ag23
10-23-2011, 01:15 PM
I did the Middle Fork of Lytle Creek yesterday with four other friends. None of us had done the canyon before, but it was a great time! The Middle Fork is a great little canyon dominated by two sets of towering cascades.
Some easy down boulder and a short rappel bring you to the top of the first set, small 10ft, then the 80ft main falls to a pool, with third 15ft fall from the lip of the pool to the canyon floor.
http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/1/a/6/0/600_65826752.jpeg
http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/2/c/5/8/600_65831352.jpeg
The second set is a breathtaking triple cascade of 70ft, 60ft and 100ft. We did the first two in one long rappel.
http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/e/7/6/600_66044662.jpeg
This is the bottom of the last fall, and you can see the second above it. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture at the bottom of 2nd.
There is an full description with GPS points on Christopher Brennen's (http://www.dankat.com/advents/midlyt.htm) site. There are a lot of different anchor points. It looked like someone ran it recently and put anchors directly in the water course going straight down the falls (must have been low water) and there are older anchors far to sides, maybe from high water. We followed Brennen's description and used anchors just to the sides of the falls, which kept us dry from the knees up. He has a warning that for one rappel you have to anchor to a tree behind a sharp rocky battlement, but thanks to flooding those trees how lean over the battlement, so this is now an easy setup now.
Listed time is 6.5 hours, but it took us a 8 hours, mostly due to screwing up the throws again and again (nearly all the throws have some rope-hungry shrubs) and we spent a lot of time trying find anchor points and figuring out which ones to use.
Other random pictures:
http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/4/0/8/600_66041992.jpeg
The canyon is very nice hike.
http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/b/b/d/c/600_66048092.jpeg
A little fall foliage.
http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/7/5/0/600_66042832.jpeg
Trying to stay dry!
-Andre
Some easy down boulder and a short rappel bring you to the top of the first set, small 10ft, then the 80ft main falls to a pool, with third 15ft fall from the lip of the pool to the canyon floor.
http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/1/a/6/0/600_65826752.jpeg
http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/2/c/5/8/600_65831352.jpeg
The second set is a breathtaking triple cascade of 70ft, 60ft and 100ft. We did the first two in one long rappel.
http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/e/7/6/600_66044662.jpeg
This is the bottom of the last fall, and you can see the second above it. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture at the bottom of 2nd.
There is an full description with GPS points on Christopher Brennen's (http://www.dankat.com/advents/midlyt.htm) site. There are a lot of different anchor points. It looked like someone ran it recently and put anchors directly in the water course going straight down the falls (must have been low water) and there are older anchors far to sides, maybe from high water. We followed Brennen's description and used anchors just to the sides of the falls, which kept us dry from the knees up. He has a warning that for one rappel you have to anchor to a tree behind a sharp rocky battlement, but thanks to flooding those trees how lean over the battlement, so this is now an easy setup now.
Listed time is 6.5 hours, but it took us a 8 hours, mostly due to screwing up the throws again and again (nearly all the throws have some rope-hungry shrubs) and we spent a lot of time trying find anchor points and figuring out which ones to use.
Other random pictures:
http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/4/0/8/600_66041992.jpeg
The canyon is very nice hike.
http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/b/b/d/c/600_66048092.jpeg
A little fall foliage.
http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/7/5/0/600_66042832.jpeg
Trying to stay dry!
-Andre