Conditions:Leprechaun Canyon (Middle Fork)-20241006003609

Latest:	3 Oct 2024 (7 mos ago)

Reported by:	Deranged.rambler.749 (2 reports)
Quality:	Great
Waterflow:	Dry
Wetsuit:	None
Water temperature:
Difficulty:	Normal
Time:	6 hours

Team: 2 people with experience level Beginner to Intermediate

Trip report URL:

Comments: Leave early, before 9. Do not take helmets, you do not need them. Eat a big breakfast and camel up before leaving your car. Maybe take a gallon jug of water for the approach hike: chug half of it right before you leave the sandy canyon floor and gain the slickrock ridge, and leave the rest of it right there to grab on the way back. Or, take the rest of it with you to the top, chug it before you begin the descent, and drag its empty carcass along on a 3mm cord with a biner.

For the actual canyon, take a fanny pack with 500ml water, a protein bar, 10ft of webbing for a makeshift diaper sling, 2 lockers, a rap device, and a 50 ft rope. I suppose take an extra quicklink in case a station is missing one. Having a backpack, unless it's a small one (10 liters or less), will make things tedious and tiring, so either (1) take a big fannypack/super small backpack and alternate coiling/carrying the rope, or (2) clip everything to your belt loops with 3mm string like bigwallers do, and then bring a daisy chain you can transfer these items to while you're in a tight slot so you can just drag them behind you with a single hand or belt loop point.

I sewed a maybe 25 liter prototype double sided rope bag out of cordura and hyperD300 the day before I did this canyon and when it was over the bag had multiple rips, looked 5 years old, and had become a hated companion that made several sections significantly slower. I wore almost new double duck carhartts and they got significantly worn, like the equivalent wear of half a year of granite rock climbing in half a day.

It gets memorably tight in mainly one place maybe halfway through. I was able to get through by keeping about 5 feet above the ground and chimneying sideways. I am about 180 lbs, 5' 10". Felt a bit of unexpected panic here waiting for my less experienced partner to get through and just sitting there wanting to move past the section. Never felt that on a bigwall! Slot shock hits you in slow waves when it does. Eventually, you get through.

There is a large stack of big boulders near the end of the canyon, maybe 30 feet high. You can tunnel through them, a rap off the top is unnecessary. I rapped anyway because I was lazy AND stupid. So I lost 15 minutes there.

A glorious ending into a widening canyon. 6 hours car to car. Not a great canyon for a beginner unless they are already a climber or have been in plenty of tight non-technical slots (Spooky, for example) before and weren't bothered by the enclosure.

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
3 Oct 2024	Great	Dry	None	Normal	6 hours	2 people Beginner to Intermediate	Deranged.rambler.749 (2 reports)
Comment: Leave early, before 9. Do not take helmets, you do not need them. Eat a big breakfast and camel up before leaving your car. Maybe take a gallon jug of water for the approach hike: chug half of it right before you leave the sandy canyon floor and gain the slickrock ridge, and leave the rest of it right there to grab on the way back. Or, take the rest of it with you to the top, chug it before you begin the descent, and drag its empty carcass along on a 3mm cord with a biner. For the actual canyon, take a fanny pack with 500ml water, a protein bar, 10ft of webbing for a makeshift diaper sling, 2 lockers, a rap device, and a 50 ft rope. I suppose take an extra quicklink in case a station is missing one. Having a backpack, unless it's a small one (10 liters or less), will make things tedious and tiring, so either (1) take a big fannypack/super small backpack and alternate coiling/carrying the rope, or (2) clip everything to your belt loops with 3mm string like bigwallers do, and then bring a daisy chain you can transfer these items to while you're in a tight slot so you can just drag them behind you with a single hand or belt loop point. I sewed a maybe 25 liter prototype double sided rope bag out of cordura and hyperD300 the day before I did this canyon and when it was over the bag had multiple rips, looked 5 years old, and had become a hated companion that made several sections significantly slower. I wore almost new double duck carhartts and they got significantly worn, like the equivalent wear of half a year of granite rock climbing in half a day. It gets memorably tight in mainly one place maybe halfway through. I was able to get through by keeping about 5 feet above the ground and chimneying sideways. I am about 180 lbs, 5' 10". Felt a bit of unexpected panic here waiting for my less experienced partner to get through and just sitting there wanting to move past the section. Never felt that on a bigwall! Slot shock hits you in slow waves when it does. Eventually, you get through. There is a large stack of big boulders near the end of the canyon, maybe 30 feet high. You can tunnel through them, a rap off the top is unnecessary. I rapped anyway because I was lazy AND stupid. So I lost 15 minutes there. A glorious ending into a widening canyon. 6 hours car to car. Not a great canyon for a beginner unless they are already a climber or have been in plenty of tight non-technical slots (Spooky, for example) before and weren't bothered by the enclosure.
20 Nov 2022	Great	Dry			4 hours	4 people Advanced	RFontaine (270 reports)
Comment: A very pretty and intricate slot with LOTS of tight squeezes, stemming, and downclimbs. Fun but very physical. Definitely want to bring the smallest bag you can, elbow and knee pads are a plus. I am 6'6" 195lbs (slim-average build) and let me tell ya, it was tight, a few spots I had to put in some work to get myself though, some of it I couldn't even turn my head! I never actually got stuck, but no beer bellies for this canyon for sure!! There was one section where a rockfall had occurred that I climbed up over the huge boulders only to find myself stemming 40+ feet over a dark void below. That was fun haha!! There are some dark areas where a headlamp is definitely good to have. Canyon eventually opens up into a big magnificent corridor near the end. 1 maybe 2 (i forget) short rappels in the beginning that would be extra risky to downclimb, short rope recommended. Zero water. A very cool experience and worthwhile if not claustrophobic!
19 Mar 2022	Great		None	Special challenges	4 hours	2 people Intermediate	Rtadlock (2 reports)
Comment: Weather was perfect, approach was straight forward. Canyon was bone dry as we expected. GPX tracks provided on wiki page are spot on. Map at the Sandthrax campground was helpful as well to scope alternate line up. The canyon was really, really tight. I read somewhere the floor has been washed out more and as this is my first time up this canyon, I can't say what it was like before, but it was pretty much 3 hours of very tight side slipping and stemming over stuff that was too tight to get through. Not a good spot to take a new canyoner or someone that is claustrophobic. All in all, a great day out, maybe a little too tight over all for my liking, especially for the second in the party that is 6'5" tall. I marked the difficulty 3 only because of the stemming that needed to be done in some spots. Nothing really too technical or too difficult about the canyon other than being in such a tight spot for so long.
29 Dec 2019	Great	Dry	None	Normal	3 hours	3 people Advanced	DMonroy (188 reports)
Comment: Filled with snow, it was only hard to get through one squeeze space that involved slithering on the ground.
24 Apr 2017 Trip report							Candition.com (287 reports)
Comment: Most recent conditions reported at Candition.com
21 Nov 2015							Beerslot (17 reports)
Comment: LT and I had an incredible time celebrating my birthday with the Irish! We camped at Sandthrax campground - it was a cold trip with highs in the low 40's. The troll toll was fairly minor and we got started with the canyon. This is probably the tightest canyon we have dropped to date - at one point, I had to take my helmet off to fit through a slot. At another time, I accidently elbowed LT in the face! I felt terrible. We worked our way through to an especially scenic ending hallway. We got done by 3 PM and decided to share a box of wine for the rest of the day. By the time night fell, we crashed instantly. Fortunately, we didn't have hangovers the next day! ST + LT
11 Dec 2014 Trip report		Dry	None				CanyonCollective.com (83 reports)
Comment: Most recent conditions reported at CanyonCollective.com, see Trip Report for full details.