Illusions - open and still fantastic

[mzamp]

Ran through illusions yesterday. Was a little anxious as to what we would find. Went in ready for anything...sludge, down trees, no anchors. We were pleasantly surprised how well the canyon fared considering the amount of burnt areas up on the rim.

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Not any ground cover to hold the soil in place. :-( We could still see some future debris slides...so go prepared.
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The canyon was very wet from all the rain we have been getting. Lots of mud/sand/dirt/soot, but not as bad as it could be I suppose.
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Some of the fallen burnt trees. Nothing was that difficult to negotiate.
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No scaring of the canyon walls at least. :-)
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The pools were a little grungy but not thick. At least there were not any dead animals.
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This is the spot of the infamous smoke grenade rescue training.
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The birthing room looks the same
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All the pools were completely full. In fact there was still a trickle flow from this point on.
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The amount of dirt build up prevents you from swimming through the hole as I did two years ago. The water is only a few inches deep here. The rest is filled with dirt/mud.
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This was the worst pool. Resembling the star wars trash compactor.
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I believe this is where the 3 bears were found...or so I was told.
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West Fork of Oak Creek
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Still very green in the west fork
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Lots of sand/dirt has flowed in.
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Burn area in the west fork about 1 mile from Call of the Canyon
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[jman]

Hmm...expecting a lot more damage from what everyone was saying on CC.

I'm sure rainstorms and flash floods will bring down more and more debris, soot, ash, sand, etc.

Good looking pics though! And yea, definitely still green down there!

Thanks for sharing mike

[mzamp]

I'm sure rainstorms and flash floods will bring down mor and more debris, soot, ash, sand, etc.

Hopefully not. The monsoons have passed for the season. Next will be the snow. Hopefully in the spring grasses will grow during the spring/summer before next year's monsoons apear. Sometimes I know they will dump grass seeds over burned areas. I don't know if that is in their plans, but lets hope they do something to prevent errosion.

[hipporump]

Thanks for the report! I was so happy to hear they had finally reopened oak creek and the West Fork is still much more green than I expected.