Our early-February run through both Yankee Doodle and Boltergeist was a perfect day but a bit on the chilly side.

As we approached Yankee Doodle, we went to the left of the canyon looking for an anchor. The initial part of the canyon is about 30–40 feet deep. When we found an anchor, I ran our rope through the quick link and flaked out about 40–50 feet of rope. I tossed it over the edge and thought it would easily reach the bottom. Since we were doing a toss-n-go method on this rappel, I also threw the rope bag down.

Thunk... thunk... thunk... thunk... distant thud.

Um...

That's farther than 40 feet!

I got on rope and slowly backed myself so I could look over the edge...

We're going to have to reset. It's a LOT further than 40 feet. I made my way back up to the anchor and centered our 230 ft rope at the anchor.

I checked again.

Yep, we're good now.

We had found an anchor where it was one big 100-foot drop rather than two rappels at 35 feet and 65 feet apiece.

It was an awesome first (and biggest) rappel for the canyon!

We found several frozen over puddles of ice and one member of our party broke through in a rather hilarious manner. Check out the YouTube video below and skip to about 4:55 if you just want to see that part.