down the bridge formerly mistakenly identified as Humperdinck Bridge.  

I was hopeful as we made our way into the KFHs.  The sat images looked promising and it was a lovely day blowing hard again and half heartedly trying to rain on us.  



Very quickly we got to our first target.  And it was a hit!  




Judging what is or is not a bridge can get a bit... subjective.  Especially with the rule of "must be a hiking destination unto itself".  After a thorough inspection I believe this qualifies.  About 9-10ft tall inside, solid rock, impressive depth, definitely not a collapsed piece of canyon (aka false bridge).

The crack at the ceiling here is natural erosion, not a sign that it is a collapsed piece of canyon.




Pano inside shows the uninterrupted rock making it a full bridge not a false bridge:



Immediately past this first bridge was a second minor bridge.  In fact it is a minor bridge with an extra arch on top and a tunnel past it.  Very interesting formation.  The tunnel at the bottom is big enough to duck-walk through.


The next one was a false bridge or a tunnel.  Pick your poison with it.  We walked through but there was insufficient evidence to call it a bridge.


Inside


Looking back.


Next up was a pair of twin bridges.  They have been christened Gemini Bridge for the non-identical twins.  They are both also hard rock, quite large (10-15ft interior height), and I think fit the criteria (as a pair) for a major bridge.  
Pano of the pair.


Looking into the left bridge.




Right bridge.


Right bridge from the other side.


In a different canyon we were stymied by what turned out to be a tunnel, leading into a room, leading to a tunnel that was too sketchy to crawl through.  There are still some more promising bridge targets on the other side of that complex, but it will have to be attacked from a different direction on another day.

All in all a pretty successful hike to what almost has to be called Bridge Canyon.

So next we took the short drive past SPW and down Cottonwood Rd. for the second sojourn of the day out to the Princess Bride Canyons.

We had originally wandered out here a few weeks back to look for what we thought was a bridge on a canyoneering route in Humperdinck Canyon.  Our Beta was... non-existent.  Lol.  So we of course walked away empty handed that day.  A bit more research showed that it was actually in Dread Pirate Roberts Canyon (one canyon West), so we didn't even have the right canyon.  However further research could find absolutely nothing else on the canyon or the bridge.  Apparently the bridge had only ever been accessed by a few cannoneers rappelling the canyon and we had no clue if the bridge was accessible to hikers or not.  And the satellite view was neither helpful nor encouraging. 

The hike in is pretty straightforward.  You have an option of approaching in the slot canyon drainage or on the fan, both of which have one section of mild/moderate exposure (more about that below).  Once you reach the base of the canyon you begin a rock scramble in an absolute rubble pile of rock all the way up to the top.  There was one tricky dryfall section, but the exposure is fairly low.  

A short distance up canyon we found a set of small minor bridges or arches leading to a tunnel.


Human for scale.


Peering into the depths.


How far will we be able to climb/scramble/crawl?


View back.  Bloody hell you gain elevation quick in this stuff.




Then around a corner... Paydirt!


This thing is a monster of solid rock.  About 10ft tall and 15ft wide inside.  The slope is WAY steeper than it looks in photos.  It's extremely confusing because the bridge opening is pointed at the same angle as the slope making it look much more like it's on a flat surface.  


Human for scale.


Interior.


Looking back down.




Human for scale again.


Long bloody climb back down.


On the way back we found this kill scene.  Red-tailed Hawk.  There were several very large nests in the cliffs above the canyon.




We also found these bushes blooming beautifully.  A local hummingbird was flitting about making sure to get every last drop out of these impossibly small flowers.


I was very happy to find this bridge at last and document the size and the route to get to it.  It is one helluva bridge, one of the larger ones in the park and one of the few made solely out of solid rock.  It was MUCH larger than we expected.  

The climb up there isn't for everyone.  I think the total mileage on the roundtrip was about 5-6mi.  But the last .25mi gains about 700-800ft of elevation.  And that is almost exclusively crawling up and over the rock-fall that chokes the whole canyon.  You never know which pieces are solidly placed and which are loose.  There is one section on the approach up the fan to the canyon that has mild exposure but very grippy rock that can be done as either a climb up from in the slot canyon (next to a white dryfall chute) or as a mildly exposed rock-face crossing, if hiking in up on the bench to the south of the drainage.  There were a couple of short class 3 climbs (5-7ft) that were pretty easy.  Only one section on a dryfall was a bit tricky, but not bad.  It's grippy sharp rock (great for footholds, tough on bare hands for hand holds) but it's very solid.  If I was in a group I would advise hardhats or being very well spaced to avoid getting brained by someone above when a rock is kicked loose.

We decided to name the bridge BOUS Bridge after the ROUS's (rodents of unusual size) in order to keep with the Princess Bride theme of the area and for the unexpected unusually large size of it.

I love this so much. Im living vicariously through yours and Brice's adventures.

How does a LPB look on satelite? Like a choke in the canyon?

(2023-03-31, 01:44 PM)Daymoth Wrote: [ -> ]I love this so much. Im living vicariously through yours and Brice's adventures.

How does a LPB look on satelite? Like a choke in the canyon?

I usually look for narrow places and/or places in shadow but that's just a starting point.  The only way to tell if there is a bridge in an area is to go there.  Here are a couple examples that illustrate this.

In this satellite photo I traced the canyon floor in red.  Even though I've been to this location I still find it hard to believe there is no bridge here, but there isn't.



Below is the satellite of Little bridge.  I haven't been to Little bridge yet but I'm assuming its the light colored rock extending into the middle of the wash.



This is neither a narrow section nor casting shadows and yet there is a bridge.  So, I pretty much go out and explore with no firm expectations one way or another.

Bridge hunting is just a way to spur me into exploring places not many people visit, and places I might not otherwise go.  Finding a bridge is just a bonus.

It really is a crapshoot looking for bridges on GE or Sat.  A lot of the time best approach is to find an area that has potential.  Frequently you’ll pin a spot that looks like a bridge and it’s not at all when you get there.  BUT you hit a bridge you couldn’t see on sat on the way out to your pin. 

You’re basically looking for anomalies.  

Even if you get it wrong you might be close.  
Here’s one.  Circle was what I thought would be the bridge.  But the arrow is what was actually the bridge.  

(2023-03-31, 04:40 PM)Brice Wrote: [ -> ]In this satellite photo I traced the canyon floor in red.  Even though I've been to this location I still find it hard to believe there is no bridge here, but there isn't.

And those of us with questionable sanity who have spent untold hours scouring Google Earth for possible natural bridges can quickly identify the location of such spots where we were absolutely certain it must be a bridge, but it wasn't, just from a little clip of satellite imagery. I'm quite certain that image is of Upper Mormon Point Canyon.

(2023-03-31, 07:04 PM)Kauri Wrote: [ -> ]And those of us with questionable sanity who have spent untold hours scouring Google Earth for possible natural bridges can quickly identify the location of such spots where we were absolutely certain it must be a bridge, but it wasn't, just from a little clip of satellite imagery. I'm quite certain that image is of Upper Mormon Point Canyon.

It's good to know I wasn't the only one completely hoodwinked by this pretender. My only doubt was that it was so accessible, how could it not be well known already? Even so, I was still in disbelief when I finally got out there.