Water Canyon 7-23-2011

[Deathcricket]

First trip through Water Canyon, thought I would report on it. :)

Ok Water Canyon is frigging cool! I really enjoyed my trip through it. It has about 9-10 raps, a couple way over 100 feet. A couple that free hang drops and it's gorgeous! So we started out driving up there, it's by CO city plig's town. Really interesting drive. They are a huge fan of having large fences I noticed a lot of unfinished houses. The dirt road is really crappy towards the end and good luck getting up there without a high clearance vehicle. We started hiking the trail and it's immediately really cool. There is an arch up on the mountain, some berry bushes filled with fruit, ferns, cactus, the whole nine yards. Then the it slots up very nicely and a very steep incline up this gnarly hill. Then it levels out and another gnarly hill. Was out of breath the whole way up and good thing we started out early because it would have been exposed sun otherwise. I would guess about an hour and a half total time to reach the top.

Then you do a short walk down the other side of the hill to reach the canyon, there are some really neat potholes to explore and it's worthwhile to keep walking upstream to check them out. At least for me, huge fan of potholes and interesting rock formations. Whole river was dried up after about 1/4 mile in so just barely enough water to support the polywogs population and some frogs. Soon enough we came to the first rap. It felt about 150-170 feet. Very easy gradual slope, I'm sure more adventurous people could even downclimb it. Very nice and smooth though. Then there are some more cool downclimbs which we tried stemming to avoid potholes with nasty water in them. Fun was had all around. We even tried using Tom's famous meat anchor to a guided belay, seemed to work just fine and LOL's were had all around.

Another pretty cool feature of this canyon is there are pretty much no penalty points. The trail you walked up before is always close by, so if a group wanted to bypass any portion, then could conceivably just get back on the trail they used to go up and walk that portion down. We saw a guided tours bypass a couple spots they didn't feel comfortable with having older people in the group.

Then about half way down you come to a huge 170ish foot rap. Nice and steep with water at the bottom. The bolts are also pretty far back making a possible bad rope pull due to the big grooves worn in the rocks. We got through ok but it's something to watch out for, for sure. After that it got super narrow and was quite the challenge for my fat ass to fit through. Also there were ants living in all the wedged logs making it even more fun. The first person through stirred them up nicely making each person after making them more and more infuriated. Then you get some nice little pools with mass amount of polywogs in them. I couldn't resist taking a swim with my GoPro and trying to get some footage, haha.

One of the lasts drops is probably the best in the canyon. It's a nice 150ish crack maybe about 10-4 feet across in places, to a free drop about 30 feet, and ends with a nice stemming disconnect to a short 5 foot swim out. Really gorgeous and had a blast. I can just imagine the canyon would be a lot better flowing. Rapping down waterfalls is like my favorite thing ever. But even dry it was a really fun, gorgeous canyon with nothing but good memories. I shall put this one high on my list should the Zion gawd-awful permit system ever fail us again, instead of just poaching a random canyon.

One last point of interest, at the last pond we some some polygamists swimming. Did you know they swim in all their clothes, jeans and a long sleeve shirt? Interesting culture for sure.


Remember to tie your shoelaces peoples! I was stuck here for hours waiting for rescue. Look how red my face is!




I know people are bored of the first person raps, so I just toss one up:P


First downclimb



We set up a water bypass for lol's



Full body stemming action!



Fat guy stuck in a little crack! Me going through the narrow section.



And of course what trip is not complete without filming some polywogs.

[uintahiker]

Nice! Looks pretty sweet!

[tcott]

You should try this one in early spring. If you catch it at the right time water is flowing through the whole canyon. We went a little too early this year and transitioned from ice falls at the top to waterfalls at the bottom. When it's flowing the last big rap starts above a waterfall and drops you right through it.

[oldno7]

Nice TR DC, good to see you "hangin'" around the canyons.............

[Jaxx]

Nice footage of the polywogs! I felt like I was watching National Geographic. Canyon looks awesome.

[Deathcricket]

Thanks guys! We had a blast.

@oldno7 - you know I don't see many people rapping aussie style on here. That needs to change I think :P

[oldno7]

Thanks guys! We had a blast.

@oldno7 - you know I don't see many people rapping aussie style on here. That needs to change I think :P

I've been doing it a lot this year. I like shooting my AA12 as I'm going down...

[Pelon1]

I've been doing it a lot this year. I like shooting my AA12 as I'm going down...

Sweeeet

[dustinsc]

Looks like Brandon good benefit from some stickier shoes

[Deathcricket]

Looks like Brandon good benefit from some stickier shoes

Hehehe! Those Nike's he was wearing left such a cool footprint though. Fair trade off I think.

[Sombeech]

Nice work

[Krrristi]

Awesome videos! The little frogs were SO CUTE!!!! Way cool you got a video of them!

[shagdeuce]

I'm thinking of doing Water Canyon this weekend. What is the dirt road like? Is an Accord going to make it?

[Deathcricket]

I would say no..... But I did see a couple passenger cars at the trailhead, so yes it is possible. Just not with my skill set

[shagdeuce]

Sounds good. Thanks for the reply.

[erial]

I've been back to the TH a couple times: When the road was dry i was able to make it easily in a rental car and when it was mud I walked the 1.5 miles.