mixing up the medicine

Can anyone guess what I did last weekend? Well, there were two different canyoneering trips which bookended an easy dog run on Sunday. For the dog run we did Sycamore Cove via the newly signed Starnes Branch trail. The old Mtns to Sea Alt sign never made any sense and I am glad to see this sweet little trail now has a proper name.

For the first canyoneering trip I met up with Edmund from Atlanta and we did Big Bradley. There were two different commercial trips out there which led to some delays but after a little wait the first group was nice enough to let us clip into their rope and down we went. This was my first time doing the rap all in one shot which meant we avoided most of the spray on the way down. Different from rigging it in two drops but still fun. After we made our way down all of the Big Bradley canyon we went across the street and hiked up to Little Bradley falls where we rigged up a rope and rappelled the waterfall a couple of times. This wasn't a 'canyon', more of a chance to just play on the rope in the water.

Little Bradley:













On Monday Joe and I led a recreational group of seven down Tombstone Blues. Terri even made it out with us for a grande adventure. The first rappel is deceivingly hard and the first four of us down all picked up some scrapes and bruises. In the future we'll likely skip the first rappel and enter the canyon just above the big waterfall where the canyon really starts. It is this middle section of the canyon that is truly amazing. Three back to back rappels down a 120' waterfall and then you are right into the thick of it with lots of big boulders and narrow shoots. It was a great day to be in the woods!