A Christmas Day Canyon (or two) - Yankee Doodle and Hidden Star

For ten years, us pagans have done an interesting canyon on Christmas Day. And usually, it is perhaps the most difficult canyon of the year for me, being the “responsible one” with a vivid imagination for what could go wrong. This year, our Christmas gang was down to Tim Hoover and myself, and we were both inclined less toward suffering / swimming in icewater; and more toward just getting out for the day to stimulate the appetite.

After a bit of discussion, we settled on Hidden Star (which I had not done previously) and Yankee Doodle (which I had only done as a guided trip, all three of which were ‘interesting’). Tim suggested an early start, and I asked why?

So we did. Took us a while to find the start of Hidden Star, but I have to say it is a brilliant find. And Yankee Doodle - uh, well… is Yankee Doodle.

Not many pictures, so we will do them in-line…

Tom atop the summit of the Hidden Star approach knoll.

We found it! It is a bit on the Hidden side, and we were working from Tim’s memory. Probably better than Tom’s memory, but still…

After a bit of scrambling, time to gear up. The canyon starts with a long, interesting rappel, most of which might maybe be a fun downclimb. With a bit more patience, downclimbing on belay or with a handline hanging might be really fun.

Perhaps you are new to my anchor diatribes - so here we go. One of my (many) pet peeves.

When we arrived, all these rocks were built into a Presidential Range size cairn… disgusting! And unsafe. So we deconstructed it to inspect the webbing, and then rebuilt it using three rocks to make a perfectly safe anchor. Tim rappelled down.

It is a long complex rappel, so it took quite some time… so I re-evaluated. The original anchor was in a position that created rope grooves in like 4 places. So after Tim was off rappel, I moved it down to the next pothole, which was lined up better with the vector of the rappel. Again three rocks with this excellent geometry was just perfect. This anchor is easy to inspect. Inspection is important to safety.

Philosophically, when we go through canyons, we should leave perfect anchors behind, so beginners can see what good anchors look like.

Here is the wonderful first rappel from the exit ridge. Like Yankee Doodle, the long rope for the first rappel can be left and picked up on the hike out. (PULLING the rope on this complex, convoluted rappel seems like it would be dicey).

After the rappel, the rest of the canyon had quite a bit of interesting climbing/stemming. On previous trips, Tim had done the canyon when it had water in it. On this trip the canyon was dry, and Tim was amazed by how deep some of the potholes were. And of course, the threat of bouncing a long way down into a hole made the stemming much more exciting. (I did not take any pictures other than this one IN the canyon).

If you wander around trying to find the canyon and end up here, you found it.

After a bunch of fun stemming, the canyon flattens out. An exit is made about 100 yards downcanyon on a social trail up a gully and the ridge just to the side of the canyon, bringing you up to the point where Tim can run down and grab the rope. We made it back to the car, had a bit of lunch and moved on to Yankee Doodle.

Yankee Doodle: I had only gone down the watercourse before, so on this trip, we used one of the “high anchors” to do the more-dramatic version of the big rappel. (And, easier to fetch the rope after).

Tim going over the edge.

We did a couple other rappels in YD, and some downclimbs, at least one of which was “interesting”. Then climbed out, cracked some beers, fetched the rope and headed back to town for Christmas Dinner at the Hoovers.

Mmmmmm. Christmas dinner, also part of our tradition. Thank you Sue for putting together a wonderful meal while we were out playing. Tim made a Cheesecake, Tom made a Chocolate Pecan Pie, and a neighbor dropped off another bit of pie. Which means plenty of leftover desserts…

And thus, I have a very tasty but nutritionally poor breakfast for the next couple of days…

Another Christmas Canyon in the books. No suffering. No water… well, I did get one foot wet above the ankle when boosting Tim out of a pothole. A very pleasant day out - thank you Tim and Sue for making this happen, despite 2020.