Anyone been down Barney Spring Canyon lately?

[pinjonjuniper]

Howdy,
Wondering if anybody has been down Barney Spring Canyon lately. With such a dry spring and June I doubt there is much water in it and maybe the keeper is dry. Gonna give it a go on Sunday July 15th if the monsoons aren't building too quickly in the day.
Thanks!

[jman]

Is this canyon also called "Illusions Canyon" by chance?

[pinjonjuniper]

Not sure. I heard it used to be one of those "secret" canyons off the Mogollon Rim until it was released in Todd and Tyler's guidebooks. No mention of any other name in those books I don't think. It's a 4B R IV tributary of the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon near Flag and Sedona.

[MrAdam]

Is this canyon also called "Illusions Canyon" by chance?

Nope, Illusions and Insomnia are in the same area as Barney Spring though.

[zul]

Nope, Illusions and Insomnia are in the same area as Barney Spring though.

My group was pretty disappointed w Barney last year. Lots of difficult starts off of chock stones. Not much slot, lots of square edges. The keeper is almost always in keeper mode w some low water in it. The keeper is anti-climactic, it's called "sneak a peak" and won't spoil your escape plan any further than that.

Great rain yesterday w more in the forecast for today. We are taking a brake and enjoying the rain. The mosses have exploded to life in these area canyons ===> Preeeeety.

[pinjonjuniper]

So, went down Barney Spring last Sunday with an interesting weather forecast: 50% chance of heavy rain/thunderstorms. Hiking up to the rim that morning, we decided either way, we'd go up and have a look, with no expectations of a descent. The major gloom/doom was hovering over Sycamore Canyon to the west as we rimmed out and started to get rained on as we found the subtle main fork drainage of Barney. The day before, it had DUMPED all day from Prescott to Flag and as we descended we looked for signs of recent flooding. No new pools. No flowing water. So far so good. The rim country that drains into this canyon is fairly small and contains that thick pondo duff that doesn't flush water too quickly. Also, for the majority of Barney, there are possible escape routes/safe spots. So we went for it. There are no PONR's til you get into the real narrows of it. Apparently, the canyon hadn't seen any flow since maybe April. There were only three mandatory swims including the keeper (more on that later). Wetsuits for sure! That water doesn't see much daylight. At the top of the 100' rappel, we cleaned up the single bolt/log back up to put the forces more inline with the hanger. Oh, btw, I realized in the canyon that my camera had met it's bitter end. Probably from packtossing with the camera in the pack in Monkey Business (dumbass move). Those 'tough' cameras aren't so indestructible. So sorry for no photos on the post. By the time we got to the meat of the canyon, the sky was clear and beautiful. Got lucky on the weather. The keeper was definitely that, requiring a one hook beached whale. Someone had left a single webbing strand dangling into the keeper from the bolts for the next rappel. Each of the three of us wanted to practice hooking out and we subsequently removed the offending piece of webbing. We did the whole loop with no car shuttle in 13 hours. It was a fun canyon with some cool challenges, many awkward rappel starts, and that big day feel w/o that car shuttle. West fork of Oak Creek was a nice finish hike with thoughts of IPA's and a (hopefully) easy 2 mile hitch back to the truck. One of those I'd do again, for sure. Cheers y'all.

[ratagonia]

Good on ya, way to sneak one in.

Tom