A Proposal for a Desert Canyon Traverses List

The two most outstanding peaks on our Desert Peaks List are generally conceded to be Picacho del Diablo and South Guardian Angel. In large measure, they owe their appeal to the canyon traverses encountered in their ascents. My first ascent of a desert peak was a traverse of Telescope Peak in Death Valley National Monument from the Charcoal Kilns via Hannapah Springs to Shorty's Well led years ago by Bob Greenawalt on a bus shuttle. I have been devoted to desert peaking ever since. But what impressed me so much that first time was not the peak but the traverse. Later, in my first year of DPSing as a matter of fact, Tom and Trudie Hunt led the Pine-to-Palms Traverse past Martinez Peak down Martinez Canyon to Valerie Jeans on a bus shuttle. Later, still in that same year, Bob Greenawalt again led a traverse of Grand Canyon from the North Rim to the South Rim via Bright Angel Canyon, again on a bus shuttle. Both of these trips stand-out in my mind as most memorable experiences. In recent years, Arkel Erb reacquainted me with canyon traversing by a private trip he led down the Virgin Narrows in Zion National Park. Since then I have led private parties on traverses of Orderville Canyon in Zion and Paria Canyon in the Paria. Canyon Primitive Area along the Utah-Arizona border. I would rank all of these traverses higher in total experience engendered than ninety percent of the desert peaks we climb. In talking to a number of DPSers about their receptivity to a "Desert Canyon Traverses List", I detected that a consensus existed in favor of such a list, and hence the motivation for this proposal. When Chester Versteeg originally proposed in 1941 that a Desert Peaks Section be established, he submitted an initial list of desert peaks. In similar vein, I would like to propose an initial list of Desert Canyon Traverses, which could be augmented as our experience grows in keeping with our practices in changing our own Desert Peaks List. Consequently, additions to or deletions from the Desert Canyon Traverses List would follow the same procedures we currently apply to the Desert Peaks List. I have constrained the initial list to include only those traverses that have been previously led by the DPS.

DESERT CANYON TRAVERSES LIST

Page Index	Prev	Page 5	Next	Issue Index