Peter’s Creek

MVP

Canyoneering by David Black. This book gave me the confidence that I needed to succeed on my first canyoneering trip. I feel like I picked up more skills through YouTube videos, but this book gave me the comprehensive view that those videos missed. I would recommend this book to everyone interested in canyoneering.

Canyon Review

I have no idea how this canyon compares to other canyons, but I had a crazy fun time on this one! If this is the average canyon, I can’t wait to go canyoneering Seven Tea Cups or Yosemite Falls.
The rappels were all pretty easy to figure out, even for a newbie like me. Of course, this is because there were multiple rappel options for the two tallest waterfalls, so I could pick and choose what I wanted to do.
I could imagine how difficult the anchors could get if certain trees fell or boulders got moved. This wasn’t due to a lack of stable anchors, but I was more worried about rope retrieval if I were to choose an anchor far away from the lip of the rappel.
I rappelled last every time as I wanted to take the most amount of risk given that I was setting up all the rappels.
The water wasn’t too cold and on top of that, there were many spots where the brilliant sun warmed us up with her loving rays of sunlight.
Many patches of moss helped to give friction versus the bare sandstone that was as slippery as an eel once they were wet.
I did not set up the rappels with a perfect rope length for an easy disconnect as we avoided rappelling into pools of water. To put it another way, at the bottom of every rappel, we had to manually disconnect the rappel line. This is something I’ll work on the next time I lead a canyoneering trip.
It was really crazy how difficult it was to hear each other. While we ended up communicating just fine, I think the next time I go, I’ll go over hand signals with everyone before the start.
This is an amazing starter canyon as there is a side trail along the entire route, allowing the party to climb up to the top of the previous rappel if needed.

We rappeled 6 times, but I think there are one or two more official rappels. It’s difficult to tell as different water conditions dictate a different amount of rappels.

R1: There were two options where the RDC was a super cool looking waterfall with overhanging rock and LDC was a straightforward runnel with a stout tree right at the lip of the fall. I chose to set up on LDC with a fiddlestick as the anchor was clearly visible and retrieval would be uncomplicated. Pete went down first, with Marianne going second and me going last. The runnel was uncomplicated and was a great warmup for the day. In the future, I hope to come back and go down RDC.

R2: This was a super short (10’) drop that had a giant tree right at the lip. I had a hard time reaching for the rope as the trunk was just too wide, but I reached it and we just rappelled off a double line of rope (Toss ’n Go). We rappelled in the same order as R1. I think if the water flow was higher and the water clearer, this could have been probably jumped, but it would been a bad idea on this day where it was not max flow and the water was murky. Also, this rappel was totally skippable, but why not rappel if possible? It’s fun!

R3: We ended up on top of a bunch of sandstone boulders surrounded by too many tree branches. I found this one twisted tree branch for rigging that might have been enough for an experienced canyoneer, but it did not bring me joy. Instead, I just put the rope around one of the giant boulders that happened to have this beautiful lip that kept the rope super secure. Marianne took charge and went first, Pete followed, and I went last. This rappel had a fallen tree branch that we had to go under, so that was pretty unique and fun. This was probably downclimbable, but again, we wanted to rappel if possible. One downside to this rappel was that the rope was a little difficult to pull down, but nothing like R6.

R4: This was another rappel where there were multiple options; though this was the easiest one to set up the rappel for as I had seen a picture of it at home! There is this small tree that grows in the middle of these two waterfalls and that’s what we used! I used the fiddlestick for this one as there was a clear sightline to it. Marianne went first again and made it look easy, but both Pete and I had a tougher time fitting through to the start of the rappel (we both had to hang our backpacks to make ourselves thinner). Having said that, this rappel was the crème de la crème of this canyoneering trip as it was the highest rappel and one where one’s senses were overwhelmed by the sight and sounds of waterfalls on both sides of you with a finish that put the canyoneer behind one of the waterfalls. The official notes this as R2, which means most other crews skip the two previous rappels. Huh.

R5: I stared at this and the next rappel for what must have been 15 minutes racking my brain to find a good anchor and rope-pulling strategy—I almost skipped this rappel due to the lack of a perfect anchor, but I didn’t like the downclimb for Pete and Marianne (it was a bit sketchy). So instead, I chose a boulder far back that again had a nice lip to keep the rope steady (double line rappel). I thought that RDC path had too much water for my crew, so I advised both Pete and Marianne to stay LDC as much as possible (though I think I was the only one who actually went LDC). Pete went first and I think he found the rappel a bit too slippery and uncomfortable; Marianne went second and gave me a heart attack as her foot slipped over the first lip and she disappeared completely out of my view—thankfully, Pete gave me an instant thumbs up, which stopped that incoming heart attack; I went last and didn’t even go all the way down as I headed immediately to the possible anchors for R6 that I had previously spied. When Pete started to pull the rope, we found it completely stuck; fortunately, there was a hiker who we asked to throw the rope. He kindly did so, and it saved us much stress.

R6: I found myself inspecting a pocket to use as an anchor, but found that it had a microcrack. Instead, I found a stouter horn. The danger with this one was that there was so much moss on it that it was difficult to inspect. Still, I thought it was safer than the pocket and we did another double-strand rappel. Marianne went first, Pete second, and I went last. By this time, I was very confident in my rappelling and I felt very smooth. Unfortunately, what wasn’t smooth was that the horn was out-of-sight and it took 15 minutes and a whole lot of grunting and pulling with all my body weight to pull the rope through. I think this is one situation where another ghosting technique instead of Toss n’ Go might have been better as pulling 32m of rope through was rough (worse than when I had to pull the rope at Pinnacles).

What I Learned

I learned that canyoneering is all about problem-solving and improvising, similar to multi-pitch rock climbing, but even more so. There is far less beta available, conditions (due to water levels and available anchors) change all the time, and ghosting techniques require far greater risk than anything else I’ve done outdoors. Still, the reward of overcoming fears is a sweet one.

I bought a 9.0 65m static rope for rappelling and it worked great! The rope wasn’t too thick for our lightest climber and it wasn’t too slippery for our heaviest (me).

It was my first time using my CRITR3 and it worked exactly as described. I was able to add or remove friction in the middle of a rappel and even tie it off when I needed to take my hand off the brake strand.

I didn’t tie an autoblock as I felt comfortable not having it, but thinking back, I think I should in the future. It’s an additional risk introduced due to laziness and I can do better than that.

The fiddlestick worked great! With the double carabiners, my crew was able to rappel with full confidence in how it was all rigged. When I went without the carabiners, it stayed exactly put until we pulled it out to retrieve the rope. However, it was interesting that on R1, the fiddle stick pulled out without too much effort (kinda scary); on R4, I had to use my entire body weight and push back on a boulder with my legs for it to pull out. Both times the pull line was set up on the high side of the fiddlestick, but the pull force was so disproportionate. I wonder when removing the carabiners if I jostled the fiddlestick on R1.

I could see why people would have a specific harness for canyoneering as I would have loved for my belay loop to be twisted 90 degrees. Still, I want to use the heck out of my current harness, so it’s fine for now.

I bought so much extra anchor building materials and I didn’t use any of them. Still, it was nice having them just in case something unexpected happened.

I wore a farmer john wet suit, waterproof socks, a wool base layer, a polyester henley, a fleece sweater, and my 3L Goretex jacket. I thought I was overdressing and I’d take off layers as I got hot. Even though I was in the sun for half the day, I wore the perfect amount of clothes as I only got overheated at R6 when I had to do a HIIT workout. The waterproof socks compromised quickly, but the water it allowed in stayed warm, so it actually functioned well for keeping me warm! My awesome jacket kept my upper body completely dry. I wore my trail runners and they worked really well—they gripped well enough and they were super comfy.

Fears Faced

So trusting one’s life to a see-through piece of plastic is one that requires lots of faith in that said plastic. What I kept thinking was to trust in the product I bought, the YouTube videos I watched to prepare for this day, and how canyoneering pioneers used to use broken tree branches or pitons instead of said plastic. It took a second for my head to be in the right space for R1. Even R3 required some calming energy as the start required more jostling of the rope than I would have liked. Thinking about it now, I’m actually surprised how quickly I got into the right headspace—I guess I’ve overcome a lot of fears since I intentionally started facing my fears 3 years ago and exposure therapy really does work.

Friends

Marianne and Pete joined me for this trip. It was my first time meeting Marianne as we had only met virtually on the Coalition Crag discord. It turns out that like all the people I’ve met through Coalition Crag, she was a great person to have on the trip! She brought all the stoke that was needed and then some. Pete and I had climbed together at Yosemite and it was great to see him again. He was the same chill and competent dude and I was so glad he came as he had gone canyoneering before. I thought the three of us made a great team and I loved the energy we had throughout the whole trip. We were rooting for each other, patient with each other, and happy for each other with each obstacle we overcame.

What Happened?

3.3 miles, 5 hrs 2 mins, 610 ft of descent

I forget how I heard about canyoneering, but I learned about it four or five months ago and it sounded interesting. It’s like rock climbing, but instead of climbing up, you hike up. Then you rappel, except that the anchors you use can be of lower quality as you won’t be taking big falls while canyoneering (instead of 10+ KN of stress the anchor needs to withstand, it’s less than 5 for canyoneering). Oh and instead of totally dry conditions, you want water in wet canyons as that’ll make the rappels more fun.

So, I started reading websites, watching videos, and reading a canyoneering book. I had gotten myself super excited at the prospect of canyoneering these iconic places in California (like the aforementioned Seven Tea Cups) but knew that I needed to learn to crawl, and found a relatively easy canyoneering route just 35 minutes away from my house. Although the two friends that I had initially geeked out about canyoneering were not available on this day, Pete and Marianne ended up coming with me, which was awesome because while I could have, I didn’t want to do this by myself.

(Thanks to Pete for the eight pictures above)

We met up at the Peters Creek trailhead, changed into our wetsuits, and hiked to the start of the trail following the GPS trail from the ropewiki website. We then geared up and started canyoneering.

Besides what I’ve already written, I think all three of us overcame our specific fears. Pete had a fear of getting hurt on the rappels, and yet he was the first one down the rappels on half the runs! Marianne had a fear of getting too cold and overcame that with smart layering of clothes that stood up to an accidental slip into a waterfall! I had a fear of trusting the fiddlestick which I wrote about above! We were all so brave on this day!

I have to give a shoutout to Pete as I had the fun (although stressful) job of rigging the rappels, he volunteered himself for the thankless job of managing the rope for all our rappels. I was grateful for his help as I could totally focus on the rigging. I think Marianne helped with the pull cord too; though I’m not sure as most of the time I finished rappelling, I immediately went into rigging the next rappel. So yeah, big thanks to my crew for making this trip an amazing one!

When we finished R6, I was pretty sure we were done as I remembered reading on ropewiki that there were around 6 rappels. And the next stretch looked low angle, so we packed up and headed back to our cars. Only when I started writing this I realized that we skipped one or two more rappels.

I guess it means I’ll have to go back and do it again. Woe is me. ;)