In a previous trip we had probed this canyon.  Vince, when he had his buggy, had easily scampered up the first waterfall into the flat sandy area above.  The next obstacle was much tougher though, and had a big hole at the top.  Since on that day no one else had a rig they wanted to follow in, Vince backed off.

This extreme hard core lower portion of Shaft Canyon had been bypassed when we broke the hard core Middle Shaft Canyon about a year and half ago.  It is very short, but is not for the faint of heart (steep, off camber climbs) or those fond of their sheet metal.

Steve and I scampered up the first waterfall with no problems.  This obstacle pushes your passenger side roof into the rock.  Not hard, but enough to do some real damage if you don't have an exocage or are not in a buggy.

The others decided that this was not their day to test their rigs against this canyon and parked to watch.  A wise choice given that no one had an exo, one was very short wheelbase, one had no crawler gears, and another was a daily driver with IFS (but one of the most capable daily drivers I have ever seen!).

The canyon opens up into a round sandy area.  From here there are 2 choices:  up an insanely steep waterfall (which Steve probed, but backed off from) on the left or up some very steep slabs on the right.

Steve had little trouble climbing the slabs but then encountered the large hole at the top.  His driver's side front tire dropped in so deep that he was high centered on his frame and could not go further.  When he backed off he found himself with both differentials stuck hard, perched at the top of the slabs. 

After pushing him back far enough to clear his front diff we discovered that the large rock that he was hung up on had a huge crack in it and the entire top of the rock was loose!  This turned out to be excellent luck for us and Steve and Roger went to work on the cap rock with pry bars...  The rest of us decided that it looked like too much back breaking work and began to set up a winch point above to flip the cap rock back into the hole.

Steve and Roger, however, would not give up and we all chipped in to help muscle the cap rock over and into the hole.  Nice work Steve and Roger!

Steve, who had backed off into the sandy area to get more room to work, now crawled right up the slabs and through the filled in hole.  Excellent!

Now it was my turn.  I moved off of the entry waterfall and tried Steve's line up the slabs first but kept slipping off to the driver's side and getting stuck on my rear axle.  I decided to try the far left line and after several attempts to get just the right line, crawled right up and over!

The next section also gave 2 choices.  While I was scratching my head trying to figure out how we were going to get around some big diff grabber rocks and over a deep undercut hole in the main canyon, Steve found a better line!  On the right was a series of slabs that looked scary, because you were on the edge of the hole mentioned above, but looked like they would go.

Steve crawled cleanly and smoothly up the slabs and dropped back into the canyon!  I followed close behind, also with no problems.

Above this there are only minor obstacles (plus the usual optional challenges) until you reach the drop in to the canyon for Middle Shaft Canyon trail.

We headed up Middle Shaft, intending to do that entire trail.  We got a few hundred yards into it when I got high centered on a rock while trying to turn around and try a different line.  Clicking sounds followed by a BAMB told me that something major had snapped.  Bob confirmed it, my front drive shaft had broken at the CV joint!  I had no spare so it was back to camp for me...

It was quicker to go down canyon to the drop in and we spent the next hour accomplishing that.  Thanks everyone for the help getting me out of there.

On the way back to camp we headed over to Crowbar so Steve could give Ballerina Rock (the waterfall entrance) another try.

Click here for that story and a photo gallery.

Click here to go back to the main page of this trip report.