Traveling Applejax

The Jug

Posted by travelingapplejax on September 13, 2010 · 1 Comment 

This post is mostly about our canyoneering adventure on Saturday, but I’ll kick things off by describing our Friday night fun. Mike and I went to our regular climbing gym to watch a competition they were hosting that night. Participants did a speed competition to see who could climb two routes the fastest and a dyno competition. To dyno is to jump from one hold to the next, leaving the wall completely. Some of the dynos were for holds ten feet above the start hold. It was pretty impressive to watch.

Anyways… on to the real adventure…

While everyone else I know was enjoying football on Saturday, Josh, Jacob, Mike, and I went canyoneering in Salome Jug. The Jug is a short section of canyon with tall, smooth granite walls and quite a bit of water. This combination means that the Jug is the best natural waterpark I’ve ever been to. There are your typical canyon swim-throughs and a waterfall rappel, but also several smooth chutes perfect for sliding down. The Jug is the only canyon in Arizona that we’ve done multiple times, and its novelty has not yet worn off.

A view of where the canyon widens out.

The mountains above our canyon.

We left Phoenix around 8:00 and drove for 2 hours to the east, past Globe and near Roosevelt Lake. Just as we were pulling up to the trail head, four more cars full of people pulled in behind us. About 30 people poured out of the cars. Needless to say, this canyon is not nearly as remote or as technically difficult as some of the canyons we do. I chose the canyon hoping to entice some of my novice friends to try out canyoneering, but, alas, the usual suspects were the only ones to show. No matter — we had a blast. They just don’t know what they missed!

Roosevelt Lake.

Part of that 30-person group.

The trail to the canyon is an old jeep track, so it was pretty easy going despite the fact that the day warmed up fast. By the time we got to the canyon itself we were heated up enough to be excited about plunging into the slightly chilly waters. Actually, the temperature was pretty perfect all around in my opinion.

A view of what the canyon looks like as you’re hiking down it.

We took our time wandering through the canyon since it was such a beautiful day and the group of 30 was ahead of us. At one point we stopped by one of those natural waterslides for a half an hour at least, crawling back up top to slide down again and again. A little while later we stopped for second lunch (not that the canyon was that exhausting).

The slide!

The view up-canyon from our second lunch spot.

Despite our frequent stops and unhurried progress, we still caught up with the large group at the top of the canyon’s only rappel. It takes a while to schlep that many people down a rope. We only had to wait for about 5 more people before setting up our own rappel, however. Just as we were getting started, a couple showed up behind us. They were somewhat unprepared for this part of the canyon, so we let them rappel down our rope. The rappel itself is pretty simple. It’s only about 25 feet tall and goes down a waterfall chute rather than over a clearly defined cliff. Once you get to the bottom of this rappel there are only a few more pools to swim through before the canyon opens up and you can climb out.

The one rappel.

My new canyoneering shoes. I love them!

Sightings on the trip included a foot-long centipede (poisonous!), hundreds of small toads, tons of rather large spiders, some fish (up to 8 inches long), several large dragonflies, and a very dead dog. The dog had a collar on, and we suspect that he fell into the canyon somehow.

Mr. centipede.

The toads filled up lots of little cracks all along the canyon walls.

Dragonflies picturesquely framing Jacob’s head.

RIP Fido.

On our way home we stopped for Mexican food at Los Hermanos. We had an awesome time, and I’m only sad that more people didn’t join us. Next week I’m going to a bachelorette party in Vegas, the week after that, Mike is going to a bachelor party in Vegas, and the week after that our friends Josh and Amy are getting married. Therefore, it may be a little while before I have another adventure to post. Still, you can count on one sooner or later.