Birch Holllow May 15, 2011

[lofty]

Birch Hollow is a canyon with gorgeously fluted walls and passages. Malia had done it before, but it was my first time. However it was the first time Malia had done it with flowing water and the water did add to it's splendor.


We loved every minute of this canyon. Never took wetsuits as it was a warm day and the raps we were told from someone that did it the day prior stayed mostly out of the water.. just some spray and kneedeep pools. My thin rainjacket was plenty to kep my upper body dry.

Normally one would go down Birch Hollow , then down Orderville Canyon and The Zion Narrows. well.. the Narrows had a flow of around 900 cfs..so no way out that way. The other way is to hike up Orderville Canyon ( nice too ) to an old track that leads back up to the loggin road and then 5 miles from there to the car parked at Birch Hollow ....hmmm....we didn`t want to bring the extra car....soooo..... Malia had a brilliant thought....she felt that I was loosing my edge dealing with bush being down in the barren desert for so long ... and hence... I needed a bushwack.... Utah Style !!! We had trip descriptions of a loop that would see us go up Wild Wind Hollow and only 1/2 mile from the car when we hit the road. One set of Beta mentioned a brutal 1 - 2 hr bushwack towards the end... another a 1 hr bushwack...oh joy... and apparently just what I needed !!! But in the end.. this ol' canuck didn't have to bushwack afterall !!!

And below the pictures is our bushwack free return description which in short enters wild wind holllow and traverses over to the first rap in birch hollow for those that have not heard of that way.

BTW... is there a way up through the first small sidecanyon above Birch Hollow ? Our return trail skirted the top edge and it would save time ascending through that canyon.







Wild Wind hollow is the second drainage the comes into Orderville upstream of Birch Hollow.... the first drainage is small... but maybe after reading this someone might want to explore an exit out of that one ? Or.. is there one already that is being kept secret ?

Into Wild Wind Hollow we went.. there's a mud slide at the mouth and I could just see a faint track through it parallelling the canyon ( we never went down into the canyon or crossed it ) . The track then stayed high up on the slopes and varied between faint and well trodden on.... this track did not coincide with the beta we had BUT... it was well trodden on.. it stayed away from bush ( grin !!!) and it went where we needed to go. Well.. next came a definite junction... and the most prominent track led in direction of Birch Hollow. Hmm we both though.... I did see boot tracks leading to the first rap in Birch from the direction of Wild Wind Hollow... the bush did not look thick when looking in that direction, and I had wondered if it wasn't possible to just simply cross over in easier terrain and hike out via the birch hollow trail rather than bushwack to the end of wild wind hollow.....and here I found just such a " connector trail " The trail was beautiful...no bush...some views, and a grove of massive ponderosa pines. when I checked with the gps the track pointed right towards the first rap in birch hollow. The prominent path skirted the top edge of the first little canyon past birch hollow.....??? could there be a way up this one as well ???

When in doubt we chose the most prominent path we saw.. the one with boot prints in it as there were various fainter game trails as well.

At one point...when we could see Birch Hollow Drainage ... the track became less obvious... The most prominent track led down to Birch Hollow.. but it felt a bit too soon to descend... another path led up... we figured up will get us to the small high point marked on the map.... and we hoped to get a view from there.....so up we went....well... the track split into many ??? game trails ??? hunting trails ??? and there was the occasional bush we had to content with....maybe 10 minutes on and we topped out......and what do we see.......the escarpment of the first rap in Birch Hollow down and slight up drainage from us... plus a number of tracks leading in that general direction. In retrospect.. the track that looked like it led downwards earlier probably just went down a bit then skirted Birch Hollow upcanyon towards the first rap. Oh well.. we did get a nice view instead !!!!

We basically made our own way over to the first rap and had a bit of exitement just at the end.... the way we had chosen ( and apparently others as well) had us cross along the escarpment on a steep sandy slope for about 10 meters that dropped off sharply....ok..next time I won't be lazy...I'll walk an extra minute or two , backtrack a bit and go behind the bump ...one slip on that slope and you'de be gone !!!

Finally we added our own bootprints to the ones I had seen earlier that morning at the first rap and continued on up Birch Hollow to the car.

It took about 3 hrs for the return hike... a nice scenic hike !!