Conditions:Blarney Canyon (Right Fork)-HikeArizona.com

Latest:	6 Oct 2011 (13 yrs, 7 mos ago)

Reported by:	HikeArizona.com (271 reports)
Quality:	Amazing
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Trip report URL: http://hikearizona.com/trip=66610

Comments: Most recent conditions reported at HikeArizona.com, see Trip Report for full details.

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
14 Mar 2025	Good	Dry	None	Normal	2 hours	3 people Beginner to Advanced	Tcarlisle (73 reports)
Comment: Did both forks of Blarney (4 hours total). This report covers the portion of the East Fork only. Anchors, where present are in usable condition. The cairn anchor at the very top was clearly built as a newer style inspectable cairn but has had rocks pile on it by others. Webbing does extend over the edge with a courtesy in place. The handline anchor has a lot of tat and is in ok shape. No water present. We knew that it was possible to upclimb the East Fork but the beta said that it was important to have a handline present at a certain anchor to do so. It had been years since we last did the Blarneys, and it is early season, so we were not sure if 1) a handline would be in place after the winter, and 2) how necessary a handline would be to upclimb the canyon. So we decided to take the standard approach, descend the East Fork to inspect conditions, and then upclimb it. After descending the canyon to the East/West fork junction, we went back up the East Fork. The handline is very helpful getting up that drop. It would be possible to partner assit up and it would have a little more exposure risk without the handline but it would be doable. less-optimal, but doable. Once out of the slot section you can make it back up to the mesa top by skirting toward the west and then up a weakness in the rock. From there we walked back to the the first anchor at the start of the East Fork and then walked the social trail over to the West Fork and descended that canyon.
20 Apr 2024	Good	Dry	None	Easy	1 hour	12 people Beginner to Advanced	Korey (65 reports)
Comment: Upclimbed doing epic Blarney counter-clockwise. Was fun and sporty.
5 Mar 2023	Good	Dry	None		3 hours	6 people Beginner to Intermediate	Thegazelle (52 reports)
Comment: Completely dry. Did Epic Blarney counter clockwise. Did it clockwise a few months ago and that was so much more difficult.
18 Nov 2022	Good	Dry		Special challenges	4 hours	7 people Beginner to Advanced	RFontaine (270 reports)
Comment: We did the loop, up climbing Left Fork (East) and down climbing Right Fork (West). This was definitely the most worthwhile option rather than doing one or the other. There are a few class 5 climbs on the East Fork, the crux being a 40' off-width crack one must stem up then shimmy and worm up the rest of the way. I was able to lead without protection and setup a top rope belay with my micro-traxion from a stemming position above. Good news is, if you get to this point and it looks too hard, you can always back track, neither of these canyons are very long or committing. We did one 50' rappel to get down into West Fork and from there was all easy downclimbing. I think East was more interesting than West but both were good for a half day run. 4.5hrs total for loop at leisurely pace with beginners. The loop can be run in either direction but I believe East-West is the most worthwhile/challenging. Zero water in either canyon. Some pretty sculpting and a few neat rooms, a good first day to get ready to be blown away by the other canyons in the area.
20 Mar 2022	Good	Dry	None	Normal	2 hours	7 people Beginner to Advanced	Tcarlisle (73 reports)
Comment: Group of 7 with mixed abilities. After finishing East Fork of Leprechaun we started the upclimb to West Lep, but decided to bushwhack over to the Right Fork of Blarney as we hadn't done that canyon previously. Right Fork of Blarney is completely dry. Both anchors are in decent shape. The first rap has a small, but not yet concerning, amount of wear. The cairn is overbuilt and sturdy. The second rap is off a chock stone and has good webbing, but also some superfluous webbing as well. We left the superfluous webbing in place as it was apparent some groups were using it as a bit of a handline to access the awkward to start anchor. Since the anchor is a sling on a chock stone, the anchor is not weighted until the canyoneer is hanging in open air. This is a hard-start for beginners. For our group we utilized a dynamically courtesy (Think belay-n-rap) to assist the beginners in our group. To accomplish this we used a stone know below the quicklink isolating both strands. This allowed us to pull up the line, have the canyoneer rig to the rap line while having someone belay the canyoneer from the other line that was used as a retrieval. Once lowered below the chock stone and weighting the anchor the canyoneer would then rappel the rest of the way.
28 Dec 2019	Good	Dry	None	Special challenges	2 hours	12 people Brand new to Expert	DMonroy (188 reports)
Comment: We went up the canyon and came down the other fork : (Epic Blarney). The people in the back had it harder because the snow got compacted and more slick.
25 Mar 2017 Trip report							Candition.com (287 reports)
Comment: Most recent conditions reported at Candition.com
18 May 2014 Trip report							CanyonCollective.com (83 reports)
Comment: Most recent conditions reported at CanyonCollective.com, see Trip Report for full details.
6 Oct 2011 Trip report	Amazing						HikeArizona.com (271 reports)
Comment: Most recent conditions reported at HikeArizona.com, see Trip Report for full details.