Trip Report Birch Hollow Down Orderville, out the Narrows

Thursday I led a group down Birch hollow. My wife, 4 children 19, 14, 12 and 12 and 2 friends from London who rappelled the first time the day before...YIKES. I was mainly worried about the 2 20 somethings from London, but they are athletic and figured at the least I could lower them down:) We got an early start and were at the parking spot by 6:30. We wanted to get an early start to avoid the heat, and hopefully not get stuck behind other groups as we knew all of the Orderville permits had been issued for that day, and you don't know how many people are just going to hike back up.
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It took us about 15 minutes to get geared up and we were off down the draw. The temperature was a chilly 43 degrees when we started, so nobody was complaining about the heat!! We were making good time to the first Rappel, but it took quite a while to get everyone down as some teaching and learning were going on. After that, everything started to click and we made decent time.
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All of the raps were very nice, and the gear was in good shape. We hit the bottom and came out into Orderville and it was dry as a bone. The next 5 or so miles of hiking was 100 percent dry. We did not hit any water mud anything until about the last 2 miles of Orderville and the Narrows. Frankly we were very surprised at how dry it was. We exited the narrows and were at the shuttle bus at 2:30, having taken 8 hours for the trip. We were quite pleased with how much time it took us especially considering we had a couple of newbies with us. All in all a very enjoyable day.
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