Between a Rock and Wet Place

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Outside Magazine September 2001

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Between a Rock and Wet Place
Exploring remote canyons is dangerous fun, but expert advice will get you through it alive. Marc Peruzzi learns the ropes, deep in the Arizona backcountry.

By Marc Peruzzi


	Dry run: clearing a creek in southeastern Utah

Suffice it to say I'm no rock rat. And although no real fear is washing through me at the moment, I'm not exactly comfortable walking backward on a slimy vertical wall above a swirling hydraulic, either. I'm 20 feet down a 50-foot rappel, the rope hot and wet in my braking hand, the climbing harness digging at my kidneys with a steady burn. As my clenched jaw reminds me, I haven't drawn a decent breath since I left the sun behind and slipped into this cool, dark gorge.

This is canyoneering, or at least this is what canyoneering should be: more rigorous than hiking, less technical than mountaineering, with a healthy dose of swiftwater swimming thrown in. Exploring the best canyons, like the best caves, mountains, and wrecks, demands specialized skills, which is why I've signed up for a three-day technical course from the American Canyoneering Association. But the rewards are ample. If only because they are so perilous, canyons have remained slivers of delicate wilderness, cool oases in the generally brutal Southwest. And then there are the plunge pools: blue water cascading into perfect swimming holes carved into the polished bedrock. Wade from one to the next, or scramble along the sides and jump—ten, twenty, thirty feet. Relish that knot in your belly, embrace the electric charge on your skin as you whistle through the desert air.

For more trips in the Southwest, log on to Outside Online's Trip Finder at www.outsidemag.com/tripfinder/southwest.

Here in Cibecue Canyon, a stair-step gorge of quartzite and basalt on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in east-central Arizona, Cibecue Creek collects in at least 30 plunge pools between seven major falls. A tributary of the Salt River, it spills from pool to pool before cascading over the 50-foot waterfall to my left and into the large pool below. After two days spent preparing for this excursion—two days under the buzzing, engorged Arizona sun—that final pool is a temptress. So I breathe deep, exhale, and feel my muscles go slack. The rope slithers freely through the figure-eight rappel device I'm using to control my descent. Ten feet from the surface, I release my braking hand and drop into the cool water.

By all accounts, canyoneering's popularity has boomed in recent years, and not just in Europe, where adventurous athletes have been canyoning, (as it's called there) for at least 60 years, but also in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, and, more recently, in the canyon country of Arizona and Utah. My level-one ACA course was designed to make me a canyoneer, and fast, by covering the skills needed to navigate a Class 3 canyon: one that is exciting and technical with flowing water, but safe for anyone with a firm grasp of the basics.

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