Babe's Hole Canyon

Babe's Hole Canyon is located in the northeast corner of the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area. It's a great entry level technical canyon with gorgeous Coconino sandstone slots accented by crystal clear flowing water (at least when we did it). There's a total of four rappels from natural anchors if you start descending from the highest point possible. This was my first trip down Babe's and my roommate Ian's first technical canyoneering trip period. I think we'll both be back to do it again next spring. For more specific info on this canyon, I suggest picking up "Arizona Technical Canyoneering" by Todd Martin.

Some pics:

45 minutes of rock hopping down basalt with numerous springs a flowin' will bring you to the.....

....first rappel down into Babe's bowels!


Looking down into rappel # 2

Prepping for the 2nd rappel

The church has failed this soul.....
(side note: both hands should be on the rope at all times!)

Ian rockin' rappel # 4 (rap # 3 was short and unworthy of recording)

Babe's Narrows

One of many frogs we saw

Ok, so a canyoneer's worse nightmare is the rope getting stuck so that you can't pull it after rappelling. Obviously this could be disastrous if you have 4 raps and get it stuck on rap # 1, 2, or 3. We got the rope stuck on # 4 of 4 and almost had to cut the rope........ after some serious elbow grease we were able to free it. Victory shot followed.

View of Little LO Canyon from above on the burly hike out (Babe's connects to this canyon).