Blarny/Shenanigans

I have no idea why, but Blogger posts pictures in the opposite order that you upload them. Seems a silly way to do it, and one that's easily correctable, so who knows what their rationale was. Laziness, maybe.

So you're getting this trip description in reverse order!

Most canyons have an "exit hike." This exit hike is usually hot and exhausting. By this point, you're done with the fun part of the canyon and you're tired, and you want nothing more than to get into an air-conditioned car. However, due to a grievous oversight, the BLM didn't see fit to park helicopters at the exit of all back-country canyons, so you have to make your way back to your car on foot.

In many cases, including Shenanigans, this involves hiking straight up the canyon wall. A narrow rockslide gives you enough of an incline to climb up, while cleverly strewing the path with loose rocks and sand that threaten to send you hurtling backwards into space (or into the climbers behind you, if you're lucky) at the slightest misstep. Vertically, it's probably only three or four hundred feet...but that's vertical feet. Time-wise, it took us probably a half-hour of exhausting climbing in the broiling sun to get to the canyon rim.



This is a picture of the canyon we came out of (we're probably halfway up the exit at this point).



I liked how this picture turned out just because of the almost black-and-white feel to it. This was taken deep in a slot.



Halfway through Shenanigans, there's a nice hole you can crawl through. Right before the hole in the wall, there's also a deep pothole in the ground, which Randall is standing upright in.



I always take too many pictures of flowers on our canyoneering trips, but I'm always amazed by how many flowers there are in the desert. I don't think I've seen these yellow ones before...if so, not in the numbers that were in this particular rock bowl. Looking through just my pictures of this hike, I count six different types of flowers! And this is in the desert!



This group was a small one: Randall, Josh and I. The day was beautiful, and the weather was perfect as we started our hike to the canyon. Later, it would get warmer, but not the three-digit temperatures it might be hitting in a few weeks.



This picture is actually the previous day, Friday. Since we got to camp ("Sandthrax" Campground) fairly early in the afternoon, we decided to do a short canyon. We chose the left fork of Blarny, and it was a decently interesting canyon for only being two hours, end to end.



This is one of the more common flowers we see in the desert. From the side, it's a little harder to see the bossom itself, but I like the closer view of the cactus part.


Anyway, it was a fun trip.