Tierdrop and Not Tierdrop
November 10, 2018
Day 2 of our canyoneering trip we met up with a group of people to do the Tierdrops. We met up in the morning, introduced ourselves, and headed off to Park Avenue. These were great canyons for our group since none of us were familiar with each other's abilities, the days were short, and the canyons were beginner friendly.
Tierdrop
I love going with people I have never met before. It's like, "Hello, I'm Jared, trust me with your life and I'm going to trust my life to you." Of course I do what I feel is necessary to ensure that everyone is safe despite not knowing each other and I expect the same from everyone else.
Our group today were my friends Trent and Brad, Bekah and Austin, Lindsey, and Katy and Bruce. I believe it was each group's first time to meet each other.
After the steep ascent we headed over to Tierdrop, identified the current anchor and rigging, and Lindsey set up the rappel. Bekah was volunteered to be the last person down and set everything up perfectly and got the rope down.
Rap 2 started with a biner block and we switched it to an Munter Mule Overhand after the first person went down. Bekah again was the last person down.
For the final rappel, Austin rigged a Jester in a slightly different way that I hadn't seen before. The Jester part is the same, but instead of nothing or a simple slip knot to prevent the rope from creeping, he tied a Mule Overhand. I suspect the Mule is probably easier to release than the slip knot when weighted.
Again, Bekah was the last person down. We ran out as far as we could when pulling the ropes to minimize grooves. It came down without difficulty.
Not Tierdrop
After finishing Tierdrop we had lunch and then ran down to the Visitor's Center and got permits for the Fiery Furnace for the next day. Once that was taken care of we headed back up to do Not Tierdrop.
This was a new canyon to me and the only beta-ed canyon in Arches that I had not yet done. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures because I was busy rigging and completely forgot. I'll include what I have, though. We weren't planning on coming back up to the top of Park Avenue this canyon, we chose to rig the first rappel retrievable.
The canyon ended quickly and we decided to prolong the fun by rappelling the optional rappel at the end. Normally one would walk down a sand berm LDC but we pulled out the toggle again, rigged around a giant tree, and descended down the next tier.
After this we made our way around the corner to the bottom of Tierdrop and back to our cars. A couple of people had to leave that night so we said our goodbyes. I was very happy and impressed with each person in the group.