Conditions:Sierra Canyon-20241231060405

Latest:	30 Dec 2024 (22 days ago)

Reported by:	Triggerfish (44 reports)
Quality:	Great
Waterflow:	Deep pools
Wetsuit:	None
Water temperature:
Difficulty:	Normal
Time:	6 hours

Team: 5 people with experience level Brand new to Advanced

Trip report URL:

Comments: Perfect winter canyon for a mixed group. With road reopened, parking from the pullout 3/4 mile north of the bridge is a much easier hike than coming down from the viewpoint up top. Moved R2 anchor to a big tree, with a long webbing over the central boulder, making a less awkward rap line. For fun and practice, first down R3 swam the hole, then z-rigged a zipline strand to a big boulder to get the rest down dry. Worked great. Replaced frayed R6. New webbing has a courtesy point for easy rap starts, and a longer one for LAPAR and an easy pull.

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
30 Dec 2024	Great	Deep pools	None	Normal	6 hours	5 people Brand new to Advanced	Triggerfish (44 reports)
Comment: Perfect winter canyon for a mixed group. With road reopened, parking from the pullout 3/4 mile north of the bridge is a much easier hike than coming down from the viewpoint up top. Moved R2 anchor to a big tree, with a long webbing over the central boulder, making a less awkward rap line. For fun and practice, first down R3 swam the hole, then z-rigged a zipline strand to a big boulder to get the rest down dry. Worked great. Replaced frayed R6. New webbing has a courtesy point for easy rap starts, and a longer one for LAPAR and an easy pull.
27 Dec 2024					5 hours	2 people Beginner to Intermediate	Dyln cole (42 reports)
Comment: Replaced R5 webbing, all others look sweet
11 Mar 2024	Great	Deep pools	None	Normal	7 hours	3 people Beginner to Advanced	Triggerfish (44 reports)
Comment: Years back, I ran the north variant to get that taller rappel. I had no idea until this trip how much fun I'd missed. The raps are short, but the scenery is fantastic all the way. We replaced some crispy webbing, and moved main R3 to a higher pinch that makes the rappel start much easier. Other webbing was mostly fresh, except for a soft but maybe bleached loop around a small tree (in turn attached to a fresh, long piece of black webbing). Full swim in cool water below R2. Otherwise, mostly avoidable water in the slot. Then we didn't care anyway and waded up to calf deep in Fish Creek all the way back to the exit.
4 Feb 2023	Good	Very Low	None	Normal	6 hours	2 people Intermediate to Advanced	Erek (206 reports)
Comment: Bypassed many of the pools. One mandatory pool about thigh deep. Fish Creek was flowing.
28 Jul 2022	Good	Deep pools	None	Easy	7 hours	2 people Beginner to Advanced	Coalemus (159 reports)
Comment: Huge monsoonal activity just west of us but we only had a few drops. We were keeping an eye on escapes and ledges that would be out of flood range all the way down. There are plenty with only brief sections of truly committed narrows. Was overcast and cool all day, just as I was hoping. One swimmer and some shallow wades. Nothing too nasty so I guess it had been freshened up recently. A lot of the webbing is looking faded but still supple so we didn't replace anything. won't last too much longer in that sun, though.
27 Feb 2022	Amazing	Very Low	None		8 hours	3 people Intermediate to Beginner	RFontaine (238 reports)
Comment: An absolute GEM of a canyon!! A must do! We hiked the road down to see the landslide and continued to the bridge where we rappelled off the bridge (nice free hang) into the creek. The creek walk was “pleasant” the approach up to the saddle was fine with nice views. However, once you drop into the canyon, after the 1st rap, you get SLAMMED with incredible scenery! Bubbling stone walls forming a slot with undercuts and a gently flowing creek with various pools down the center. Incredibly picturesque! We were able to avoid the deepest of the pools and the few we did walk through were only knee deep and not at all cold. The raps are short but fun enough for what they are. We exited up the drainage in KML. Check for ticks, we found 2 crawling on us. All in all, a fantastic day!
21 Feb 2022		Very Low	None	Normal	6 hours	4 people Intermediate to Advanced	EMoorcroft (435 reports)
Comment: 6.5 hours car to car. Frog leaped with (2) 100' ropes. All anchors looked good, did not traverse high on shelves to bypass water. Avoided all pools except for one (short but cold) swimmer. Good canyon with interesting geology and fun dowclimbs. Exit hike was not as bad as some had thought. The approach and exit drainage as well as the hike out along the creek made for an overall great outing. THANKS FOR THE CURRENT UPDATES.
21 Feb 2022	Amazing	Deep pools	None	Normal	6 hours	4 people Intermediate to Advanced	Jawx0420 (44 reports)
Comment: This canyon was an absolute blast! The approach in was long but worth it. We started at 10 am and got back to the parking area at 4:30 pm. We were moving fast but stopped frequently to enjoy the views and the amazing geology. When we made it up to the saddle, we took a short break for lunch. Another party of 4 was heading up behind us and stopped to chat for a few minutes. We continued on in front of them and frog leaped through each rap. It was fast paced and worked out well. We were able to avoid all pools by doing a few spicy traverses / boulder problems except for one deep swimmer. The water was cold but I'm glad we didn't put on the wet suits. If water was flowing or the remainder of the pools were full, I would have had it on for sure. The raps were fun but not some of the best we've done. By the time we made it out of the technical section, we were way a head of the other party. The exit wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. Overall, we had a great two days in the Sups!
13 Feb 2022	Good	Deep pools	None	Normal	7 hours	4 people Brand new to Advanced	Coalemus (159 reports)
Comment: Pools were quite low and easy to avoid with the exception of the one at the base of R2 which we again skipped by going off of a slung boulder well out of the watercourse LDC. Found the plaque to BL just below this pool. All webbing was in good condition. We downclimbed the final rap, exposed but plenty of holds. Weather was perfect.
7 Jan 2022	Great	Low	Full wetsuit	Normal	7 hours	3 people Advanced	Nclegg (384 reports)
Comment: Great conditions. Pools were full with light flow over all rappels. Two swimmers. Downclimbed R4 and R7. Comfortable in 5mm neoprene + rain jacket.
18 Dec 2021	Good	Deep pools	None	Normal	8 hours	4 people Advanced	Nclegg (384 reports)
Comment: Time includes both Foxtrot and Sierra canyons, approaching and exiting via a drainage that begins at Fish Creek Vista. This is a much quicker alternative then hiking miles of closed road. A few deep pools. Completed 4 rappels and downclimbed the remaining obstacles. Replaced lots of webbing, but bring extra as this route is certainly seeing less traffic these days.
24 Feb 2018	Good	Very Low	None	Normal	4 hours	2 people Advanced	PatWinstanley (80 reports)
Comment: Four hours for the north fork route. The first drop in the northern fork seems to be commonly bypassed on the right (there was no anchor, bypass is easy), after that there are a few downclimbs that some may wish to use a rope to negotiate - they are not tall, just steep - before reaching the rappel down the chute. You can also scramble around a bit to find easier ways around the steepest parts. The northern fork really only consists of this one significant drop before reaching the main fork of the canyon, by which point you have bypassed some of the best parts of the main canyon. That one first drop is quite nice, though - and certainly worth doing at least once if you have already done the main canyon and are looking for something new.
11 Feb 2017 Trip report							HikeArizona.com (271 reports)
Comment: Most recent conditions reported at HikeArizona.com, see Trip Report for full details.
12 Apr 2015 Trip report		Deep pools	Thin wetsuit				CanyonCollective.com (83 reports)
Comment: Most recent conditions reported at CanyonCollective.com, see Trip Report for full details.
9 Mar 2013 Trip report	Amazing						CanditionBot (2096 reports)
Comment: See the full condition report at Candition.com. Submitted by Gulag.

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