The Jug, May 9 and 10, 2001

this is an account of a 2 day trip Chloe and I took to go canyoneering in grad school.
The pictures here are all digital, so you wont really get a sense of how beautiful it is. Hopefully I will upload some better photos (scans from medium format) soon.



We began what would prove to be an exciting day of hiking, car extrication and canyoneering by cramming our water bottle with ice from the hotel ice machine, reorganizing our dry bags in a somewhat logical manner (rope, harnesses, ATCs in one bag, food in the other). We set out in our chevy Cavalier south along 188 to the A+ road and after a wrong turn were soon making our way in the general direction of the Jug trailhead (according to my GPS). Unfortunately, we soon came upon tonto creek, which was fairly deep and looked impassable in our compact car. Chloe and I both got our water shoes on and waded out to the middle to confirm that we would probably fill the engine with water and have to be winched out if we tried crossing here.


An elderly fisherman (upper right) instructed us to get back on 188 and go north to the Bar X crossing, which we did. Much to our dismay, we found another river crossing:

We watched several old ladies in 4x4s ford the river without any difficulty, and the bottom didnt look exceptionally deep, so I took a deep breath, shifted into low gear and drove across it. We were more than a little relieved to make it to the other side without the engine cutting out. Invigorated by our success, I put the accelerator down and began practicing my rally car driving techniques with only the occasional protest from Chloe. However, our happy mood was soon thwarted by the appearance of another, still larger river to ford!

We stood staring at this one for a while, and then noticed that a lower clearance truck went to the right of the main crossing. He then drove around to us and informed us that it was much shallower where he crossed, so we reversed, shifted into L again, and drove through the water. Heres one of us midway through:


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After taking a few seconds to mentally regroup, I resumed rally car driving mode, a little nonplussed by being behind schedule (but thankful that we were not stuck in a river). We followed the road for a while, noticing a dirt road leading due east, but passed it in favor of staying on the paved road. Soon the pavement snaked through a camping area, and then turned into a dirt road. The dirt road became a slightly worse pebbly road, which in turn became a cobbley nightmare that skirted the north tip of lake roosevelt. In fairly short order the front wheels got stuck, and after 30 minutes of cursing, hitting of the dashboard with fists, digging, getting hit in the head with rocks shot out by the spinning wheels and sulking, we started hiking out. The decision to hike out came when, during an attempt to dig out the wheels, a small scorpion crawled out of the hole we had just made.

Miraculously, my cell phone started working about 100 feet down the road, so I called Sprint PCS roadside assistance, who, after taking 5 minutes to take down all my information (you have a Gee Pee what?) asked me what state I was in. I hung up, called the hotel we had stayed at, and handed the phone to Chloe (who had been waylaid by the chatty innkeeper earlier that morning), who described where we were, and a tow truck arrived 30 minutes later. The truck pulled us out




and we were on our way again. It was 11:00. At this point I was in full rally car mode, doing big sweeping turns at high speed and catching air off of crests. I was determined to get us to the trailhead in enough time to do the Jug trail. The A cross road looked like a superhighway in comparison to the cobble filled road I had gotten us mired in, and I took full advantage of this fact. We reached the trail head, but the GPS coordinates I had for the trailhead were still about a mile away, so despite Chloes confused looks, we got back in the car and drove to the published waypoint which appeared to be a Saguero cactus (even with selective availability, thats not a very accurate position! My reading, with 16 foot accuracy is closer to lat=33.77124 long=="-111.1356"). At my urging, we drove a little further, but didnt see any trailheads, so we drove back to the one labelled "A cross trailhead" with a sign limiting the number of people and livestock to 15, made sure we had everything and had not gone over quota on the livestock, and started down the trail at a brisk pace at 12:00 noon. I looked nervously back at the car wondering if during our earlier misadventures, I hadn't whacked a hole in some key conduit which was now draining.



This is a picture northeast of the jug, slightly before we cut down to the Salome Creek and started getting wet. Before we entered the creek, we double checked to make sure the cameras were well sealed in their drybag, and started walking down the river, trying to avoid slipping on the abundent algae coating the rocks. Here is where the canyon started closing down a little bit.


From this point on, we were either wading or swimming most of the time. At the eastern end there were a fair amount of cattails and reeds. After this point we slowly made our way down the canyon. I took some decent 6x4.5 transparancies but unfortunately dont have scans of them at the moment (hopefully I will in the next month or so), so here is the sole image I have, about halfway through:




Its incredibly beautiful, and we were completely alone the whole way down. In Europe, a
canyon like this would be mobbed; particularly on the weekend.


Finally, we arrived at the much talked about final (only!~) rappell. The anchor consists of several bolts with tattered webbing in between them (I didnt have a knife or I would have cut it off). We got our harnesses on and Chloe rapped off first.


I knew she was at the bottom by the shrieking (The water was quite cold at this point) that emanated from the canyon walls. "Bah" I thought. "It cant be that cold". I belayed the backpacks down into the water, which chloe retrieved, and then it was finally my turn to go. I was somewhat surprised to find that the water had an almost jacuzzi like warmth to it. Or wait, maybe I'm confusing "Jacuzzi like" with "Glacial runoff like".

We pulled the rope (30 meter rope which reached the water with ~5 meters total in the water.), quickly coiled it, and started the swim for the canyon exit. This last part of the jug was truly spectacular; it is the deepest part, with smooth pink granite walls reaching up almost into a roof. I think I would be able to appreciate it more if I had a wetsuit though. We finally emerged from the canyon and repacked. After dumping out most of our remaining water, I pulled the rope through my ATC to drain some of the water. When we got back to the car at 5:00 pm, and after a brief discussion, decided to try to take A cross south to Globe this time, in order to avoid fording Tonto creek again. I was delighted when the car started with a mild groan. We made it back to Phoenix by 7:30 and found the nearest gas station to the airport, where we refuelled and tried to clean up the by now battered and dirty rental car. In the gas station as we were surreptitiously using the window squeegees to scoop the dirt off the car, the cops rolled up to the corner and arrested a hooker. We were in the good part of town, apparently. At the very least, it provided some contrast with the Jug. A few hours earlier we were completeley alone in a cathedral of water carved pink granite, and now we were surrounded by thugs, cops and prostitutes with heat visibly radiating off the ubiquitous pavement.


Luckily, there was no attendant at the rental car drop off, so we checked in with the guys in
the airport, who thankfully did not go outside to look at their car.