Conditions:Helios Canyon-20210215170237

Latest:	13 Feb 2021 (4 yrs, 3 mos ago)

Reported by:	Freemont (12 reports)
Quality:	Good
Waterflow:	Dry
Wetsuit:	None
Water temperature:
Difficulty:	Normal
Time:	7 hours

Team:

Trip report URL:

Comments: Great views of badwater basin area and telescope peak. Approach is a bit of scramble and loose but not horrible. There are some good rock pile anchors now that can be inspected without tearing them all apart. Did work / replaced webbing on almost all of the anchors, mostly just replacing the existing webbing and not changing the anchors much.

Top part of canyon is pretty open and lots of elevation is lost in down climbs instead of rappels; the very bottom section is nice. The beta seemed off (highest drop is accurate) but we were not able to follow it drop by drop at all. Some drops seemed to be down climbs and we may have rigged what was reported as a down climb or two.

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
15 Jan 2023	Ok	Dry	None				Abby Wines (50 reports)
Comment: The canyon is pretty good, but I hate the approach.
13 Feb 2021	Good	Dry	None	Normal	7 hours		Freemont (12 reports)
Comment: Great views of badwater basin area and telescope peak. Approach is a bit of scramble and loose but not horrible. There are some good rock pile anchors now that can be inspected without tearing them all apart. Did work / replaced webbing on almost all of the anchors, mostly just replacing the existing webbing and not changing the anchors much. Top part of canyon is pretty open and lots of elevation is lost in down climbs instead of rappels; the very bottom section is nice. The beta seemed off (highest drop is accurate) but we were not able to follow it drop by drop at all. Some drops seemed to be down climbs and we may have rigged what was reported as a down climb or two.
17 Feb 2019	Great	Dry	None	Normal	5 hours	8 people Intermediate to Expert	AmandaC (40 reports),Johnbcaves (158 reports),JohnMetz (14 reports)
Comment: Fairly quick canyon, downclimbed past some raps, rapped some potential downclimbs. Awesome weather.
18 Nov 2018	Ok	Dry	None	Special challenges	7 hours	6 people Beginner to Advanced	DMonroy (188 reports),Exitfiftyone (22 reports)
Comment: The approach is problematic. The rock is very loose no matter what track you choose, till you get to the ridge. Place yourself carefully if below another person. Rocks fly. Within the canyon, we replaced all webbing below the bottom drop in (except for the first few that were replaced the week before). We removed a few pieces of trad gear. The canyon has a lot of fun downclimbs, one nice rappel, and the rest is probably not memorable enough to justify the crumby approach.
7 Oct 2018	Great	Dry	None	Normal	7 hours	2 people Beginner to Expert	AmandaC (40 reports)
Comment: Dropped in at Alternate drop in 1, doing 9 rappels up to 160'. Most webbing has significant UV damage, spent time rebuilding anchors and repurposing the existing non-UV damaged webbing, only adding new webbing to a couple drops. Canyon will likely need replacement of old webbing for the next season of DV. Many of the deadman anchors were overbuilt in an unskilled manner. Rebuild all of the deadman anchors.
26 Dec 2016? Trip report							WesleyYoung@Facebook (1 reports)
Comment: extracts from Facebook posts, click link for full details (privacy restrictions may apply) " I met a couple in Death Valley that recently did Helios on 12/26. It's a small Canyon Werks rope bag and a 8mm Bluewater Canyon rope. The bag and rope are still in good shape. Does anyone know who this may belong to" SoCal Canyoneering
16 Jan 2016 Trip report							HikeArizona.com (271 reports)
Comment: Most recent conditions reported at HikeArizona.com, see Trip Report for full details.