Conditions:Sweet Creek-JasmineLi@Facebook-2017-03-14
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14 Mar 2017 (8 yrs, 7 mos ago) |
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Trip report URL: https://facebook.com/100000903868055/posts/1612242862149160
Comments: extracts from Facebook posts, click link for full details (privacy restrictions may apply)
- " Sweet ,New Zealand 1. Franz Josef Glaciet side wall biggest Waterfall - Arthur's Cataract. 3/14 Glacier (Heli to Black Hole)- Castle Rock Hut. We start the canyoning around 3/15 noon and camp in the middle point of waterfall.We saw 2 bolts in the beginning 100m,but no any others in following part.The..." Jasmine Li's timeline
All condition reports
| Date | Quality | Waterflow | Wetsuit | Difficulty | Time | Team | Reported by |
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| Good | Very Low 
| | Normal  |  7 hours
| 2 people Beginner to Advanced | Triggerfish (70 reports) | |
Comment: Surprisingly fun route!c, absolutely worth running. The only real Superstition thrash it has is part of that stretch between R4 and R5. The rappels are fun, the views are great, and the roost area up top is unique and striking. We took our time and had a great day.
Anchors are all relatively fresh, solidly positioned, with clean pull lines. We cut and removed redundant old tat from R2 and R5, and moved the older, frozen, but functional R5 7mm li k to the very new (date helpfully written on it) webbing. Removed the newer, too-large link, cause it was so big I could pass my Attache and Am’d through it. Other R5 notes: The long webbing is great for pull angle (or, in our case, toggling). But as with anytime there’s a long nylon webbing, it becomes dynamic enough to cause rope sawing at the edge(even though the edge is not especially sharp). Consider edge protection, rope creeping, and to minimizing bounce while on rappel.
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| Good | Moderate Low
| Full wetsuit
| Easy |  2 hours
| Korey (84 reports) | ||
Comment: Went to explore another of the old canyoneering northwest routes that haven’t seen much love recently. You could cut off about 100yds of creek walking by dropping in just a little earlier than the creek parking noted in the old beta. Water was very cold. The second downclimb in the beta was bolted which is a good move, the downclimb looked spicy. This makes for a total of three rappels in the canyon now. Second rappel (previously the first) was also bolted. Both had old tat that I cut out and replaced with a quicklink and ring, and tightened loose nut on R1. Placed a bolt on R3 and cut old blue webbing from a tree. Creek walking below R3 was very scenic and easy. A lot of carved basalt and quartz with flecks of mica in the canyon, and lots of small potholes. R1 and R2 are completely clear of the flow, R3 lands you in the falls just at the very end.
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| Great | Moderate High
| Drysuit 
| Special challenges | 1 hour
| 2 people Intermediate to Advanced | AdamOtter (76 reports) | |
Comment: Hager today was cold!! Bring neoprene caps and gloves. Hydraulics were in play.
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| Good | | None 
| Normal | 8 hours
| 2 people Intermediate | Sportsben (1 reports) | |
Comment: Ended up being a nice bail option since our day was unexpectedly extended by 4.5 miles due to fallen trees across the road on the way in (take a chainsaw or an axe and a lot of energy if you want to drive all the way to the TH). Time reported reflects TH to TH, we took it easy and tried to clean up some of the dead brush for future parties on the approach, but both the approach and upper exit once you leave Secret Canyon (which is lovely and generally open and easy cobble/boulder hopping) have plenty of deadfall and thorny locust/brambles to bash through. Next time I'll likely stay on the Secret East Trail longer and try to head down the nose around (34.97001, -111.88372) to avoid some of the tedious schwacking in the relatively un-interesting upper drainage where the KML track leads.
We replaced a very rusty quicklink at R1 with a fully rated aluminum rigging ring to hopefully better resist corrosion since, it hangs low in the watercourse, the rappel is best rigged with a toggle, and it seems like this canyon is infrequently descended. Also replaced the anchor webbing at R1 with brown, but left the previous rust-colored webbing trapped in the pinch to make it easier for future parties to rotate and inspect the brown webbing. The remaining two anchors were in great shape, toggled the big drop with ~230' of rope down to the big pool at the base and were glad to have more than a 200' rope with how wet and slippery all the slime at the ledge (where you could conceivably re-rig with a 200) was, no issues with rockfall. Last rap was down a neat sculpted watercourse with a hanging pothole in the middle that a 6' person was able to successfully stem across on rappel, though a 5'6" person struggled to reach and got wet. Very light flow on all the raps, full pools (all avoidable with some scrambling ability) and nice fall colors in Secret Canyon made for an aesthetic, if brushy, day. Charisma seems a nice way to get acquainted with this area and get an idea of your group's speed in the brushy drainages, though the pay-to-play ratio prevents it from being a must-do.
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| Amazing | Dry
| None
| Normal | 5 hours
| 4 people Intermediate to Advanced | Shyamv (8 reports) | |
Comment: Stayed low the whole way a couple of snug but predictable sections of squeeze. One group member exited before the final (tight) narrows.
Dry conditions compared to previous trip report. Almost all mud/water was avoidable until final pool. the few spots of retained water were knee deep at most, and could be avoided. (the exception is the final pool, that had a trickle of flow into it, and was quite deep and cold.) The final rappel is on a directionally shifting/moving chalk stone that one would need to high-stem to replace. It's functional with caution, and directionally stable. When we pulled/tested, the rock did shift. Furthermore, the webbing for the anchor is sun-exposed and white (meaning, it's hard to tell if it has been bleached / damaged. That being said, we stuck a rope on the final rap and ascended on the anchor, so it was strong enough. A more confident high-stemming team may want to reinforce, or shift the anchor to reduce the instability / sun exposure. 100' rope was needed.
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| Amazing | Deep pools
| Full wetsuit
| Normal |  13 hours
| 4 people Advanced to Expert | RFontaine (316 reports),Shaunaexplores (10 reports) | |
Comment: WOW. Couldn't have asked for a better first time thru Heaps. Approached via the grotto and dropped in via the Bowl with some epic big rappels and a short set of bonus narrows. Potholes throughout Heaps were in easy mode and as tippy top as it gets - in fact, ended up with awesome flow on the majority of the drops. Also, LOTS of quicksand all through the canyon right now post storm, nothing we got too stuck in or couldn't find a way around. Final sequence was breathtaking, and we cruised through it with good planning ahead of time.
Did not get cold at all in a 5mm wetsuit. This canyon most certainly lives up to the hype with corridors that feel endless in the best way, and new surprises and obstacles around every corner. Rapping through flow in Heaps was an epic feeling. Couldn't get enough and can't wait to be back .- Shauna Bolt has been added to aid getting down to canyon bottom of Bowl. Also! We found a white iPhone with a person’s photograph in case! Still works! Reachout if it is yours! - Ryan Fontaine - [email protected] | |||||||
| Great | Dry
| None
| Normal | 6 hours
| 3 people Intermediate to Expert | Ivanbland (7 reports) | |
Comment: Fantastic canyon. Going up Bighorn was a nice treat after a fun decent, but the first riparian section has a lot of catclaw bushes - group leader brought a handsaw and that was helpful. Very overgrown in that first part of the exit. Consider bringing a sweatshirt layer to help save your fancy sunshirt and skin. We replaced several anchors with new webbing (some of the anchors had UV fading).
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| Great | Moderate
| None
| Normal | 6 hours
| 2 people Intermediate to Advanced | Timm02 (2 reports) | |
Comment: Great day out. The water level was just right to have fun but not present any major difficulties. I would not want to go near this thing in high flow as there are a bunch of dangerous constrictions.
The link provided includes a GPS route and a bunch of photos.
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| Great | Very Low
| None
| Normal | 9 hours
| 2 people Advanced | Cooper smith (31 reports) | |
Comment: Very cool human powered loop to do this canyon. Time reflects the canyon, paddle upstream, exit via ropes trail, and bike shuttle back to Page. Bike was stashed near beehives to provide a quick pedal back to our one vehicle in page. More logistically simple than multi vehicle shuttles from either rim or from Lee's. Anchors are in good shape and single bolts remain solid. May be worth backing up if traffic increases, although friction around bends and over edges reduces strain to existing anchors at most drops.
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| Amazing | Deep pools
| Thin wetsuit
| Easy |  3 hours
| 2 people Intermediate to Advanced | Alex Columbus (7 reports) | |
| Good | Moderate Low
| Full wetsuit
| Normal | 4 hours
| 4 people | K arc (391 reports),Treyshoe (60 reports) | |
Comment: No other anchors were found, so this may have been a possible first descent. Rock quality in Lower Greenleaf is pretty terrible, especially near the top of the canyon. Use extreme caution on the descent. It is quite likely that the canyon gets re-arranged every year during spring flooding. Anchors may be missing, damaged, or buried. The safest place to rappel is probably right in the water as any loose debris has been knocked free during flood events. We were all psyched up for a bushwhack out, but then found this nice trail leading right back to the resort. Awesome.
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| Great | Dry
| None
| Special challenges | 8 hours
| 2 people Advanced | Kristoffer (14 reports) | |
Comment: Great short canyon, I enjoyed it more than the adjacent Dwarf canyon (though Dwarf was still good!)
We got a late start, leaving just after 9am after a late night of stargazing with telescopes. The approach is incredibly solid limestone with a few airy 4th class sections following the approach ridge, and a couple short sections of loose obnoxious scree. The technical section was awesome, including several long (100'+) drops through beautiful sculpted an polished rock, numerous enjoyable downclimbs, and some fun anchors. Honestly this could be a 5 star canyon, but I've only done a couple out here. I may revisit and update my rating after running some more descents in the Eureka Dunes area. We rebuilt a few cairns, placed a clever rock chock, and replaced a few existing anchors. There were several existing 6mm cordlette slings that seemed to be in good condition so we left them. As of this writing all anchors are in good condition.
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| Great | Very Low
| None
| Normal | 3 hours
| 1 people Beginner | Rockclimber (1 reports) | |
Comment: Webbing all in good condition with quicklinks at all four rappels. It's still a little wet and muddy when you get to the 4th rappel. Great little canyon. Worth doing. I would wait a couple weeks though when the weather is cooler and bugs are gone. It got up to 82 F today, and the bugs were really annoying. Otherwise, great time. Very beginner-friendly: short, easy rappels.
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| Great | Very Low
| | Normal | 5 hours
| 5 people Brand new to Advanced | Triggerfish (70 reports) | |
Comment: Impressively immune to even recent heavy rain, Birch still had mud, but only small, easily avoidable puddles.beautiful, sunny day.
Popular as ever, with multiple large groups, including one stopped below R2 due to a team member with serious leg injury, but splinted and resting comfortably. Amazingly, they were able to simply dial 911 from the canyon floor, and SAR was on scene within the hour. Because our group included young kids and we had two vehicles, we did the tedious Orderville TH car spot to minimize hike difficulty.
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| | | | | 5 people Beginner to Advanced | Mdavid (6 reports) | ||
Comment: Encountered a bee swarm at R1. We decided it was too risky to try the canyon and so we turned back around. Staying high on the ridge on our way back out of the drainage allowed us to avoid most of the bushwhacking we experienced on the way in.
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