Conditions:Purgatory Canyon (North Fork)-20250102200253

Latest:	1 Jan 2025 (20 days ago)

Reported by:	Exitfiftyone (21 reports), David (15 reports)
Quality:	Great
Waterflow:	Dry
Wetsuit:	None
Water temperature:
Difficulty:	Special challenges
Time:	10 hours

Team: 4 people with experience level Advanced to Expert

Trip report URL:

Comments: Fun descent of Purgatory on New Year's Day. We did the top-down approach, but it's quite a hike from Dante's, so the bottom-up approach is likely more efficient.

We replaced and rebuilt several anchors, including a handful of knot-chocks. Several drops don't offer much to work with for anchor material, so bring your anchor building skill and creativity. There are also a handful of toggle/"ghostable" cairns (i.e. no webbing) in place.

There is a pothole sequence towards the middle-end of the canyon that includes a keeper pothole! You can avoid it by traversing around the side, but we had some fun playing though it.

Though the beta lists the maximum rappel at 120', we ended up doing a maximum rappel of approx. 165' right after the keeper. This drop was anchored from the very precipice of the drop, and we didn't see any anchoring opportunities midway down (no stages). I don't think it's likely that we missed something, but it's either that or things have changed in the canyon. Either way, we were very glad to have had a 200' rope so we didn't have to pass a knot. You may wish to consider brining a rope length of at least 165' too!

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
1 Jan 2025	Great	Dry	None	Special challenges	10 hours	4 people Advanced to Expert	Exitfiftyone (21 reports),David (15 reports)
Comment: Fun descent of Purgatory on New Year's Day. We did the top-down approach, but it's quite a hike from Dante's, so the bottom-up approach is likely more efficient. We replaced and rebuilt several anchors, including a handful of knot-chocks. Several drops don't offer much to work with for anchor material, so bring your anchor building skill and creativity. There are also a handful of toggle/"ghostable" cairns (i.e. no webbing) in place. There is a pothole sequence towards the middle-end of the canyon that includes a keeper pothole! You can avoid it by traversing around the side, but we had some fun playing though it. Though the beta lists the maximum rappel at 120', we ended up doing a maximum rappel of approx. 165' right after the keeper. This drop was anchored from the very precipice of the drop, and we didn't see any anchoring opportunities midway down (no stages). I don't think it's likely that we missed something, but it's either that or things have changed in the canyon. Either way, we were very glad to have had a 200' rope so we didn't have to pass a knot. You may wish to consider brining a rope length of at least 165' too!
31 Dec 2023	Great	Deep pools	None	Special challenges	15 hours	5 people Beginner to Advanced	Desertnights (37 reports)
Comment: This is a special canyon in this area. It's very scenic and sculpted and will have multiple pools and potholes that can (and currently do) hold waist deep water. There are keepers in this canyon. You can climb around most of them, but between the 90ft and 120 ft rappels there is a keeper that can be challenging to negotiate, and there is another but easily escaped pothole below it. We came up with a solution to rappel off the cliff on the right and avoid the first pothole by rappeling directly to the second pothole. Both were holding water but the second one is easily negotiated. We were probably lucky to not stick the rope on this rappel. For this two stage rappel with 'a pothole', there was no anchor in the watercourse or in a reasonable place in the main drainage. In the lower canyon, we could climb around the other potholes and none were as challenging. The down climbing in this canyon is good for the area and the rock is fairly solid, and the length of the climbs can be long but if they don't look like they'll go, try climbing out of the drainage and around. Overall, I wish we would have documented this canyon better because it was surprising to us how much water we found in it, and the canyon stayed impressive to the end.
5 Feb 2022 Trip report	Great	Dry	None	Special challenges	16 hours	5 people Intermediate to Beginner	Dfreeman1232 (5 reports)
Comment: Camped just south of Ashford Junction due to the prohibition against camping in the valley. Spent a beautiful night under the stars. Woke up the next morning and ditched a Jeep at the exit off of Badwater Road. Got a citation warning from Parks Service for not parking in a designated area. Took the shuttle vehicle around to Dante's view. Absolutely stunning watching the sunrise and looking over the basin. After gearing up, we finally started hiking around 7:30am, which was a bit late for our group. The trail up and over Dante's view and over to Mt. Perry is well defined and easy hiking. Leaving the Mt. Perry use trail, we headed down toward Abysmal, which was steep and hard on knees for an extended period of time. We passed by the mine artifacts and interesting rocks and eventually descended steeply toward the mouth of Purgatory. The entire descent from the Mt. Perry use trail to the mouth of Purgatory is steep, rocky and slippery. For me, it was the most difficult part of the entire day. The raps start quickly upon entering Purgatory. We stayed in the watercourse the entire descent. There were numerous downclimbs, many of which did not seem climbable so we turned them into rappels. The beta indicated 17 rappels, but we ended up closer to 25 or so. There was good material and features for anchor building throughout the watercourse, but as always with DV canyons, beta cannot be depended upon for complete accuracy, anchors may or many not still exist where needed and you should be prepared to be creative in your rigging. Route finding during the last few hours was difficult because it was dark, which militated towards anchor building and rappelling as opposed to downclimbing. Could've used a little more water (2.5L), but otherwise we were prepared for whatever presented (3 60M ropes, 150+ ft of webbing/cordage). Bigger groups are likely advisable to divide up materials. We did get a 60M rope stuck on a two-stage rap that turned a corner. Had to cut the rope and lost our totem that was rigged releasable up top. We got another 60M rope stuck but were able to get it to release with all 5 of our group on the pull. Purgatory pushed our group but we had a ton of fun.