TR-Englestead Looky and Birch Descent-4-19-08

[nelsonccc]

We headed up Friday night to hit Englestead on Saturday the 19th.
The North Fork Road was completely dry except for a small puddle at
the cattle guard about 2 miles past the pavement. We spent the night
at the old logging road between the two ranches described in Tom's
description. We hiked down to Englestead Saturday morning. When we
arrived at the bottom there was flowing water in the .5-1 cfs range,
When we got to the big drop there was additional water (another .5-1
cfs) coming in form the drainage immediately above the drop point.
This water was kicking out and freezing. The entire rap looked
frozen with a massive ice cone at the bottom. There was a hole in
the snow at the bottom where the chockstone for the second rap would
be but after that it looked like you would be in a snow cave for
awhile since the snow level was even with the bottom of the 300
footer. In any case we decided it would be a wet, cold affair,
especially since the wind was howling and it was about 50 degrees.
So we hiked back to the truck up at the North Fork Road, dropped the
300 footer, the wetsuits, and some other stuff and hiked over into
Birch.

Birch had about 1 cfs running in it which made the first couple of
big raps pretty fun with face shots and spray kicking out. The
canyon bottom had big piles of muddy snow here and there with one
pile that made getting to the lip of the 10 foot downclimb exciting.
A couple of wades and one icy thigh deep pool near Orderville. We
went without wetsuits and were fine, whenever we got chilled we
would just stop in a sunny section and warm up.

Orderville was a mess. There are huge 3-4 foot deep snow drifts that
are covered with 1-2 feet of mud. Slogging up Orderville was a
slippery, muddy, wet mess and we only did it for 10 minutes. We
found that hiking in the water was the easiest route. We took the
Wild Wind Hollow exit. Nasty. Steep bushwacking with loose dirt for
about 1.5 hours. There was absolutely no trail to follow. I'll never
go up that ever again. We finally hit an old dirt road and followed
that to the North Fork Road and hiked the final mile or two back to
the truck. Grueling.

Overall the trip was fun. Birch with water was nice and we didn't
see or hear another group all day. Webbing was in good condition and
had been replaced fairly recently.

[Iceaxe]

Snow and Mud.... Sweet.....

[tanya]

A face! Who does it belong to?

[tanya]

In any case we decided it would be a wet, cold affair,
especially since the wind was howling and it was about 50 degrees.
So we hiked back to the truck up at the North Fork Road, dropped the
300 footer, the wetsuits, and some other stuff and hiked over into
Birch.

No wonder I am a fair weather canyoneer. That's a long rappel in the cold, with howling wind and water and stuff.