September 25

~10 miles, 2,500’ gain

We continued to climb the same stream bed upward to the crest of the Western Panamints where we had our first glimpse of the Panamint Valley below, and beyond the Argus Range, the Inyo Mountains, and in the far distance, the Sierra. A stunning view! We descended into a wash which meandered downhill until we reached a high cliff which we skirted around to continue again following the dry stream bed until we topped out above a slot canyon. Here we would rappel three successive dry falls. After the first rappel, we negotiated a 10 foot drop without rope with a combination of sliding and jumping. Quite unfortunately, Steve caught a foot and tipped quickly and fell onto his left side.

We all suspected a broken arm, which put urgency into completing the next two rappels on which we needed to belay Steve who was in pain such that he couldn’t solely control his descents. Fortunately he was able to hike two miles further down the wash at the outlet to the canyon to Highway 190 where Mike Pless met us to take Steve to a hospital a couple of hours away in Ridgecrest. With a very subdued vibe, the rest of our crew replenished our water at a drop by the highway and crossed underneath the highway through a large drainage pipe that carries flash flood water under the highway berm. We continued another 5 miles down another alluvial fan where we set up camp just above Panamint Valley.

Slot canyon rappels