Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:44 pm Post subject: Icehouse Canyon Exploration, 10-Oct-2009
Sorry, no pictures. I brought my camera but forgot the memory card.
Continuing my series on random ridges, I descended one instead of climbed one this time. I hiked to Kelly Camp and then up to the Ontario-Bighorn ridge. As a proud new member of NHPS I didn't bother attempting either peak. I just sat there by the Bighorn Trail Marker and gazed down at the smog filled metropolis below. After eating some kettle popcorn and a caramel apple, I left for Shortcut Ridge. At Kelly Camp, a father and son were ahead of me and descending the normal route to Icehouse Saddle and IHC. This was a perfect test to see if I could beat them.
I didn't do any research on the route and was too lazy to look it up on Google Earth beforehand. I just had my GPS loaded with 20 ft topo data and my printed topo map. But on the way up the IHC trail, I did some recon and looked for the best descent route from the ridge. I spotted a fairly benign gully west of Delker Canyon. I definitely did not want to descend Delker because there was a big chockstone or something like that near the bottom.
After leaving Kelly Camp, I aimed for a flat spot on the topo but this turned out to be a huge brush field. It was like a giant maze, but eventually I made it out to a clearing. The brush was actually fairly "friendly." It was waist high dense brush, but it wasn't thorny and amazingly you could walk straight through it if you really had to. I did this once for about 20 ft but I wouldn't make a habit of it. Looking at the route now on Google Earth, I should have started higher and to the west.
The rest of the way down was straightforward. It was very steep in spots but traction was relatively good. I found several game trails near the bottom and that helped out a lot. It took a little over an hour to get to the bottom of IHC and I ended up slightly east of my intended descent gully. When I got there, I saw the father and son on the normal trail above me. I just barely beat them as I regained the trail just below the 2 mile marker. They were going kind of slow so this wasn't much of a shortcut. The route descended about 1600 ft.
Yellow arrow was my target descent gully. I veered east because straight ahead looked liked a bunch of buckthorn.
Last edited by Tim on Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:13 pm; edited 2 times in total
If anybody is doing Leatherneck, I want in. Only 6 weeks left or so to do it. _________________ There is no place for me in this world, Chanchito, I don't belong out there and I don't belong here. So I'm going into the wilderness, probably to die. I hope to see you again Chancho, maybe in the next life.
This is like the 4th time I've forgotten the memory card. So stupid! I need to leave an extra SD card permanently in my 10 essentials bag.
Those ridges look intriguing. The view of the two escarpments at the top of Leatherneck Ridge must be a sight to behold.
AW wrote:
Tim is this your first blind first descent?
I've done a few semi-blind descents before but not very often. They make me really nervous. This wasn't too big a deal because it was short and the worst that could happen was I had to climb back up. I don't think I would do a blind descent of a canyon unless the route has been done before and I knew what to expect. I keep having this feeling that my luck is going to run out one of these days.
TacoDelRio wrote:
COUGHkimchiridgeCOUGH
That's west of Sheep Canyon? Can you go up and down Kimchi Ridge without pro?
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