Last year, we used two Pot Shots 1/3 full, and they held but were a little spooky. It was also over water, making failure somewhat safer. This year, we chose two Pot Shots 1/3 full, plus one about 1/2 full. I think this is the third one going over...

.. over and - Boo Ya! - across the neck! Spidey then hand-over-hands up to the other side. We zip packs, establish a dubious anchor on this side, wade across the Monster Pothole and get towed up the far wall.

Here's another deep pothole, where Spidey ran up the other side. Ram rapping in, Spidey starting to pull someone out.

Here's how the "Two-man Lift" works: A: a Fig-8 on a bight is lowered to the liftee; B: Liftee clips the knot to their harness; C: Lifters grasp rope and pull the liftee out. Liftee should use hands on the walls, rather than grasping the ropes. While lifting the full weight of a canyoneer is out of the question for most of us, we do quite well lifting HALF.

It started looking like we would be getting through the canyon that day - so we entered the state of mind called "smelling the barn". Carrying the bivy gear made me (at the least) kinda grumpy and tired. We could feel the end approaching... And then we made a mistake. A complex rappel anchor problem offered several iffy solution, and I selected what I thought would work. But it didn't. The potshots had to pull from the back pothole, empty, and cross a large pothole with water in the bottom. The bags did not empty, and landed in the pool loaded with sand, filled with water and there was no chance of pulling them over. We thought our rigs had snagged on the bolt at the lip of the second pothole, but when Spidey batmanned up there (mixed metaphor? Still amazing!), he found two 100-lb bags in the pothole. We were in a hurry, and people were tired and wanted to camp in camp. We had not found pumpable water except in one spot - which we had passed up. So, we 'tainted'. Spidey cleaned up the mess and rapped off the bolt back down to the rest of us. I was dissappointed. We blew it. Then there was the "Wart", which involved zipping the packs across a gaping pothole, a dicey climb up to and then rapping off a rotten 'wart' of rock. Then an odd sandbag anchor using gravel instead of sand (hurts more when it dumps above you), and we were looking at the final rap - which in the rapidly darkening gloom looked like a LONG way down. Anchors? There was an oddly placed bolt and... well, not really anything else. The smooth, rapidly-steepening slab offered zero creative possibilities. We set up the rap off the bolt in the gloaming, and rapped to the finishing jungle. Tired, and unsatisfied. By headlamp we marched through thick vegetation back to basecamp...

Hiking out, we followed the Entrada bench, which was really easy except for (ahem) a short section.

Clouds for the exit hike were appreciated.

Waiting for the boat. Hanging out allowed Dan to shoot head-shot interviews. Where were we at? Attitudes were wide ranging... Where I'm at is dissappointed, and not done yet. We made a few technical mistakes (I made a couple of technical mistakes) which cost us a clean descent. Yes, in hindsight, we think we know how to do it. A few modifications to the Sandtrap, a few different choices, etc. Yeah, we CAN do it, but it is dissappointing to not have it DONE! Back in the 70's and 80's, Jim Erickson was one of the leading free-climbers in Boulder CO (and in the USA). He was a stickler for good style, to the extent that if he FELL on a climb, it was over for him - the ascent was 'tainted' and he did not return to that route. The alternative is called 'hang-dogging' - the climber falls up the climb enough times to get everything figured out ('projecting'), then finally 'red-points' the route by climbing from the ground to the top without weighting the gear. A lesser accomplishment. To me, it seems like we are 'projecting' this thing, and even when we complete it clean, it is not the highest level of accomplishment. The HIGHEST, is the clean on-sight. We've got some of those off Lake Powell and they feel good, really good. Clean, and with nothing left behind ('ghosted'). Poe Canyon is a harder canyon, however, and would be quite an accomplishment to on-sight, ghosting. It will be a decent accomplishment WHEN we get the red-point, but the disappointment is that it takes several descents to get it figured out clean. I aspire to a higher standard than we can now attain here.

Spectacular sunset near Bryce, on the way home. Click for Bigger View Makes up for it, some.