Conditions:Olallie Creek-20230814232158
Latest: |
3 Aug 2023 (1 yr, 10 mos ago) |
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| Reported by: | Brdn.gonzales (44 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: |  7 hours
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Team: 7 people with experience level Beginner to Expert
Trip report URL:
Comments: Olallie was fun with low flow. On the approach we were deciding if we should do the Upper section or go straight into the Main section. We opted for the Upper, it was pretty, but the lack of memorable features made it a one or done for me. Apparition Falls were spectacular and by far the most enjoyable part about the canyon. All anchors looked good, but be sure to check the webbing on some of those rock cairns on R8-9; rock is sharp!
All condition reports
| Date | Quality | Waterflow | Wetsuit | Difficulty | Time | Team | Reported by |
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| Great | Moderate Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Normal | | 6 people | K arc (376 reports) | |
Comment: Great to return to Olallie after a couple of years. Some improved anchors that let you run the flow now. Still would be worth following up with the park eventually re: bolting (long-term project) as some anchors are not well-situated and their position could delay/complicate a rescue.
Inspect the R2 anchor carefully before use. The webbing will be underwater even at low flow and the boulder has some very sharp edges. The webbing will likely be destroyed in the next flood event, becoming trash in the watercourse. (This is just one example of a drop that could benefit from bolting.) Apparition Falls: currently it's possible to rappel directly down the chute and under the giant old-growth log. Use caution when pulling your rope here as it looks very easy to get it stuck.
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| Great | Moderate Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Normal | 5 hours
| 8 people Intermediate to Advanced | Briwellman (76 reports) | |
Comment: Fun day in the creek. The pull at Apparition gave us a little bit of trouble due to the tail end dropping and getting tangled in the logs. We were able to free the rope while pulling from above and detangling from below.
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| Amazing | Moderate High
| Full wetsuit
| Special challenges | 8 hours
| 3 people Beginner to Intermediate | Kiwisimon (3 reports) | |
Comment: Great day in Olallie. Didn't do the upper section. Flow was moderate-moderate/high. Cairn anchor on rap 8 should be considered marginal. Built an anchor on DCR side for rap 10. Easy pull. Rap 11 has purple webbing. Anchor itself is fine other than the bright color. We broke apparition up into 3 stages. Third stage of appiration has webbing around a large tree at the top of the landing. Easy pull from the pool below. Jumped R16.
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| Great | Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Normal | 7 hours
| 7 people Beginner to Expert | Brdn.gonzales (44 reports) | |
Comment: Olallie was fun with low flow. On the approach we were deciding if we should do the Upper section or go straight into the Main section. We opted for the Upper, it was pretty, but the lack of memorable features made it a one or done for me. Apparition Falls were spectacular and by far the most enjoyable part about the canyon. All anchors looked good, but be sure to check the webbing on some of those rock cairns on R8-9; rock is sharp!
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| Amazing | Moderate High
| Full wetsuit
| | 5 hours
| 2 people Advanced | Shoffman225 (11 reports) | |
Comment: Full Ollalie. What an amazing place. All anchors in great shape, and if they weren't we replaced them. Apparation falls was the technical crux. We replaced the mid-station anchor, and didn't love our options for slung rocks but made do.
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| Amazing | Low
| Full wetsuit
| Normal | 7 hours
| 6 people Advanced to Beginner | Briwellman (76 reports) | |
Comment: This creek is awesome!! The flow was lower than we would have liked but this is such a beautiful canyon. Love it!
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| Good | Low
| Full wetsuit
| Easy | 6 hours
| 4 people Advanced to Expert | Michelle (60 reports) | |
Comment: We ran the full Olallie, and wished we hadn't because the upper section really detracted from the overall experience. From the start of the main technical section to the end the canyon is just great. Above it though has lots of climbing over logs and such in the canyon, and mediocre rappels. The upper section had no webbing whatsoever, although the lower section had webbing on every drop. We also ghosted the upper section except for R3.
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| Good | Low
| Full wetsuit
| Normal | 7 hours
| 8 people Beginner to Intermediate | Beccap (47 reports) | |
Comment: The water levels were noticeably lower than 2 weeks ago. The 0.15" rain received two days prior surely got sucked up by the dry forest - I doubt any of it even made it to the creek. Even at low flow, Olallie is fun and beautiful, and very beginner-friendly. Despite the noted abrasion hazard of R8 (and the advice to rappel direct from R7-R9), we chose to use R8 for line-of-sight purposes with new canyoneers. There are a number of anchor options for R10 - pretty much every pinch is slung if you look hard enough. We found one very close to the corner, making the pull less stressful. This is the first PNW canyon I've been in where I've seen a full rainbow of webbing. Having gotten used to black-webbing-only, the colored webbing was a bit of an eyesore to me.
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| Amazing | Moderate Low
| Full wetsuit
| | | 7 people | Norhex (24 reports) | |
Comment: Climbing up to R8 isn’t bad, probably-do-not-fall zone, but the rappel line sucks. May have been better to use a full 200’ and pull from R7 to R9, though the beta says the pull here is bad too.
On stage two of R13 we found 20’ of a stuck rope in a pinch on DCR. Then we got ours stuck in the spot. I went back up and knocked out the rock causing the pinch, try to pull your rope DCL. I was able to free climb and stem up without gear, goggles highly recommended. Very cold water for August.
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| Great | Moderate Low
| Full wetsuit
| Normal | 6 hours
| 7 people Intermediate to Advanced | Andrewsandstrom (46 reports) | |
Comment: Gaia accuracy on the hike up was spotty, full bush wack into upper put in. Most webbing was gone & replaced. Several ropes got stuck but were all saved due to ugly cracks. Upside down log in long rappel will keep your rope when pulling. maybe put a bolt there and shorten the pull. very pretty canyon but marginal rappers. 2nd time down and will probably not repeat. Parking lot fills very quickly
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| Amazing | Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Normal | 6 hours
| 5 people Intermediate to Advanced | K arc (376 reports) | |
Comment: Wow, what a terrific canyon. Even at low flow, it's a joy with the amazing geology and great rappels. Dropped in just above the main technical section. Rappelled R7 and R8 from the same anchor; pull not too bad. Would be great if some of the drops could be bolted; need to look up park regs on bolting. Found remnants of several anchors (e.g. webbing) washed down presumably from somewhere higher in the canyon. Low water anchor on R10 goes around a corner, beware rope pinching fouling up your retrieval. There is a hidden anchor on a chockstone just before the rappel goes vertical. You can climb down to it. This anchor is in the watercourse, so may need periodic replacement.
Ran Apparition in two stages per the lovely pile of woody debris in the middle. Still managed to get the tail of the rope stuck during retrieval. Applied the old "brute force" technique with three people yarding on it. Loud snap above and suddenly this giant piece of wood is pinwheeling it's way down towards us with no way to get out of the way. Fortunately, it fell on the opposite side of the log, so all was well. Continued on with no further issues. Terrific canyon -- I'll be back!
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| Amazing | Moderate
| Full wetsuit
| Normal | 8 hours
| 8 people Intermediate to Advanced | Tiffanie (139 reports) | |
Comment: We were trying to just run the technical section but dropped in higher than planned which added 4 short rappels and some easy stream walking. Flow is moderate, no hydraulics. R7 and R16 can be jumped if you are so inclined. R7 also makes a really fun slide assuming you rappel a couple feet out first and slide the rest ;) Please remember to check depth! This is a really fun canyon!
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| Amazing | Moderate Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Advanced  |  9 hours
| 7 people Advanced to Expert | Rernst86 (88 reports) | |
Comment: Olallie is a big undertaking. We took the abbreviated route and dropped into the canyon just before the fun section. The exposed, R7 was jumped. The water levels were a little lower than desired but still made getting down Apparition a fun task. I can see why this can is up with the greats. The walls, amount of (fun) raps, and technical challenges deem it so.
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| Great | Low
| Full wetsuit
| Easy | 7 hours
| 6 people Beginner to Intermediate | Sbrown (17 reports) | |
Comment: We ran the technical section only - the coordinates for the turnoff were accurate. Flow was low, but still some swims and fun in the watercourse. We replaced a lot of the webbing anchors and set some new ones. R12 - the low water anchor was in bad shape, so we cut it and replaced it with a brand new high water anchor at tree DCL. You can still rappel in the watercourse, so it is a safer anchor setup.
When the sun was hidden by clouds we were happy to be 5mm wetsuits, but a 4/3 would like have been okay. I was impressed by how grippy was rock was - a lot of canyons I've run you are always having to check each foot placement so you don't slip but this canyon was super grippy. I loved it.
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| Good | Low
| Thin wetsuit
| Special challenges | 7 hours
| 3 people Beginner to Advanced | Jbartlett79 (3 reports) | |
Comment: We did the shorty version, main technical section only, 7.5 hours car-to-car with a lot of time stopped for photos. The bushwhack down to the main technical section is pretty dense, and we found ourselves cliffed-out as we approached the point, so we backtracked up-canyon slightly and followed a nice elk trail down into the creek just below R5.
Water levels are the lowest they'll be all year, after nearly 3 months of no rain, during a historically dry Washington summer (and a historically bad fire season). We suspected this might be something of a class B canyon, hardly flowing with a couple of swims, but we found a steady and non-threatening water flow with ice cold pools. The water temperature and sustained flow -- on a hillside with no snow or glaciers up above, separated from Mount Rainier by the Cowlitz Divide -- during such a dry year imply that one or more springs may feed this creek. We found two webbing anchors from the first descent mysteriously missing, at R9 and R11. Neither could likely have washed away, and one was on a tree 10 feet above the watercourse, so I presume a previous party cut them out. Not sure why; we used the existing low-water anchor on R11, but in high water it will be inaccessible and our original tree anchor will have to be re-installed DCL. | |||||||
