Silver Grotto/Shinumo Wash April 15 2008Todd Martin, Aaron Locander, Rich Rudow and I did Shinumo Wash/Silver Grotto, another Grand Canyon gem (Marble Canyon section). It was a straight forward, but long trip down to the Redwall where the canyon became technical. We brought six ropes and left one behind at each drop. A piton was pounded on the first drop, but we were able to extract it later as so to leave no trace. There were some raps and some quite difficult downclimbs and swimming to the top of the Silver Grotto. By the time we reached the Silver Grotto (known by river rafters coming up canyon, we were out of rope, so couldn’t descent into its depths.
The hard part was coming back up the canyon. The other three ascended the rope but we decided to rig a haul system just for the heck of it I guess, but I didn’t mind since I don’t consider jugging to be much fun anyway. I climbed up the cliffs and when I couldn’t a haul system with pulleys was used. Excellent crevasse rescue practice for sure and the canyons are the only places where crevasse rescue is usually practiced. Anyway, we arrived back at the rim of the canyon at sundown.
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