Drybone Canyon Through from the Top

[Beardilocks]

In February 2018 I hiked Drybone Canyon through from Whitetop Mountain to Scottys Castle Road.  I didn't take as many detailed images then as I now wish I did, not thinking at the time that I would ever do a trip report someplace like this.  

This was a Solo Birthday hike with a Self-Shuttle in the way that I did back then.  

I slept the night before at Mesquite Spring Campground and then drove my truck a couple dozen miles south on Scotty's Rd aka North Highway to where the old closed Jeep Trail meets it.  I locked the truck up, threw my pack into the old milk crate on the back of my 1980 Honda CT110 and took off for the long a$$ ride around to to Whitetop Mountain.



At the Jeep Trail looking West towards the drainage that I hoped to be exiting the next day.


Stashed the old bike in the bushes with my riding gear strapped down and hoped it wouldn't get stolen.  I would just like to say that for anyone complaining about the washboard on Racetrack Road... next time just imagine doing it on this little guy.  Dodging rocks left & right and getting absolutely spanked by the washboard.  To save my arse I alternated btw sitting and trying to ride on the pegs, but that's hard on the back with these low handlebars.  To say I was happy to start hiking is an understatement.



The hike down the softly sloping drainage South to the mouth of the canyon was absolutely sublime, gorgeous open high desert hiking.  With a nervous undercurrent about just how exciting and or dangerous the narrows bypass would be solo.  

Approaching the opening of the upper narrows.


The Narrows:







End of the line unless you have rope or wings.



Back out to the bypass.




Here's a basic idea of the bypass.  Gully where I parked my bike at the top, down to the narrows, and then back up & over that slope and... down.



Top of the bypass looking towards Stovepipe and Tucki in the far distance.


Heading down.


Seriously hoping I don't have to turn around for some reason....


Still going...


Just out of view in the above photo were several dryfall's that I had to down climb.  I dropped my pack on a rope and then made the climbs carefully.  Since then I have heard that if you hug the Northern wall (??) you can bypass the dryfall's.  But they weren't too terrifying.

Looking back up at the bypass:




Checking out the Narrows and dryfall's from the bottom.





Undercut Shelf that Bighorns had been sleeping in.



Headed Down Canyon finally.



The heavily tilted rock strata had me walking crooked and having to be careful of my footing at first.  Turns out that when your eyes interpret your world to be tilting they start loudly telling your brain to lean back up right!  Very odd to walk through at first.  But stunning.   












This part of the lower narrows was simply amazing.  Although the high water line was a bit alarming here.  


After coming out of the narrow I found this.  It is a fascinating and frightening example of the flash floods in these places can do.  I darkened the background in the next photo to make it a bit more clear.



The giant rock in the middle of the wash was at least 12-14ft tall.  The picture doesn't show it properly from this angle since the rocks on top were set back a bit, but boulders on top were enormous.  The black one had to be 5ft long.  Thinking of the power and ferocity of the flash flood that put those up there was terrifying.  But then the seemingly gentle way they were carefully rested up there.  Hard to imagine what the scene that left them there looked like.


Continuing down through the wider wash about mid-canyon.


Finally have the Grapevine's peaking through.


I'm guessing these rocks were also deposited during a flood?  If so it's a shockingly similar way to the large rocks only in miniature.  In a heavily trafficked canyon you would immediately think that humans did that.  But these were extremely boring rocks and I can't imagine anyone taking the time to do this out here.  Just fascinating to see what that in both scales.  



Looking north into one of the side canyons.



Continuing Downstream.  I had this very strange sensation as I walked down this wash for hour after hour: "Be as water".  Take the path of least resistance.  The water finds the easy way.  Anytime the wash forked or got rough:  WWWD.  What Would Water Do.  Lol.  It was a very zen sort of walk.  Definitely my longest continuous hike in a single wash.  



Finally out the mouth of Drybone Canyon!



Set up camp there and watched the sun set behind me.  



Sunrise the next day was even better over the Grapevine's/








As I was hiking down the fan, a spark of color caught my eye in the ever increasing wind.  I dropped my pack and started chasing it across the rough terrain for about a hundred yards before it finally caught on a bush.  I felt like Arthur chasing the sofa in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now here he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth.”  

Normally these balloons make me furious.  But seeing as how it was ACTUALLY MY BIRTHDAY I had to enjoy the joke and I collected it and moved on.  The Universe it appears, does have a sense of humor.  If only I know just how cruel it could be as well....  A few more hours would reveal that.



Continuing down the loooooong fan....


...I can see that there's a helluva windstorm whipping down the valley.  Crap.


Still not to the valley floor...


Definitely breezy out there.


Finally on the valley floor



At the point I just had to walk due East and I would eventually cross the old Jeep Trail that would lead directly to my truck.  



Somehow when I found the Jeep Trail I was too tired or too busy outrunning the coming dust storm to take any more photos.  The long walk down the Jeeps trail was not as easy as I had hoped.  Every hundred yards or so it crossed a drainage finger and I had to climb down into it, trudge across it, and climb back up the other side.  Tedious to say the least.  But eventually I got back to my truck and started the long drive back around to my bike up on Whitetop.  

Upon rescuing my Honda from the bushes and deciding I needed a beer to celebrate the hike and my birthday, I head BACK down Racetrack to grab something at Stovepipe Wells.  Having accomplished that, beer in hand, and EXHAUSTED from the hike and all the driving, I headed back down behind Stovepipe campground towards Cottonwood Canyon for a quiet spot to rest and reflect.  





The Universe it seemed had something else in mind.  But that's a whole other story.  

[netllama]

holy jebus, what a report. this had everything. scenery, danger, suspense. wow.

[Daymoth]

What a ride!!!!

I was cheering when the desert told you happy birthday , didnt expect it to have a nasty prank waiting for you....

Dude those narrows are incredible.

[MojaveGeek]

Splendid hike, really quite an achievement, way beyond what I could pull off at this point.

And what the hell happened to the truck? Looks very bad.

[ski3pin]

A great canyon and hike!

[DAW89446]

I’m not a big fan of slot canyon hikes and photos, but this one I really liked. Great photos and story!

Loved your description of your ride on your CT110. Reminds me of my first visit to Lookout ghost town. I rode up there on my tired mid 1970s Mini Trail 70 about 1987 when I lived in Trona. I think I pushed the bike more than I rode it. But it made it and so did I. I was a lot younger then and survived just fine.

[Beardilocks]

Splendid hike, really quite an achievement, way beyond what I could pull off at this point.

And what the hell happened to the truck?  Looks very bad.

Lower Ball Joint failure.  Pretty common on 1st Gen Tacomas.  There's a whole FaceBook group dedicated to this failure.  Haha.  

Luckily it happened in the sand for a soft landing.  But it wrecked the upper ball joint, brake line, threw the axle out into the desert, destroyed a new tire, bent the steering rack, etc.  

Getting out of there was ... interesting.  Luckily I had the CT110 to get me back to Stovepipe and cell reception.  Took a couple days to get extracted.  The only guy that would come get me was a ... helluva character... from Beatty.  If I believed only half of his stories he's still done some insane stuff.  Like quitting the Air Force to run guns on sketchy planes in Africa? Anyway... he showed up with a crew in a 2wd pickup & a trailer (the 4wd truck wouldn't start that day or course).  That went very poorly in the sand out there....  Another long story there.  Lol.

Eventually I was dropped off in Stovepipe campground where the host let me stay for free until I got patched up.  Hitched a ride to Parhump because the CT110 didn't have the range to get to the nearest Autozone.  That was a first.  Hahahaha.  Eventually got her all patched back up in the dust at Stovepipe.  I meet the craziest group of weirdos with my truck up on blocks in the very center of Stovepipe Camprground for 2-3 weeks while I'm banging on various things and cursing.  Great great people for the most part.  So many characters. Including one random guy that was helping me out who turned out to be from my home town 3000mi away and was best friends with my... Grandfather's sister's son.  Whatever you call that.  

Eventually drove it out to Pahrump under it's own power for an alignment and was on my way.  

Until the same (new) LBJ failed out on White Rim Road in Moab about a year later.  And I had to hitch in 120mi from there to get parts and fix it in the desert again.   That's why I'm building a solid axle 80 Series now.  Haha.

What is it that they say? Adventure is just difficulty in the past tense. Something like that.

[netllama]

The only guy that would come get me was a ... helluva character... from Beatty.  If I believed only half of his stories he's still done some insane stuff.  Like quitting the Air Force to run guns on sketchy planes in Africa?

I'd believe that story. Some of the things I've seen....

[Kauri]

Splendid hike, really quite an achievement, way beyond what I could pull off at this point.

And what the hell happened to the truck?  Looks very bad.

Lower Ball Joint failure.  Pretty common on 1st Gen Tacomas.  There's a whole FaceBook group dedicated to this failure.  Haha.  

Luckily it happened in the sand for a soft landing.  But it wrecked the upper ball joint, brake line, threw the axle out into the desert, destroyed a new tire, bent the steering rack, etc.  

Getting out of there was ... interesting.  Luckily I had the CT110 to get me back to Stovepipe and cell reception.  Took a couple days to get extracted.  The only guy that would come get me was a ... helluva character... from Beatty.  If I believed only half of his stories he's still done some insane stuff.  Like quitting the Air Force to run guns on sketchy planes in Africa? Anyway... he showed up with a crew in a 2wd pickup & a trailer (the 4wd truck wouldn't start that day or course).  That went very poorly in the sand out there....  Another long story there.  Lol.

Eventually I was dropped off in Stovepipe campground where the host let me stay for free until I got patched up.  Hitched a ride to Parhump because the CT110 didn't have the range to get to the nearest Autozone.  That was a first.  Hahahaha.  Eventually got her all patched back up in the dust at Stovepipe.  I meet the craziest group of weirdos with my truck up on blocks in the center of Stovepipe for 2-3 weeks while I'm bang on various things.  Great great people for the most part.  Including one random guy that was helping me out who turned out to be from my home town 3000mi away and was best friends with my... Grandfather's sister's son.  Whatever you call that.  

Eventually drove it out to Pahrump under it's own power for an alignment and was on my way.  

Until the same (new) LBJ failed out on White Rim Road in Moab about a year later.  And I had to hitch in 120mi from there to get parts and fix it in the desert again.   That's why I'm building a solid axle 80 Series now.  Haha.

Wow, sounds like quite an adventure getting it fixed! 

I can't remember if I asked you this earlier, but what company's LBJ did you end up replacing it with? Our local 4WD shop replaced the OEM Toyota LBJs on my 4Runner with Centric parts (280k miles on the original LBJs, it was a miracle they didn't fail before they were replaced since I didn't know they were prone to failure until the shop told me; I have the old ones and they feel quite bad). I've thought about looking into upgrades (and have been reading about uniball conversions) since I'm planning to keep my 4Runner forever. 

Also, off-topic again, have you heard of the Toyota Land Cruiser Association, now that you have a cruiser? They welcome all Toyota folks, and I've been told by members of our local chapter that they have a good network and there's often someone willing to lend a hand if you're traveling and have issues with your classic Toyota.

[MojaveGeek]

Wow, what an awesome truck repair saga. You're skilled and must have had or borrowed tools to be able to fix it out there at the campground. Quite the story. But yes, better to have failure there than out on the White Rim. You could have walked back to SPW if you'd needed but out on the Rim you are a long long ways from anyone. Both roads have some traffic though.

Must have felt pretty intense when that joint failed. Ouch! Thanks for the story!