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Grand Canyoneering - Exploring the Rugged Gorges and Secret Slots of the Grand Canyon

Date: 
Wed, 2013-01-16

Grand Canyon National Park is big, but not that big. It is almost exactly the size of Santa Fe County, and, with 5 million visitors per year, draws five times the crowds. Many places in the southwestern desert are far more remote. How can there be places in the Park that are hardly visited from one year to the next?
 
There are indeed such places, remote slot tributaries protected from casual visit by sheer technical difficulty.  Reaching them requires technical skill, careful navigation, and amphibious travel. At the next meeting of the Los Alamos Mountaineers, Todd Martin and Rich Rudow will tell of their adventures, and the secret places that they have uncovered.
 
An avid hiker his entire life, Todd has through-hiked the Appalachian Trail and spent the better part of his free time during the last decade and a half exploring his adopted home state of Arizona. He is the author of Grand Canyoneering, the only guide to the slot canyons of Grand Canyon National Park, which won the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award for best Outdoor Adventure Guidebook.  Todd maintains an online hiking guide, www.toddshikingguide.com .
 
Rich became a Grand Canyon fanatic after his first river trip in 1989. In 22 years he has spent 500 days below the rim, backpacking, rafting, and canyoneering through some of the park's most remote places. He has walked nearly 5,000 miles and descended 141 slot canyons including 60 or 70 first descents.  Rich was named one of Outside Magazine's 2012 Adventurers of the Year.
 
The Wednesday, January 16 meeting will be held in the Great Room of Fuller Lodge, beginning with a business meeting at 7:30 PM, with the feature presentation at 8:00 PM.

Muav Pools in Muav Canyon, one of Martin and Rudow’s secret slots.

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