Conditions:Hager Canyon-20250617184336
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Latest: |
8 Jun 2025 (6 mos ago) |
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| Quality: | Great |
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| Waterflow: | Moderate |
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| Wetsuit: | Thick wetsuit |
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| Water temperature: | ||
| Difficulty: | Normal |
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| Time: |
Trip report URL:
Comments: Great day to have swift water training! Thanks to Sam and the crew! The only thing I have to report is the water is really really cold even on a 95 deg day!
All condition reports
| Date | Quality | Waterflow | Wetsuit | Difficulty | Time | Team | Reported by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazing | Dry 
| | Special challenges  |  7 hours
| 4 people Intermediate to Advanced | Mjbirdno (9 reports) | |
Comment: Since the most recent report, All webbing had been removed with none being replaced. I guess the only thing they left was some purple webbing on the optional rappel 1.5 (to avoid the downclimb after R1), which we didn’t use. This canyon is one of our favorites and perhaps the best in Sedona. Got to take my wife and 2 of our children (adult and 14 yrs old). We added webbing at all anchors and quick kings at most of them. R3 quicklinknis unusually large, but just wha we had. We left webbing at R4 & R5, but were running low on quick links and used fiddlesticks on those 2 rappels. For R6, we extended about 15’ from the tree and left a quick link.
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| Great | Moderate
| Full wetsuit
| Normal | | Treyshoe (72 reports) | ||
Comment: Great day with good flow. All the anchors are in good shape.
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| Good | Low 
| None
| Normal |  3 hours
| 7 people Beginner to Intermediate | Switchflare (4 reports) | |
| Good | Very Low
| None
| | 4 hours
| 1 people Advanced | Dyln cole (86 reports) | |
Comment: Plan on webbing and hardware, floods seem to wipe the drainage of existing anchor material. Warm winter day, no neoprene or windbreaker, felt very hot. No mandatory swimmers, though higher water levels would require a chest deep wade (I am 5'11"). It only hit my calves. Optional swimmers adjacent to the final rappel and exit should you get too toasty.
Very leisurely pace allowed for a very enjoyable canyon experience. While I still rated this canyon as a 2 star, the geology and sustained water presence make this canyon very enjoyable. I was surprised with how much fun I had (downclimbs very pleasant too). There was no algae, though some developing in an unavoidable wade that will surely turn in a few weeks. Despite there being no consistent through flow up top, many springs seem to continue to provide flow in intermediate points in the canyon. There was really only 1 mandatory rappel, though the first downclimb will leave you questioning if you are new to slick granite and soloing (easy with a partner assist). The rest of the rappels are not technically downclimbable but bypassable. I found the granite in some of the sections beautifully striped. There is an easy exit with a use trail just before the exit provided in the kml, I may update it if I can. This may be the source of the aforementioned disgruntled attitude towards the canyon. Otherwise, if you take your time, you should not have many issues picking your way through the cactus and thorn. I would recommend this canyon to any who have patience. Oh, and your minivan or sedan or what you have will absolutely make it to the trailhead. No issues. Very well graded road, simply go when dry.
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| Deep pools
| | | | Dyln cole (86 reports) | |||
Comment: Scouted from above, 2nd swimmer has a thick green algae layer on top. Heads up for those thinking about this canyon and averse to swimming in algae.
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| Very Low
| None
| | 4 hours
| 1 people Advanced | Dyln cole (86 reports) | ||
Comment: Let me say this, it'd be damn near impossible to get wet anywhere above the calf for even the shortest canyoneer. Unless you lay down, that'd do it.
Ankle deep water, nobody here who says they avoided water had to work very hard, though keeping your feet dry when the canyon holds water would involve bypassing the rappels. Speaking of, most all raps are bypassable but not necessarily downclimbable. Bring webbing and hardware, as things seem to wash out for the lower rappels (i.e. absolutely no chance you downclimb R3, but feasible bypass high LDC). Very fun technical section with an easy approach, the exit gets tiring with a continued need to routefind and search feasible downclimbgs in the wide, boulder ridden drainage. If you want more rappels, there are drops for them too. If you are prepared for the long downclimb exit and want to avoid water, give this canyon a go!
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| Ok | Dry
| None
| Normal |  2 hours
| 3 people Expert | Bricepollock (41 reports) | |
Comment: Approach 1.5 hrs, descent 1 hrs with overbuilt cairns in good condition in an very experienced Death Valley group of three.
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| Good | Dry
| | Special challenges | 8 hours
| 3 people Intermediate to Advanced | Abby Wines (52 reports) | |
Comment: Twenty Mule Team Canyon Road is closed due to flood damage, so we hiked in from the road exit, adding time to the approach.
Replaced several cairn anchors that had washed out in late summer/early fall rain events. This included Rap #3, the 170' rappel normally anchored from a cairn on a small flat section of a sloping rock ledge. We used webbing to wrap and lower rocks from above to build a cairn. R8 could use some more rocks brought down for the cairn anchor. It also needs a more solid "football rock" (the one the webbing is girth hitched around) brought down from above. Made a cairn for R9, which was gone. There is a downclimb after the final rappel that I don't remember from previous trips. A couple of us got meat anchored here.
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| Great | Dry
| None
| Normal | 4 hours
| 3 people Intermediate to Expert | Celes (36 reports),1LordPheonix1 (9 reports) | |
Comment: Very cold air temperature caused some stiff rope for the first few rappels. Canyon is dry but muddy enough for the rope to change colors to brown. Hike out through Wild Wind Hollow followed very clear trail, though after heavy rain, would recommend the Orderville exit instead due to muddy uphill.
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| Amazing | Very Low
| None
| Normal | 5 hours
| 7 people Intermediate to Advanced | Kili (5 reports) | |
Comment: There was a trickle of flow all pools were easily avoided. Great day took our time and took a ton of photos. Last rappel had dual webbing and one had some really weird knot. We undid that and retied it.
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| Great | Dry
| None
| Easy | 2 hours
| 3 people Intermediate to Expert | Celes (36 reports),1LordPheonix1 (9 reports) | |
Comment: There are lots of rappel options along this canyon. It's more so a choose-your-own adventure sort of experience. You can start from either sides of the canyon with multiple rappels on each levels to choose from. 1 canyon can be done multiple ways. The anchors are glue-in bolts and chains; very nice.
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| Great | | | | 4 hours
| 2 people Advanced | RFontaine (336 reports) | |
Comment: A very enjoyable and engaging route the whole way through!
The climbs were all very fun and the route while a bit mazey was not too hard to follow. I highly recommend download RoadTripRyan’s GPX file, it is much more detailed than the Ropewiki one, with turns and waypoints. We got off track a few times but it was easy to get back on track looking at the map. Was a fun adventure navigating through the maze! The chimney climb up was very neat, had to take bags off and hand them up through. (A Slot Tower pack could barely fit the opening). I was intrigued by the report the previous canyoneer had left about getting off track on a climbing big wall and being that we like big raps and hanging stations, we decided to try and follow their path down. Immediately after R1 (we rappelled DCR of the patio) I could see an equalized 2 bolt anchor far DCR requiring a somewhat heady traverse to access. I replaced the sunburnt webbing with 1/2” black webbing. From there I rappelled about 90’ down to the first chained climbing anchor I saw. This was a hanging station with hardly anything to stand on. One of the bolts was loose but the other was solid. From there it was about 150’ to the ground, passing another 2 bolt climbing anchor just below. The one I passed was semi hanging with a tiny shelf to stand. Next time I would go straight to that 2nd anchor, I would think it would be less than 150’ to access from the top. After getting to the bench we followed the slab down doing another 60’ drop than finally a 150’ drop to the ground. I really enjoyed this sequence and far better preferred this route over all the downclimbing. Such a great fun adventure route! Would do the same way again!
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| Good | Very Low
| None
| Special challenges | 6 hours
| 2 people Beginner to Advanced | Ryan.k (11 reports) | |
Comment: We hiked from the parking lot and when we made it down to the creek we found it easier to walk through the creek in some sections, then trying to bushwhack around. The approach was, at least for us , a certified bushwhack. It’s possible that we didn’t take the best way, but it was a little difficult to find a non-prickly way through and we were not necessarily dressed for the occasion. We ended up doing about 2 extra rappels to protect what I would consider very spicy down climbs. There are four bolted rappels and they were all less than 100’ to the next anchor station with the exception of the last rap which is about 150’. If the next party wants to use webbing at the bolted rappels then you will NEED to replace all the webbing on all the stations. We also found on the third rappel there is a pretty aggressive Pinch point when pulling our rope back instead of yanking on it, we were able to scramble around and free it.
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| Great | High
| Full wetsuit
| Advanced |  2 days
| 3 people Intermediate to Advanced | Icefest (10 reports) | |
Comment: Higher water level. 1.5m on the Buckland gauge.
R15 in the Washout Gorge was technical, with a committing climb to a redirect. Main falls were powerful, rigged a guideline to avoid it.
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| Great | | | Normal | 8 hours
| 3 people Beginner to Advanced | Sportsben15 (4 reports) | |
Comment: Fun canyon with great views throughout the approach and descent. Took ~3 hours to approach including a couple breaks to chat with people on the trail. Was pleasantly surprised that the off-trail section of the approach really wasn't bad if you've done much actual bushwacking, just keep an eye out for the social/game trails and there's very little actual having to forge your own path, long pants recommended though. A light trickle on several rappels and nice pools were a pleasant addition to the ambience.
Several of the anchors use large amounts of webbing due to the boulder's size or need to extend from trees, so pack plenty in case they need to be replaced. All main rap stations were in good shape during our descent (swapped out some rusty quicklinks, yellow webbing on R1.5 for the 200' downclimb below R1 looked like it was starting to get abraded a bit in the knot but we didn't use it). That being said, there was a lot of unnecessary webbing used on extensions in loop configurations that could easily be turned into single-strand rigs with double strand on potential wear points to be both more redundant where it matters and minimize length of webbing used when it does come time to replace them. Seems there is a new anchor RDC on R2 off 2 small pines with a ring masterpoint. This may provide an easier transition into the freehang compared to the CDC tree anchor and a toggle floats well, but it does run over several sharp edges at the top that can be rough on the rope. Ended up with a coreshot on my rope right at the lip, not particularly surprised (it was an old rope that was wet from seepage with newer rappellers descending) but something to keep in mind when deciding which anchor to use at this rappel/if you want to creep the rope between raps. Took our sweet time on the way down and overall had a great time with this approach, descent, and easy exit, and would happily do it again, but I was a little surprised how much this canyon seems to be hyped since there are many other canyons in the area with similarly excellent views and rappels. 4 out of 5 stars for sure though.
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