East Fork of Misery Questions

[french_de]

Has anybody been down the east fork of Misery lately. What are the conditions? If you have done the canyon at anytime how does it compare to the West fork of Misery? Would you do it again? Responses will be most appreciated.

[Iceaxe]

It was 10 years ago when I did the route.... so things are a little fuzzy..... It's a nice canyon, but not as good as the west fork. East Fork is kinda like the west fork in that the slot comes and goes. Certianly worth doing once to check off the list.

Doing the shuttle route off of Highway 9 (the way I list it on my website) will save you 2 hours over the other method, which is hiking into the west fork and crossing over to the east fork. Expect 4 hours from rim to river, 2 hours in the river if you visit the falls, 4 hours hiking back out over Checkerboard Mesa. We always pump water at the river and make sure everyone is topped off before hiking out...

[shaggy125]

You can do the West Fork, climb out at the junction, rim walk the East Fork and drop in and do both of them on the same trip. Will probably add an hour or two to the day.

[Iceaxe]

You can do the West Fork, climb out at the junction, rim walk the East Fork and drop in and do both of them on the same trip. Will probably add an hour or two to the day.

The above statement is only true if you want to cherry pick the best (bottom) section of slot in the east fork... To visit the complete canyon and all sections of slot it's over two miles as the crow flies from the junction to the top of the actual canyon where the first section of slot begins. To cherry pick the bottom section add a couple of hours depending on how much you want to bite off.... to add the complete east fork section of slot to a west fork trip add about 6 hours....

At the very top of the east fork you will find an east and west prong. The east prong has a small section of slot in it. Standard route from the top is to go down the west prong (I've heard this prong referred to as Middle Misery by at least one knowledgeable canyoneer). I don't think the east prong is done very often. It begins with a 20' rappel and I've never seen or heard of an anchor being found.

[french_de]

At the very top of the east fork you will find an east and west prong. The east prong has a small section of slot in it. Standard route from the top is to go down the west prong (I've heard this prong referred to as Middle Misery by at least one knowledgeable canyoneer). I don't think the east prong is done very often. It begins with a 20' rappel and I've never seen or heard of an anchor being found.

These Prongs - The West Prong Of East Misery (WPEM) and the East Prong of East Misery (EPEM), I wonder if can they be accessed from the road high up in the White Cliffs area? It does look like EPEM has a little more slot to it. RAM over on the light side canyons group mentions the east as being like Little Wild Horse only bigger.

By the way thanks everyone for the responses!

[Iceaxe]

These Prongs - The West Prong Of East Misery (WPEM) and the East Prong of East Misery (EPEM), I wonder if can they be accessed from the road high up in the White Cliffs area?

Yes, both prongs can be accessed from the road on the rim....

Both prongs can also be accessed by hiking in over the standard Checkerboard Mesa route. It's just that using the Checkerboard route is a lot of work to reach the very top of where the slots begin. If coming in from Checkerboard most folks have a tendency to hop into the slot early at the beginning of a slot section and very few hike to the very tippy top where the slots begin. As I said... this slot comes and goes as you descend the canyon if starting from the top. Lots of places to hop in and out along the route.

If you are really hardcore you can do the west prong and climb around and do the east prong. That would probably add an hour.

I think the west fork generally gets higher grades because it's easier to access... east fork takes a lot more hiking or a shuttle with HCV's.