Deep Water Soloing 2019

Aug 26, 2019
2 min read

The day started off with me and a buddy loading his new camper. He got a F250 with bed camper that hasn't been out yet. We loaded up our kayaks, some simple food and some camping gear so we could set up and enjoy the weather up north. We drove a short 3 hours to Winslow, and here we fueled up got some last minute groceries and headed down to East Clear Creek. The creek is about 10 minutes outside of town with paved roads in. We crossed over the creek via bridge and found a small park on the side of the road. We set up here for a bit and ate some lunch, unpacked our kayaks and packed the kayaks with snacks and beer. From the launch point we paddled up stream for about 3/4 of a mile until we got into some deeper parts of the canyon. It wasn't just the water that got deep the walls began to get taller and taller the farther we made our way up stream. The first boulder we stopped at to climb was a simple warm up and an easy jump back into the water. Deep water soloing is essentially rock climbing with no harnesses or ropes and having the water to fall into as your protection. So after our warm up we headed up a little more til we found this over hang. It was super hard to climb but the view was awesome so we had to figure out a way to get onto it. Instead of going from the water up we could walk up to the top and hang from the cliff then walk our hands over about 10 feet until we were hanging from the tip of it. It was alot of fun at this spot doing some cliff jumping. After a while spent here we started to head back down stream stopping at various spots along the way to climb up and jump off. We finally made our to the truck and loaded up and drove south towards Payson. We pulled off on 300 and drove a ways until we found a very narrow and tight road leading to the edge of the rim. As we passed some camps we would wave and say hi until one camp yelled back to us. I ended up running into a guy I served in the Marine Corps with in the middle of the woods, in the middle of Arizona. It was a crazy encounter and we had to set camp up here to catch over some drinks and a bonfire. We pitched camp which was fairly easy with the camper. We cooked some killer steaks and veggies on the new stove top. After dinner we all hung out near the bonfire talking war stories and catching up. It was a wonderful night with a little bit of clouds but was totally worth the sweater weather. The next morning we packed up and headed back towards Phoenix. It was a simple overnight trip but was loaded with memories and experiences.