Conditions:Lower Fulton Creek-20250720231948
Latest: |
20 Jul 2025 (5 days ago) |
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| Reported by: | Coops (132 reports), Korey (70 reports), Thegazelle (54 reports), Ames (3 reports) | |
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| Quality: | Great |
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| Waterflow: | Low |
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| Wetsuit: | Thin wetsuit |
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| Water temperature: | ||
| Difficulty: | Normal |
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| Time: |  3 hours
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Team: 4 people
Trip report URL:
Comments: First time through this canyon for me, and wow! Beautiful carved rock, lots of jumps and maybe the best slide in Washington? All the anchors looked to be in good shape, but we only rapped the three mandatory ones and jumped or slid everything else. Hike out wasn’t as heinous as I expected except one small section of bulldozing through spider infested holly, but there does seem to be trails forming that appeared and disappeared throughout the hike out.
All condition reports
| Date | Quality | Waterflow | Wetsuit | Difficulty | Time | Team | Reported by |
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| Great | Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Normal | 3 hours
| 4 people | Coops (132 reports),Korey (70 reports),Thegazelle (54 reports),Ames (3 reports) | |
Comment: First time through this canyon for me, and wow! Beautiful carved rock, lots of jumps and maybe the best slide in Washington? All the anchors looked to be in good shape, but we only rapped the three mandatory ones and jumped or slid everything else. Hike out wasn’t as heinous as I expected except one small section of bulldozing through spider infested holly, but there does seem to be trails forming that appeared and disappeared throughout the hike out.
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| Great | Moderate Low
| Full wetsuit 
| Normal | 4 hours
| 4 people | Coops (132 reports) | |
Comment: First time back since the FD. Did the direct approach and ran just Lower Fulton. Jumped a lot more than my previous visit, and had a great time. Such a good value half day.
The slide is in, as is everything else documented as a jump. R6 (Dragon's Den) has changed a fair bit. Rather than climbing up DCL and rapping from a tree as we did before - the roof of the cave is now open so you can rap directly in. However the narrow gap to exit it is blocked, so you have to climb up and over the top instead - not hard, just very much changed. The highlight was the jump at R7. With a small but committing jump out to the enormous root ball from which a ~30(?)ft step-off can be made. The area has a bunch of jump options. We tried to follow the updated exit, but frankly it felt very similar to before, albeit moderately easier due to more traffic through the thickest bushes. The first part of the dirt road is in bad condition and requires high clearance. | |||||||
| Great | Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Normal |  6 hours
| 5 people Beginner to Advanced | Briwellman (80 reports) | |
Comment: Full Fulton was fun and totally worth running. We went a day early to scout the lower exit and work on the trail. We found a game trail and did a lot of cutting and cleaning up. The exit is steep and way less bushwacking than the original beta. I'll update the kml map.
I wore a shorty wetsuit with a rain jacket and was fine with temp. Our time was 1.5 hours for upper Fulton and 4.5 hours middle, lower, and exit. Total was around 6 hours.
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| Great | Moderate Low
| Full wetsuit
| Normal | | Thegazelle (54 reports) | ||
Comment: Moderate-low flow, mainly since near the end on the last rap it’s a little pushy. Would be epic if better access is acquired. Bolts and anchors were is good conditions (wasn’t looking for a bolt on R7 so didn’t check and missed if it was their or not). Some of the boulder problems were a little tricky. The Dragons den you can still fit thru, looks like you can’t from the top on DCR but if you look from DCL you can see the hole is large enough. Hint for the exit is it’s easier to crawl in a lot of places, wear pants
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| Amazing | Moderate Low
| Full wetsuit
| Normal | 4 hours
| 5 people Brand new to Advanced | Mads (61 reports) | |
Comment: We all agreed that Lower Fulton is a very underrated canyon. It was our favorite in the Olympics and such a fantastic day! The narrows are beautiful - green and sculpted - and the rappels and jumps are really fun. The mega-slide into the punchbowl is in (and so fun!) and we also jumped R2 (25'), R5 (15') and R7 from the mid-pothole (20'). A lot of logs have shifted around since last season and all of the webbing in the watercourse was trashed. We cut, carried it out, and ghosted everything else except R1 where we installed a single bolt on the chockstone. The boulder garden is a fun scramble, and we found a rabbit hole in the middle that allowed us to avoid a nuisance rappel. The approach is easy and the exit was not so bad. We found game trails through the steepest sections and were able to take advantage of some overgrown logging roads in the upper section. We were back at the road in 49 minutes!
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| Good | Moderate Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Special challenges | 5 hours
| 2 people Intermediate to Advanced | DesertMonkey (3 reports) | |
Comment: The canyon is the most beautiful I've done on the Olympic Peninsula so far with some amazing sections of narrows. Had to build a few anchors. Didn't read the beta before R5 and built a bad anchor on a small chockstone that led to some troubles dislodging our rope. Should have used the big tree far back from the rappel to avoid issues. We got off track on both approach and exit with lots of bushwhacking involved. Even with the tough bushwhacking would recommend it to anyone with good skills. Already looking forward to my next run-through of the canyon.
Side note the forest road to the start of the canyon is in very rough condition we were lucky enough to have a friend drop us off and pick us up at the bottom of the FS road only adding about 20 minutes or so to the day. Would be tricky without car support to coordinate if your vehicle can't make it up the road
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| Great | Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Normal | | 5 people | K arc (384 reports),Hangtime (34 reports) | |
Comment: Likely the first complete descent of Lower Fulton. It turns out we cut out a bit early last time and there's still some nice canyon to see below, including one more quality rappel into a short slot. We were rather surprised on exiting to find a very nice trail leading off downstream on the north side of the creek - clearly built and maintained by locals. It would be really interesting to know where this comes out. According to Jefferson County parcel maps, it's all private land ownership downstream with nary an easement to be seen. We explored the trail a little bit, but ultimately turned around and thrashed back out, staying on timber company land. (This exit is only mildly better than the original way we went out during the first descent in 2022.) Lower Fulton is a fantastic and fun creek up there with the other "greats" of the Olympic Peninsula, only brought low by a horrid exit. If the trail route out was viable for canyoneers (and a shuttle could be set up), that would be amazing.
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| Good | Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Normal | 5 hours
| 3 people | K arc (384 reports),Coops (132 reports) | |
Comment: No anchors were found, so this was likely a first descent of Lower Fulton. We had somewhat low expectations dropping in -- and were pleasantly surprised when LF kicked off the day with a cool corkscrew rappel down underneath a giant chockstone on the first rappel. The canyon is committing, but has some fun obstacles, great pools, swimming, jumps, and water features. One of the best is a giant 35ft+ slide into a deep punchbowl. Need to find a better exit, but we'll be back next year to improve on the anchoring situation. Used the nearby Hamma Hamma Cabin as our basecamp for the weekend - awesome! :-)
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