The South Fork of Maidenwater

[SRG]

So last weekend two buddies and I had a trip planned for the South Forks of Poison Spring Canyon... and then the forecast changed to rain, rain and more rain for the days leading up to our trip. Having heard rumors of muddy roads and muddier canyons, we changed plans and headed to the Trachyte/Swett Creek area for a few canyons... South Maidenwater was everyone's favorite.

Shane describes the narrows of South Maidenwater as treacherous and unyielding... while they definitely are sustained and unyielding, and for the wrong group could be perilous, we thought this canyon was pure fun. It should probably be called Playground-For-Adults Canyon.

We left the car around 11:00a. The approach hike was beautiful and route finding wasn't too much of an issue. We arrived at the 75ft rappel at the head of the canyon just over an hour from when we left the car. Everyone donned their 3/2 wetsuits and jumped right in... the fun begins immediately. This canyons has LOTS of downclimbs. All the downclimbs are wide ones and some are quite challenging... shorter people may need to rappel more often. Not all of the downclimbs were stemming, some of them required climbing moves like hand jams and chicken wings. Aside from the many downclimbs and chest deep wades, we encountered 3 rappels and 5 swims(no one was warm, but no one was too cold in our 3/2s). The three of us arrived back at our car around 4:15p.

If you plan to do South Maidenwater and not everyone in your group is proficient at wide downclimbs, I recommend bringing lots of webbing and quick-links and leaving plenty of time to complete the canyon.

Later that night there was a large (Hobo?)Spider on my knee and I almost shit myself. My buddy and I also took a pretty cool 360 degree panorama... I can't figure out how to embed the interactive .mov version it in this post, so I'll just post the jpeg.

All in all we didn't let the rain ruin our fun and it was a fantastic weekend!







-Sam

[Sandstone Addiction]

Very nice TR Sam! Thanks for sharing.

[SRG]

More pics..