After the
1985 rescue, Steve decided that someday he would like to organize a third
attempt to descend Keynot Canyon. Years passed and finally we had the
opportunity. We set up a 8L14 volunteer restoration and site clean up project
for the Keynot mine and we could attempt to descend Keynot Canyon after
finishing the project work.Steve enlisted Ron's assistance, knowing his desert climbing expertise would help assure a successful descent. Ron was interested in assisting and helped organize the trip. Everyone was required to bring a climbing harness, hard hat, and plenty of pitons, carabiners, and webbing for rappel anchors along with their other gear.
Jerry along with former Ridgecrest BLM Ranger Bruce Albert had made the 1985 attempt so we had first hand information about the upper bait of the canyon. After having to leave one of their ropes, their remaining ropes had not been long enough to descend a lower slope. Not knowing the height of the lower waterfalls, we brought plenty of rope - seven 165' climbing ropes. We did not want to end up being a third party needing rescue and felt there would not be any face we could not get down with that much rope.
It was certainly with a feeling of uncertainty though, that we started out Saturday morning from the historic cabin at 8,200' on the Beveridge and Keynot canyon ridgeline. From the ridge, we hiked an old trail directly down into the bottom of Keynot canyon and reached the bottom one quarter mile below Keynot nine. There was some dense brush as we continued down the canyon bottom and at about 7,600' we encountered some old mining debris and a one inch diameter pipe that had probably carried water to that operation.
As we descended, we found a Bighorn sheep rams head with a full curl - it appeared to be at least five years old. Dropping another couple of thousand feet, with no major rappelling faces, we started kidding Jerry about his stories of horrific rock faces and getting stranded on a high ledge. He even began wondering if he and Bruce might have been in another canyon. By late afternoon, we were down to 5,000' and Jerry was starting to wonder about his memories from the 1985 trip.
We passed the more intact remains of a bighorn ewe and periodically encountered some fairly good surface water flows. At one point, there was a large 4x4 wooded post which we theorized was from a mining exploration and had fallen off the ridgeline above us.
The late afternoon views out of the narrow, confined canyon down into Saline Valley and out over to the Last Chance Range to the east were magnificent. And then, early in the evening at about 4,600' we walked out on a high rock bench and we were glad to have all the climbing gear along. The evening shadows accentuated the depth of the vertical tall before us and Jerry was vindicated, saying, "yes, this is what I remember". It was at this point in 1985 that they had to abandon one of their climbing ropes and it was because of that they were later unable to descend one of the lower waterfalls.
We camped on the ledge and enjoyed the sunset views. A small