Where: Robbers Roost, Utah Canyonlands
When: November 2007
Partners: Bill Geist, Aron Ralston & Jason Halladay
With my second trip to Robbers Roost in the works, I put out feelers to a few friends who knew the area well, asking for recommendations. Among a cluster of suggestions, all three came back with a common "two-thumbs-up" canyon - Chambers!
After a few awesome canyons in the preceding days, Jason, Aron, Bill and I set out one warm morning for a romp through what had been described to me as a very tight and potentially dangerous canyon.
With a short approach from the vehicle, we had no difficulty finding the drop-in, a very tight, deep and dark slot that materialized within moments after we'd entered an otherwise mellow wash.
I stemmed up over the slot and peered down, trying to gauge its depth and narrowness. Uh, Aron, you wanna go first?
Gathering my nerve, I dropped down into the canyon with my partners. Super tight alright! With some low squeezing and some high chimneying, the canyon soon opened up into an astonishingly aesthetic "chambers" section.
Just when we were disappointed that the canyon was already over, we passed through the chambers and found ourselves in a funky area of high stemming across a slot. More great stuff! With a bit of robust climbing and chimneying, we made a final push through a keyhole slot...and popped on out to an open, sandy wash at the mouth of the canyon! Awesome, is all I can say!
Done with the canyon, we moseyed down to the Dirty Devil River to take a couple photos and otherwise check it out. Then, we walked a bit back up-canyon, found an exit, and wandered back toward the vehicle.
Just below the rim where our vehicle was parked, I looked at my watch and commented to the others that if we could make it back to the vehicle in one minute, we could pull off a sub-3 hour roundtrip of a canyon I'd been told would take about 5 hours.
We took off! And beat it with a few seconds to spare.
*Photos courtesy of Jason Halladay
Chambers (Robbers Roost)
