Maple Canyon

While I was attending Snow College, way back when, my roommate Jeff introduced me to Maple Canyon, and the glorious climbing there.

And every year I go back. It is sort of a pilgrimage for me. I always try to get Jeff to go with me. Sometimes our schedules coincide, but more often than not these days, they do not.

I go to Maple Canyon to get away from the stresses of life, and to just climb. Actually, as much as I would like to say that, life doesn't always allow it. But I always enjoy my trips to Maple Canyon, even if we don't actually get any climbing in. That really happened once.

There is one multi-pitch climb everyone always wants to do when we get to Maple, and I always dread it just a little. Not because the climb is hard, it isn't really, the hardest pitch is a 5.7, but because it is sometimes more work than I want to spend trying to get a bunch of new climbers up that 400 feet, and then back down safely. At the top of this multi-pitch is an ammo box placed by Jason Stevens, Maple Canyon expert, and first ascensionist of most of the Maple climbs.

Last year Lydia and I dragged her parents and her brother down with us for a little climbing. I think we all had a good time.

There is one climb in particular that draws us back every year, and that is The Great Chasm. it isn't a difficult climb by any means, but it is challenging because it is a multi-pitch climb.

Lydia has been up The Great Chasm with me a few times, and is familiar with the intricacies of the climb. So I felt pretty good about taking her, her dad, and brother up the route.

As I said, it isn't a difficult climb, but because of the height of the climb, and the exposure, it feels more difficult than it really is.

I always expect a challenge or two taking someone up The Great Chasm for the first time, and besides one of my quickdraws getting dropped I felt pretty good about the whole experience. And I think everyone else did too. It was a little bit of work, but what good thing isn't.

We haven't scheduled this years trip yet, so if anyone wants to go, just let me know.

Update:

I made it down with Jeff this year, and the only climb we did was The Great Chasm. I also made it down with Lydia. We scheduled a couple of days of camping and climbing, but I gave up after a migraine tried to do me in. No climbing on that trip, but there is still enough summer left.