SGA (con't) After Monkey's Crawl one drops a few feet back into the canyon with no more immediate obstacles. Two small parties of three each proceeded up canyon looking for a escape chute. Now that the right wall was somewhat receding and maintained a growth of brush and dwarf trees, the party headed by Ed Treacy imagined possibilities of scaling to the rim. First, a 15' rock must be surmounted, which took some doing. Then the party proceeded 200' up the steep hill through the dense brush and trees, to arrive at a smooth vertical wall that shot up to the sky. Failure? A good mountaineer doesn't know that word. What to do? What to do? Let's try skirmishing along the base of the wall for a ways and see whether we can find any kind of a chink. So, after blasting through several hundred yards of scratchy brush, ah, yes/ There was a beautiful rift, six feet wide and soaring way up to the very rim. On both sides of the rift were smooth vertical walls one hundred feet high. This certainly was a geological curiosity. The three scouts zoomed up to the rim and had thus attained the plateau. At any other place, this would not be called a plateau, but rolling countryside. Since the peak was not in sight, this party was at first attracted to Greatheart Mesa, and were trying to figure out route to same, but after trudging through valleys and over ridges, the real peak came into view. Elated with this scouting success the trio returned to camp at dusk. Everyone else had returned much earlier and were happily engaged with evening meal and campfire. The triumphal report was met with indifference. "Oh, we found a much better way", was the reply. And so they had. The Classic Escape Chute is to be found immediately after Monkey's Crawl. It is downstream, just around the bend from Russell Gulch, which is on the opposite canyon wall and which leads to the north slopes of North Guardian Angel. The low end of Escape Chute is a double chute. Take the right hand one, The low end of the chute is very steep, and is a bit of third class rock climbing during which one erodes bushels of fine dirt. A fixed line was called for, so Doug Mantle tied his 7mm rope to a tree and prepared the usual hand-hold loops. After this, it was an easy 500' scoot to the rim of the plateau. The rim offered an outstanding view of North Guardian Angel, but South GA is masked by a red craggy sub-peak. The rim area is well ducked and gets one started in the right direction. Then it's a rather leisurely trek through a sandy creek bed or its banks, that leads ever upward to a beautiful knoll. SGA comes into full view. It has a classic view appearing symmetric, conical and a dazzling white. But one is viewing the end dimension, so doesn't see the elongation from here. The white cone sets on a broad base of deep red sandstone, both the red and the white sandstone being of the Navajo Sandstone geological era and similar in composition. The red sandstone is intricately formed of cross-hatched striations deposited at various angled deviations from the horizontal. What was the agent for depositing these thousands of layers of sand, water or wind? I favor a wind theory to account for the forever changing pattern which might be attributed to the seasonal variations of wind. Also, the sand particles are very small and uniform in size. So one tackles the rather steep red sandstone, always looking for the most gradual places, and one wonders how steeply he can friction walk before spinning out. Abruptly one leaves the red sandstone to climb the white sandstone, This is a steeper angle, but it is well fissured allowing plenty of footholds. Rapidly one shoots to the summit. The weather is golden, and one is exhilarated. Tremendous views are offered on all sides, It is a matter of how much can one comprehend and interpret from this tumultuous countryside. The Right Fork of North Creek is almost 3000' lower and is roughly synonymous with Great Western Canyon. The Right Fork is not as cliff constricted as the Left Fork for many miles, but in its headwaters it is highly constricted. This is claimed to be spectacular country by last years hiking party.

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