Conditions:Birch Hollow-20231106021046
Latest: |
5 Nov 2023 (1 yr, 7 mos ago) |
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| Reported by: | Ryandc (8 reports) | |
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| Quality: | Great |
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| Waterflow: | Dry |
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| Wetsuit: | None |
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| Water temperature: | ||
| Difficulty: | Normal |
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| Time: |  4 hours
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Team: 2 people with experience level Intermediate
Trip report URL:
Comments: Tis the season for things to freeze, which actually makes Birch - and particularly Wild Wind - even more manageable than normal.
The three anchors with webbing are in good condition. All bolts on other anchors are intact with webbing intact.
Birch was completely dry. No pool at the bottom, only tiny spots of mud here and there. Ropes got slightly muddy, but even that can be mitigated if you pull them smartly.
Orderville was frozen. Not a hard freeze - you'll punch through if you step on top.
Wild Wind Hollow has a well-developed trail at this point that unfortunately ends at the fence. Just veer left a bit at the end to land on the road. I prefer WWH to Orderville at this point during dry conditions. With the freeze, the loamy/clay soil is pretty solid - no slip-n-slide in the mud on the exit.
Didn't see anyone else at all in Orderville or Birch.
3 hours car-to-Orderville moving at a fairly leisurely pace, 1 hour back out to the parking lot. Literally, on the dot - 4h. Total of 80 minutes "non-moving time" per my Garmin; for a group of two, that's about 7 minutes per rap of rigging, rapping, and stacking.
All condition reports
| Date | Quality | Waterflow | Wetsuit | Difficulty | Time | Team | Reported by |
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| Great | Dry
| | Normal |  5 hours
| 3 people Intermediate | Stber321 (38 reports) | |
Comment: Was able to get a Crosstrek down to the 4x4 trailhead, but not too keen to do it again. Real pretty dry canyon with alot of variability. Walked down the narrows(which are not that narrow up here) a bit and poked our way up orderville to the bottom of the final rap before exiting up the hill on the right.
a cool canyon that's not too too tight if it's raining
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| Good | Dry
| | | 4 hours
| 1 people Advanced | RFontaine (276 reports) | |
Comment: A decent canyon, by Zion standards. Great for beginners as the bolts are all placed for easy rappelling! Has some very picturesque sections that are fairly short and quite a few fun raps! 45min approach down a very muddy drainage that eventually ends at the first rappel. This drop has lots of sharp loose shale on the wall that can dislodge easily. Another long walk and you are at the main canyon. I enjoyed the fluted sections of wall especially near the end of the technical section that is over all too quick. More ankle deep mud in Orderville. I exited up Wild Wind Hollow. There is a very beaten down trail the whole way out, no bushwacking, but it is definitely a continuous stair stepper the entire way out. Some pretty panoramic views near the top 1hr 45min exit. Total time 4hrs at a leisurely pace. A good canyon and great for teaching beginners but for the effort there are others that are more worthwhile in my opinion!
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| Great | Dry
| None
| Normal | 4 hours
| 2 people Intermediate | Ryandc (8 reports) | |
Comment: Tis the season for things to freeze, which actually makes Birch - and particularly Wild Wind - even more manageable than normal.
The three anchors with webbing are in good condition. All bolts on other anchors are intact with webbing intact. Birch was completely dry. No pool at the bottom, only tiny spots of mud here and there. Ropes got slightly muddy, but even that can be mitigated if you pull them smartly. Orderville was frozen. Not a hard freeze - you'll punch through if you step on top. Wild Wind Hollow has a well-developed trail at this point that unfortunately ends at the fence. Just veer left a bit at the end to land on the road. I prefer WWH to Orderville at this point during dry conditions. With the freeze, the loamy/clay soil is pretty solid - no slip-n-slide in the mud on the exit. Didn't see anyone else at all in Orderville or Birch. 3 hours car-to-Orderville moving at a fairly leisurely pace, 1 hour back out to the parking lot. Literally, on the dot - 4h. Total of 80 minutes "non-moving time" per my Garmin; for a group of two, that's about 7 minutes per rap of rigging, rapping, and stacking.
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| Great | Very Low 
| None
| Normal | 4 hours
| 2 people Advanced | Erek (206 reports) | |
Comment: One pool at second to last rappel, but easily avoidable with rappel move to dry area. Very scenic canyon. Exited via Wild Wind Hollow to do a loop. Not that bad of an exit. Exit was very muddy, but avoidable with some stemming.
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| Good | Very Low
| None
| Special challenges | | 5 people Beginner to Advanced | Tcarlisle (75 reports) | |
Comment: Group of 5. Descended Birch and exited down Orderville and the Narrows. It has rained recently and the whole canyon has a top layer of mud. It is really slick. All anchors in Birch are in good condition. Webbing all looks fairly recent--no significant wear that I noticed. Anchors are all rigged well too. There are a few pools of water in the usual places, mostly at to bottom of rappels. We avoided the one pool the was the biggest and looked the deepest but didn't check the depth. Everything we couldn't avoid was ankle to knee deep at most.
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| Good | Dry
| None
| Normal | 5 hours
| 2 people Advanced | Nclegg (409 reports),Pam (14 reports) | |
Comment: Only one pool after the final rappel that may be unavoidable for some, but as of today was shallow (maybe knee depth?). I was just barely able to climb around on the right. Saw one other party of 5. Exited via Wild Wind Hollow which took 1.5h at moderate pace, and was steep but straightforward along a well-trafficked trail. Lots of biting flies along approach, in Orderville, and on the exit…
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| Ok | Dry
| None
| Special challenges | 3 hours
| 2 people Intermediate to Advanced | Kirbside (98 reports) | |
Comment: Time is from car to Orderville. It was lightly raining throughout half of the canyon so everything was a bit slick making the rappels slightly more annoying to maintain footing on.
One of us exited Wild Wind Hollow and the other Orderville. The one that exited Wild Wind Hollow had some difficulty following the GPS back and ended up in some sketchy climbing over loose rock; she tried following the Bluugnome GPS track rather than the social trails, in hindsight she wishes she would have stuck to the trails (although she doesn't know if that was actually the right route). Coming back Wild Wind Hollow took 3 hours because of all the routefinding / route-unfinding. Orderville exit was great and ironically took about the same amount of time (though I had to wait for her to get back with the car). We wore wetsuits for warmth and since I was doing Orderville after but I'm not reflecting that in the report as jackets would have been fine.
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| Good | Dry
| None
| Normal |  10 hours
| 6 people Beginner to Intermediate | RavKhadge (5 reports) | |
Comment: Great way to drop into Orderville. Drove in with a prius with no problems. Canyon was bone dry, the whole way through, with just a minor amount of water seeping out of wall on R1 (not muddy though).
The rappels were all super fun and easy to set up. Anchors are all in good condition. No rappel was longer than 100 ft, though some rappels were very close. 200 ft ropes got us through the entire canyon with no issue. Time includes exit down Orderville. | |||||||
| Good | Dry
| None
| Special challenges | 6 hours
| 2 people | Willie92708 (997 reports) | |
Comment: We used Tom's approach on the ATV road, then angled back up canyon on some animal runs which also had foot traffic. There was a bit of brush, but we quickly were down into the creek bed, and we were upstream of crumbly limestone R1 by a few hundred feet. It turns out that R1 is directly down the slope from the end of the ATV road.
After R1 in a few hundred more feet, we came to the money section R2 through R10 in sandstone. All these rappels are easy with all bolted anchors, except the 120 foot off a tree. We did one more short ghosted rap off a log just because the downclimb was so slick with the mineral deposits from the limestone. All the potholes were bone dry, except one with some damp soil at the bottom. We exited by hiking up Orderville, but I was not paying attention to my GPS and I went up the first gully because there was heavy foot traffic that way, and a brushy V notch that I remembered from Tom's beta. Even though this was not the correct way (special challenges), this gully was easily climbed up some 400 vertical feet to a limestone wall, which can be bypassed on either side. Above this wall, the brush was thick, and thus slow going. But with strategic use of animal runs, we made it up another 400 vertical to a knob on a sub-ridge, wasting about 20 minutes because of the brush. From the knob, there was foot traffic again on animal runs that connected quickly to the main ridge and back to the road. I will say the main ridge trail has many ups and downs because it was not built as a human trail, but likely humans started using the animal runs on the ridge. Overall Birch Hollow is a fun, short canyon with a moderate approach and a MIA Jr exit (or at least the way we exited).
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| Good | Dry
| None
| Easy | 3 hours
| 1 people | Morgan (103 reports) | |
Comment: Perfect “half day” canyon - pretty and very straightforward. I heard a party above as I was de-rigging the first drop, but never saw them again. Got a kick out of the sections where I didn’t even have to bag the rope between drops.
Exited via Wild Wind Hollow; the exit trail is significantly easier to follow than I expected. Good exercise though. Hats off to anyone who can actually finish this canyon in 3h!!
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| Good | Dry
| None
| Easy | 5 hours
| 2 people Intermediate | Coalemus (160 reports) | |
Comment: Hot on the approach and exit but nice and cool in the narrows. Easy and fast with all the bolts.
Some of the webbing looking a bit worn but everything's redundant so we didn't replace anything. Loop exit is steep but very well-worn and easy to follow.
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| Amazing | | | | | CanditionBot (2103 reports) | ||
| Amazing | | | | | CanditionBot (2103 reports) | ||
| Amazing | Very Low
| Rain jacket
| Normal | 6 hours
| 9 people Intermediate to Expert | Ropeman14 (1 reports) | |
Comment: Started off extremely muddy and that never really changed until we got to the Orderville wash. The whole canyon had flow, though nothing worth worrying about. The first two raps were slippery and crumbling. It was obvious the canyon had recently flashed due to the exuberant amount of rain received the day before. Orderville waterfall was flowing, and was worth taking the extra hour to setup and run through before hiking out to the car. All the bolts were solid except for a loose hangar on rap 5. I replaced a short simple wrap at rap 4 with a courtesy webbing as well. No other major flaws to report at this time.
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| Great | | | | | CanditionBot (2103 reports) | ||
