AZ: Mogollon Rim James Canyon on Winter Soulstice 2014(Flagstaff, AZ)

Wes, his friend and I did James Canyon as practice for FreezeFest. We are new to winter canyoneering and wanted to make sure we were ready for UT in the winter. This trip turned out to be much more than practice, James is beautiful in the winter. Much nicer than the other times I have done the canyon.

The canyon was flowing so all the pools were full. I had never seen so much water in the canyon. It made for much more difficult travel since the choices are the waterway or bushwacking. The water was mostly frozen so you had to break ice or fight through the willows. It also made it much prettier with all the various forms of ice. We have had a winter with quite a bit of moisture, but relatively little snow.

This was our second time doing a canyon in the winter, with the first being Russell Gulch and Subway the day before Thanksgiving.

James is just outside of Flagstaff so the logistics are easy, with a fairly short shuttle on paved roads. The Forest Service had closed the dirt roads but parking along the highway was easy for the exit. The "locked gate" at Kelly Canyon exit on I-17 was a bunch of locks, chain and wire. We opened the gate to drive the 1/8 mi to the start.

The canyon had a couple inches of snow but was not slippery from the snow.

Soon we reached the first obstacle and it was time to put on the wetsuits and gloves.


This drop has one bolt and Wes had recommended placing a second bolt and webbing to make the rap more secure. We found the bolt under the snow and he placed the new bolt in no time and we were headed down into the water and ice.

The first pools (potholes) were ice free from the flowing water. The pool afterwards had 1"+ ice that Wes and Nick broke


There were a variety of pools to navigate and a few debris fields with floating logs and sticks in ice.

One point the ice was just strong enough to support Nick and he slithered across the pool.

Wes tried to follow but the ice was weakened and broke.

The lower part of the canyon had lots of recent rockfalls. We think they are from the earthquake that was very near this canyon a couple weeks ago.

A sample of the ice. Most of the canyon had milky ice where snow had fallen on existing ice then frozen.

There are two raps in the canyon and our 120' rope worked perfectly.

One of the new items I was testing was the camera pouch from Imlay. I recently had gotten a little pouch that ziplocks and then has a clip to seal my iPhone so I can take in water. It works really well and allows decent photos through the cover. I needed a way to hold the phone and Tom just came out with his new pouch. It was awesome. The camera was protected and I had easy access whenever needed.

Chris
that looks REALLY C-C-COLD!
How thick were your wetsuits?

We had a variety of wetsuits. I was in a full 7mm, Nick in a 5mm full and 2mm shorty, Wes was in 4mm? full and 3mm? farmer john. Our bodies stayed plenty warm, the hands were what got cold when in the water. Wes and I had 5mm neoprene booties and feet were comfortable. Nick had wool socks and 2mm neoprene and his feet were occasionally cool. Overall I was very comfortable the entire day!

I would definitely bring your helmets to freezefest.

I had mine but the kids forgot them. Major OOPS that will not happen again

Great TR. Thanks. By the look of the forest, I would guess you are up in the 6,000 foot range? Unless weather comes in or you seek high places in Utah, you may have had more of a FF experience here than is likely in the 4,000 high areas we are based out of. It looks like one pool was free of ice that led into a bigger and more open to the sky pool that did have ice. Open to the sky pools freeze faster than ones in constrictions. Looks like a lot of "snow on rock" hiking. Pretty tedious, slow and requiring much concentration. Was it that way for you? Also, as most of us rock hop on top of boulders normally, with snow, we often will wedge our shoe edge, where the bottom meets the side, in the groove between rocks.

Looks like a fine day. How was movement in 7mm? Many friends have had trouble moving well in so much suit. It be restrictive when tight and can take a lot of effort. Hands staying warm have been a problem. Have you heard about using medium thick dish gloves under gardening gloves? With a rubber band loosely over the top of the dish glove? It allows water in, but slows the in and out of the water and allows your hands to warm the water a bit. Some of those 'crawl outs" look balancey. Hard to keep key parts of the body out of the cold water. These canyons are special, shrouded in snow. Did you stop long enough, for a snack or the like to get chilled at all? How long would you estimate, it would take to get REALLY cold, dangerously cold, if one were immobilized? Chris, just using this TR to remind all, on the cusp of another FF, the importance of remaining ambulatory
thanks for sharing your adventure.
R

Ram, I will try and answer some of the questions. Great ones for prep. We are at 7,000 feet but it was fairly nice day. Really we were very comfortable but we never stopped more than a few minutes. We would have chilled stopping longer. We buried our food in packs in dry bags and never wanted to stop long enough to dig everything out. We would drink hot liquids from our thermoses. Food more accessible next time.

We have been carefully reading all the Freezefest posts and feel we were adequately prepared. We had the kitchen gloves and thermal work gloves. They really work well. We did not rubber band closed since I hoped wetsuit sleeves would hold closed. Rubber bands next time.

The 7mm suit was very constrictive and was hard to move. Unfortunately I am too tall for the suit so my back and shoulders were killing me by the end. I am making mods to wetsuit to hopefully help. I always seem to be cold in canyons, even in the summer, so the warmth of this suit seems to be a good trade off for mobility. I will see in Black Hole.

Walking on snowy rocks was a bit tricky. it certainly made for slower going with careful foot plants.

We learned how to better navigate through the ice. We found if the person breaking could push the ice sideways under adjacent ice, it was much easier for people to follow. Of course in the narrow slots, that does not work as well since ther is no place to push the ice.

Chris
Thanks for playing along. It is so valuable for folks to hear first hand accounts so close to the fest. It also jogs my memory to share other ideas that have worked. One idea that works food wise is to have someone with a lot of food in a top pouch that does not need waterproofing. The goo packages and peanut, almond and hazelnut butter, individual packages work great. The butters has 200 calories per pack, 3/4 of them fat calories. Often the person carrying these packs will have enough to share with the group. That person can get calories into the hands...or directly into the mouths of people, even on the fly, when say a rap is being set up. It is often considered bad form to turn down these offered snacks, unless allergy is an issue.

With overly tight suits, the worst consequences over the years has been exhaustion, overheating and cramping, the later the most common. That has happened more in medium temps, not FF, but on long wet days it could be a concern. It has impacted some very strong athletes. Not saying, you or now. Just that it does sometimes and all should note it, especially if a partner in tight garb starts to struggle.

With the kitchen gloves, let me warn that even a rubber band twisted over once can cause enough constriction to experience circulation restriction. It doesn't take much tightness, in the cold. Often the loose fit won't keep water out, but slowing it is enough. Thanks for sharing that wet suit sleeves rarely work for any time, in covering the glove tops.

The good news about ice, is it forms much more slowly, if at all, in tight constrictions. The water, open to the sky forms ice first. When ice does need to be moved where there is no room for it to be moved horizontally, it works to "file it vertically." Turn it sideways and push it down and against the wall and surprisingly, it stays there more often than not. I would not consider that intuitive, but....it works. Here Brendan demonstrates


Chris, thanks again for sharing your experiences and giving me segue into sharing other ideas.
Ram