Canyoneering in Southern Utah

I've been lazy and haven't been posting any of my travels during the last 4 months. Here is the first of what I hope is a series of updates.

Boltergeist & Yankee Doodle Canyon Combo

For Memorial Day weekend my plans were to spend it doing Baptist Draw and Upper Chute in the San Rafael Swell. I did it two months ago and was planning on leading a small group of relatiively new canyoneers through. At the last minute we decided weather conditions were looking bad enough to bag the swell and instead headed south to the St. George area where chances of rain were significantly less. It turned out to be a great choice for the group we had.

I had read about both Boltergeist and Yankee Doodle canyons as being relatively simple canyons with a number of rappels. The canyon was simple enough, although I was surprised by how frequent the drops/rappels were. Some of them could have been downclimbed by experienced climbers using basic bridging and stemming techniques although we broke out the rope for the first thirty footer on account of a few females who were intimidated by the drop. It turned out to be good practice for the other rappels which were far more technical than I anticipated.

Having only been through a few canyons with experienced canyoneers this was my first time leading a group. It was a little unnerving at times, especially for a few rather difficult rappel starts with drops from overhangs. Regardless the canyons were great, dry, beautiful, and relatively simple. With Boltergeist Canyon there is the chance of getting your rope stuck on the last 100' rappel, but if you set it up correctly and the last man watches where he drops over the edge then there's no problem. The total time for completing the canyon was said to be 2-2.5 hours. It took our group of 9 about 4 hours due partially to inexperience and being short two harnesses, but mostly because the exit is sufficiently vague, and we spent a good 1-1.5 hours attempting to find our way out of the canyon. In the end Boltergeist is a decent beginner canyon, by itself isn't worth the trip but when done in conjunction with Yankee Doodle its absolutely worth it and being only about 45 min drive outside of St. George.

Yankee Doodle Canyon is by far the better of the two. The initial rappel into Yankee Doodle is awesome. There is a short 20' rappel into a small grotto at which point you walk about 50' and then have a smooth drop into the canyon below about 100'. Neither of these rappels are complicated which makes this a great canyon for beginners. To simplify the rigging for the entrance, the beta I read suggested leaving your first rope and picking it up after you exit, this worked great and made it so we didn't have to haul a 150' rope through the canyon unnecessarily.

One aspect that made Yankee Doodle so great is it also includes some hiking through slot canyons which makes it more enjoyable than Boltergeist. After the first rappel most of the other drops through Yankee Doodle are about 6' with the occasional one a bit longer. We never broke out the shorter rope I carried instead using the stemming and bridging techniques against the canyon wall and once broke out a 25' strand of webbing to help some of our party down a particularly intimidating climb.

Once we started the canyon total time was just under 2 hours for 7 of us. Overall a great weekend spent in the canyons of Southern Utah. These two canyons gave me an additional taste for what canyoneering adventures hold and actually made me sad that I am going to DC this summer rather than spending it in Utah participating in additional adventures throughout the Southwestern United States.