5 Attachment(s)
Malan's Waterfall/Waterfall Canyon, Ogden
Last Saturday (09-03-2011) 4 of us attempted to rappel Malan's Waterfall up in Ogden. The information that we had from a ice-climbing site was that the entire waterfall was 180 feet in length. I did some other searching and found on another reputable website, showed it listed at 175 feet. And scouring Google for any reports of rapping this baby...I figured this was best guess to length that we could go off.
Anywho, so we climbed to the the very top in about an 1 1/2 from the bottom of the trailhead. As we were looking at the falls, however, it didn't look like 185 feet at all. It looked more like 250-300feet, but decided lengths are deceiving and what the heck, let's give it a shot. So we brought up our 220 ft rope and pull-cord.
The hike to the top of the falls is fairly easy, although it will require some Class 4 climbing for about 15 feet as you drop down into the "gorge" of it.
We didn't realize that there would be a gorge before the main falls, but it is about 40-50 feet in length. So we rapped that from some nice sturdy trees above it, but left it fixed until we had confirmation that it hit the bottom of the falls after the gorge.
In the the gorge there is no trees or bushes, but tons of good-size boulders to build a deadman from. The boulders are about 3-4 feet in the length, and we spent about 10min building it up and preparing to the throw the rope down.
We had a friend at the bottom of the falls, and communicated with him to confirm we had touchdown and to tell people to back up 50ft or so.
We tossed the rope, and it didn't even reach a 3/4 of the way down! lol. And if we would of brought a 2nd rope, we would of passed the knot and been fine.
So we jumar back up and hiked back down to the base of the waterfall. Too bad! We were close, but not nearly enough. And those falls are definitely NOT 200 feet. It's closer to 350 ft!
We will attempt this again, we just need to bring 2 ropes. Doh...should of done that in the first place...oh well. Good adventure otherwise!
Here's a few pics: