Conditions:KC Canyon-20240507174721

Latest:	4 May 2024 (10 mos ago)

Reported by:	Cavewine (1 reports)
Quality:	Great
Waterflow:	Dry
Wetsuit:	None
Water temperature:
Difficulty:	Normal
Time:	4 hours

Team: 4 people with experience level Beginner to Advanced

Trip report URL:

Comments: Green and lush. All anchor webbing replaced 2 weeks prior, although some already showing rodent damage. Owls present near drop #5...maybe due to ample rodents. Drop in point better located at 34.16225 -117.17577 - look for pink flagging atop 2 trees in the drainage area

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
8 Mar 2025	Great	Very Low	None	Special challenges	5 hours	1 people	Willie92708 (991 reports)
Comment: For this run, I spent at least 2 extra hours trimming poison oak and any other plants that were in the way of easy progress through the canyon floor. I also trimmed some white thorn on the approach to make it easier to follow the approach route. Surprisingly, there was a very small amount of waterflow in the canyon which made some of the down-climbs a bit tricky. I added webbing to the bush for R3, as the older description did not make sense for R2 as it would have been a 3 stage rappel with a bad pull. City Creek was flowing a LOT more than last week's run (see pics 1st 8MAR, 2nd 1MAR), thus crossing it absolutely meant going through the water (wet feet). Overall, KC is a super sweet run right now!
1 Mar 2025	Great	Dry	None	Special challenges	4 hours	1 people	Willie92708 (991 reports)
Comment: I spent plenty of time looking at ways to get down to City Creek before I even started my run. I also verified my idea of gaining a ridge much closer to KC canyon that presented in the original beta. This all paid off and I updated the main Ropewiki page to include my approach, exit and state of anchor in KC itself. The approach (as I did it) is mostly excellent with only a short section of exposure. A bit of the upper traverse hike has light bushwhacking, but it hardly slowed me down. I find nothing that is "horrendous" anymore. NOTE: I did the climb up with damp soil so it was glued together well. Dropping down from the tiny saddle there is poison oak. I trimmed some of it back so it should not be in the way. Once I reached the canyon floor, it was obvious that KC had flashed hard during the 13FEB2025 storm that hit the area. This cleared out all the annoying plants, including a lot of PO I suspect. The anchors are all "good", but some are in terrible locations in that you have to go into or rappel through PO (see pic). I built other anchors to avoid the PO as much as possible. There are several downclimbs in the canyon; all were easy enough, although one of them did not look as doable as it turned out be. The last rappel sequence has 3 webbing anchors and one could easily add another on the top of the upside down tree. Thus you can break up these rappels as you see fit, or combine all into 1 with a 200 foot rope. Also, since I ran this on a cool and foggy day, it was pleasant in the canyon, and thus I gave it "great" condition. I can imagine KC would be frying hot on a summer afternoon.
2 Feb 2025	Ok	Dry	None	Special challenges	6 hours	10 people Brand new to Advanced	Austin3623 (16 reports)
Comment: Large competent group—first time running KC for all of us. Key takeaways are: - The approach is horrendous, but made much easier if you avoid a few key missteps. Very similar to Monkeyface, it’s a class 3 scramble up a dry, loose hillside…but unfortunately more extended. Would not advise if temps are over 75F. - A bit tricky getting up above the creek bed initially. We cleaned out a steep path directly under the face of the hillside without having to wander up or downstream. - Once above the creek, stay on the grassy face of the hillside where you’ll find solid game trails zig zagging up the hill. Aim for a grove of Sycamore trees near the top. - For the love of all things holy, ignore the prominent trail at the bottom that leads you into the gully. It’s very loose. You’re going to have a bad time. - Once you get to the 2800ft range, start heading climber’s left toward the gully on the opposite side. We found a really solid trail here. - We cleaned up a bunch of the old webbing still in the canyon. Previous beta refers to deadman anchors. Confirming that none of them are buried—they’re all well-built cairn anchors. - Final rappel sequence has a massive 50ft tree turned upside down in the watercourse. Added an extended anchor around a solid bush DCR of the tree to avoid the worst of the gnarly branches (see photo) Overall: Glad we did it. Won’t be going back for a while. Great practice for people wanting experience with marginal anchors. Dear god, so many ticks…
19 Jan 2025	Ok	Dry	Rain jacket	Normal	4 hours	4 people	Mikeatran (69 reports),Eljefe62 (55 reports)
Comment: First time through KC. Approach was kind of wonky; we ended up finding a faint trail partway up the creek that led to some exposed class 3 scrambling with some crumbly rock. After gaining past that we were treated to some loose holey dirt and somewhat non-existent trails to get up to drop in elevation, at which point we found some decent animal trails to follow. Once in canyon, anchors were pretty good; we ended up replacing R2 or R3 due to it having a large cut. Only ended up using 3 or 4 cairn/deadman anchors, the rest had alternate anchor spots via a tree or shrub that were pretty bomber. Added a webbing anchor on the downed tree directly in the water path for R11 to facilitate pull through the messy twig grouping and to reduce rope length to work with 200’ rope systems. The hike out followed the creek that had flowing water; we found a class 3 scramble that was also exposed but got us quick access to the road whereby we ended up having to walk alongside traffic to get back to the car.
4 May 2024	Great	Dry	None	Normal	4 hours	4 people Beginner to Advanced	Cavewine (1 reports)
Comment: Green and lush. All anchor webbing replaced 2 weeks prior, although some already showing rodent damage. Owls present near drop #5...maybe due to ample rodents. Drop in point better located at 34.16225 -117.17577 - look for pink flagging atop 2 trees in the drainage area