Yankee Doodle (Silver Reef)

DB on the first rappel

Yankee Doodle is a regrettably short technical canyon outside of St. George, Utah. It is located in the neighborhood of two other technical canyons, Boltergeist and Shear Canyon.

With a 5-minute approach to the first of 2 rappels, the rest of Yankee Doodle is spent downclimbing, walking, and occcasionally, swimming or wading (in a spot or two).
Eiji descending into his first technical slot canyon

On this, my second trip down Yankee Doodle, I was joined by Andy Archibald, a very friendly man from St. George who was taking his first-ever trip down a technical canyon, Jeff Bell, a gentleman from Santa Clara, Utah, DB, and Eiji Sugi, an alpine partner of mine for the last few years. Like Andy, Yankee Doodle would be Eiji's first technical canyon.
Eiji on the 2nd rappel, "The Corkscrew"

After the two rappels at the entrance, the rest of the canyon was spent enjoying the awesome, twisted walls, the frequent beefy downclimbs, and assisting each other through a frictional bypass of a shallow semi-keeper pothole.
Andy enjoying the slot

All too soon, the fun ends and a steep slab is climbed out canyon-left to a gully leading back up to the road. With only two casual hours on the roundtrip, a motivated group could do this canyon as many times as they want, in the same day!
Eiji preparing to tunnel through a mini log jam