Bogley

[nelsonccc]

Three of us are looking into doing the full Imlay in one hard push on
the 8th. I've included our estimates on time below and am looking for
input on whether or not we are way off base. All three of us are
experienced and up to the physical challenges. Has anybody done the
Full deal in a day? Any advice?

West Rim to Potato hollow – 3:30 to 5:30.
First rap to Crossroads – rappels 1-16 – 6:00 – 12:00 (Kelsey says 6
hours, others seem to recommend +/-5 hours)
Crossroads through Dark Slot – rappels 17-29 – 12:00 – 4:30 (Kelsey
states 4.5 hours, seems that most parties do it 3-4 hours)
Dark slot through Lower Slot – rappels 30-42 – 4:30 – 9:30 (Kelsey
states 5 hours, most parties seem to do this section in 3-4 hours)
Bottom of last rappel to Temple of Sinava – 9:30 – 11:00.

I think the schedule above is slighlty conservative, I'm hoping we can
shave off a couple of hours. We'll be leap frogging ropes and moving
quickly. I am anticipating low water level in the potholes. let me
know if we're crazy.

[moabfool]

nelsonccc wrote: Bottom of last rappel to Temple of Sinava – 9:30 – 11:00.

I've never done Imlay so I can't comment on any of the schedule but this last part.

The shuttle buses stop running at 11:00 PM. If you don't have a car at The Temple of Sinewava you'll end up hiking to the nearest phone at Zion Lodge, quite a haul after the day you're planning. I learned that lesson the hard way. Come to think of it, you'll need a vehicle at The Grotto too with your early start time (shuttles don't start running again 'till 5:45 AM). Be sure to get a Canyon Permit for your car(s) or your windshield wiper will look like a Tibetan prayer flag from all the tickets, that is if your car is still there.

I think it sounds like a mighty adventure. Let us know if/how it works out for you.

[rockgremlin]

I think your estimate looks good as long as those in your group are experienced, everyone can pull their weight, and you guys leap-frog rap stations.

[Iceaxe]

I think you are trying to eat an Elephant sandwich.

I'm not saying you can't do it, but are you going to enjoy it? You will be dang tired by the time you reach the best part of Imlay. If I were doing Imlay in a day I believe the short-cut is the way to fly. The short cut gets the best of the canyon.

One other thought, Imlay is currently closed because of fire. It will probably be open by the 8th but have a back-up plan ready.

[mrabe1979]

I went through the Imlay shortcut route on June 18Th. Our group size was 3. We had not done it before. It had pretty good water in it at that time. We had to hook out of three potholes. One of them could have been done with partner assistants but it was cooler to use the Happy hooker! We got a red permit at the visitor center so we could park at the Grotto. We hit the trail at 4:40 AM and were all drinking an icy cold malt beverage at 2:00 PM. We did all but the last to Raps with a 72 foot long slug. A 60 footer would have been too short for 3 of the rappels.
We also had time to stop and eat in between the extreme narrows and the exit narrows. We also had time to snap about 50 pics as well. I will say this. We are all experienced so we were able to move fairly quickly.
Good luck and have fun!
Mike :blahblah:

[JonHaradon]

Matt Holmes and I did the full Imlay in a day about a month ago. Good luck! It was our first time doing Imlay. I think the rappels will slow you down the most. With three people, it seems to me you will always have to be waiting, and all that down time builds up. Two people can leap frog more efficiently. Though you probably already have your party picked out, I'd reccomend only going w/ two people.

We only hooked out of 2 holes, the water level seemed pretty high. But since we'd never been, I don't know how that compares.
Also, of course, take the absolute bare minimum of gear, skimp on everything you can.
We also only took about 10 pictures, until our "waterproof" camera case leaked and so didn't spend much time at all with that.
Here are our times for comparison (we get our jollies off of moving fast...)
West Rim to Potato hollow – 5:30 to 7:15.
First rap to Crossroads 7:45 – 10:00
Crossroads through Dark Slot – ??
Dark slot through Lower Slot –?? - 3:30
Bottom of last rappel to Temple of Sinava – 3:30-6:00
Temple of Sinava to Springdale: 6:30 - 7:30
find and pay a local (thanks Chris!) 60 bucks to drive us back up to the west rim: 7:30 - 9:30

I would push really hard to not have to walk in the Virgin river at dark. Footing can be miserable and only headlamps for light will only make it worse.

look forward to hearing how it went!

[nelsonccc]

Ever wonder what happens when you combine a major canyon, three people, food poisoning, and rain?

It seemed like a good idea, we’d attempt to do the Full Imlay in one long day. We planned our schedule and planned our gear and felt confident we could tackle the situation. Everybody was experienced and we were prepared, however, we quickly learned how events out of our control combined with a ‘lets do it no matter what’ attitude has dire consequences.

So Friday night rolls around and we pick up a red tag so that we can leave a car at the Temple just in case we end up coming out super late. On the drive up to Lava Point one member of our party starts to vomit about every 30 minutes, he suspects his wife is trying to poison him or it was the 3 day old salad he ate before he left. In any case we don’t hit the sack till midnight. There’s a light rain when we go to sleep and a very light drizzle when we get up at 4:30. It’s still dark so we can’t really tell if it’s clearing or not. We decide to hike down to Potato and evaluate the weather there. The sick member of our group decides he can make it, but at a slower pace. We decide to see how he does down to Potato. We got to Potato Hollow around 6:00. The clouds are dark, but there are blue spots with some darker clouds here and there. It has stopped raining so we begin discussing whether to drop in or not. Everything seemed to suggest not going in. We briefly talked about other options, but ultimately we decided that we would just go for it and hope that the rain clears. Once in the canyon we can tell that it has had major water running through it very recently (like yesterday or the day before). No signs of past passage except mud soaked webbing at the drops and a fresh coat of sticks, leaves, and mud on everything. We finish the fifth rappel at around 9:00 and the skies are clearing and we are feeling good. Progress slows significantly below this since the fresh coat of mud has made everything super slippery, everybody is falling down, slipping into rocks, and losing their footing constantly. The clouds start to move back in, a light rain begins to fall. I get out the map and figure we are about an hour from the Crossroads. A few minutes later it starts to rain very hard, there’s massive thunder cracks that sound like they are right above us. We quickly decide to seek higher ground and wait it out. We hike back up canyon for a few minutes to a safe spot we had noticed. It starts to get really cold, we break out our emergency blankets and try to decide what to do next. After about 2.5 hours of waiting we figure that at our current pace we’ll never make it to the Virgin before dark. We decide to exit out the Sneak and Peak route. After the decision was made to exit, our spirits lifted a little and we decided to quickly crank down to the Crossroads even if it is still raining hard. When we get to the 75 meter long slot above the Crossroads described in Kelsey’s book we can see that there is definitely more water and a small trickle flowing through the canyon. We opt to climb up and around the slot and rappel back into the Crossroads. When we finally get to the Crossroads it’s 1:00, we’re more than 3.5 hours behind schedule and moving very slowly due to fatigue, cold, and the food poisoning. We unsuit and read up on the descriptions for coming in via the Sneak and Peak route. We figure that it’s better to hike out the Sneak route than to attempt to enter the harder narrows below with threatening rain. We also figure it’s better to hike out than spend the night in the canyon and attempt to finish it the next morning since we don’t know what the weather would be like the next day.

We begin hiking, everything is wet. We end up going too high on the sandstone on the left of the side canyon (LUC) that the sneak and peek route uses. We back track and get into the drainage. Progress is slow, we’re pushing as hard as we can so that we don’t’ have to navigate to the West Rim trail in the dark. We hit the first saddle, drop in and climb back up to the second saddle. Finally we can see the West Rim trail across the canyon. We make our way to the trail and get there just after dark. We’re completely exhausted, we’ve been hauling 7mm wetsuits and all our other gear up and down canyon after canyon to get to the west rim trail. We take like an hour to change into dry clothes, rest, eat dinner and prepare for the hike down to the grotto. One member of our group is so exhausted that every time we stop to rest he sits down and quickly falls asleep. It ends up taking us two hours to get the Grotto. We of course miss the last shuttle and end up spending a cold, miserable night in the dirt next to the shuttle station.

Lessons learned;
1. Thank heavens we had a high quality topo map of the Temple Quad or we never would have been able to find our way out, this combined with a GPS allowed us to determine our locations and locate the entry and exit points for the Sneak and Peak (which none of us had ever been on before)
2. I’m glad we had enough foresight to bring emergency gear including a water filter, extra food, dry clothes, and emergency blankets or our experience could have been much worse.
3. After discussing the situation with each other we determined that the main reason we dropped in when we knew we shouldn’t have is because one member of our group hadn’t been in a canyon for several months and had a major itching to go. We also underestimated the fatigue caused by the food poisoning and lack of sleep from the night before. When all of this was combined with hiking around in 7mm suits we were very tired.
4. It’s very scary to be in a canyon like Imlay and hear massive thunder above you and feel heavy rain falling, it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I was petrified that at any moment the canyon was going to flash and we would all die. Luckily we survived to attempt it another day without rain or food poisoning.

In any case I though I would share our experience so perhaps others can learn from our mistakes.

[Iceaxe]

Thanks for sharing :nod:

And look at the bright side..... next time you can just do the Sneak and Peek because you have already done the upper canyon :2thumbs:

[hike2kolob]

Thank you for the update. When you guys didn't make it for the potluck I kept asking, what happened to the guys doing the full Imlay. You have solved one mystery from my trip. Sorry you guys had some tough luck.

Tom and I awoke at 4:00 that morning and were packed and ready to go. We went to wait for the rest of the group at the trail and waited until 5:15. With a light smattering of rain on the windshield we figured everyone bagged it on account of weather. We went back to camp and went to bed.

I slept in until 10. I woke up to a squirrel in my tent on my feet. I screamed like a little girl, then it jumped in the air about a foot and ran out.

We later exchanged our Imlay permit and did Echo, with a light rain at moments. We did Imlay on Sunday instead. Trip report shortly.

Jason R.

[nelsonccc]

Were you guys the ones in the BMW? We saw it pull up and park Sunday morning while we were huddled across the street. We were going to ask for a ride up to the Temple but figured we might as well wait a little longer for the shuttle. We wondered what people would think of the footprints going the wrong way on the Sneak route. Hope you had fun.

[hike2kolob]

Yes that was us Sunday morning. I didn't see you huddled, sorry. I would have glady help you with a ride out after a painful bivy.

Actually, now that you mention it I did see some "wrong way" footprints, which I remember thinking was a little odd. I'm just glad you are all safe.

[rockgremlin]

I'm glad you guys all made it safe!!

Seriously though, which one of us here HASN'T had a VERY bad day in a canyon? One that easily could turn disastrous, but didn't due to good preparation, and sound decision-making in the heat of the moment?

I'm willing to bet that it has happened to us all. I had an experience like that in The Squeeze a few years back. They are learning experiences, and are scary as hell at the time.

Thanks for sharing!

[Angel]

Iceaxe wrote: I think you are trying to eat an Elephant sandwich.


When you going to finish eating the elephant sandwich? :roflol:

[nelsonccc]

Angel wrote: Iceaxe wrote: I think you are trying to eat an Elephant sandwich.


When you going to finish eating the elephant sandwich? :roflol:

We had planned on hitting Heaps on the 28th of this month, but now everybody is dying to get back into Imlay and conquer the beast. At least now we know the way in. :roflol:

[hesse15]

hike2kolob wrote: I slept in until 10. I woke up to a squirrel in my tent on my feet. I screamed like a little girl, then it jumped in the air about a foot and ran out.
Jason R.

poor squirrel must be almost risk an heart attack!!!!!
now he will have nightmares fro the rest of his life!!!
next time wash your feet before go to bed and that will not happen again!!! :nod: :2thumbs: