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After the impressive opening slit, the canyons snakes around some and is more 'normal'. With a few creative traverses, we avoided both getting wet, and having to put the suits on.
Soon we were at the Crossroads, right around 5 pm. We took a break. Should we charge up the S Fork? Well, maybe just till we got to the difficulties - maybe take the highest decent bivy spot.
We started to hear voices. Siren's voices, from upcanyon. Ram went to investigate - there were indeed two women headed our way. We slicked down our hair and tucked in our shirts as they splashed through the pothole to meet us. Bonnie from Salt Lake had been down the week before, and was forced to leave ropes on the last rappel. Now she was returning with her friend Jackie from Las Vegas to reclaim them. They looked beat. Both drysuits were leaking, and they had spent hours working through the Phantom Valley section of Heaps in difficult conditions. But they were game - good at em.
After a bit of chatter, they departed, and we decided to go UP the S Fork and see what there was to see. An interesting mantle move was required to get started, and from there the canyon was a little rough but not bad. Two hours later, we crested the pass. No 5.8 handcrack, no fifth class pitches. Admittedly, we DID have to take the packs off for a couple moves, but...
Not entirely dissappointed, we found ourselves in a VERY deep canyon...
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