Birch Hollow down ordervile VS Ordervile Direct?

[canyonguru]

I am taking a scout troop up to zion for a few days in aug. we are doing Pine creek on Thursday as a quick warm up being that its short. Then on friday we are going down ordervile for a longer trip, Easy but longer. Should we skip the top section and just go down Birch Hollow being that we don't need permits. I have done it before and hiked out ordervile but i have not gone down ordervile after birch. How much time are we going to Save or Lose if we go down birch. We already have the equiptment for pine creek so just wondering if it is worth the time savings or the time lost to do Birch down Ordervile.

My troop is about half noobs and half experienced and we should have a small group of around 6 to 8 max i think.

Thanks for the help

[earwig654]

Birch would drop you about an hour down canyon. It takes 5 or 6 hours to do birch so you would be adding 4 to 5 hours on to your day. I think it would be worth it if it wasn't the weekend. Because like you said you don't need permits to do Birch it may be very crowded. Especially if you run into a large group. Ive seen groups of 20+ who wouldn't let me pass.

[hikster11]

Birch Hollow is great. I did Birch Hollow down Orderville out the Narrows in 10 hr.

[canyonguru]

Thanks for the help. I guess it will depend on our total group size and how my boys do in pine creek. we are taking the early ZAC shuttle up to ordervile at 630 so we might be ahead of a lot of groups just doing birch and out the top.

[Aj84737]

I would defiantly do birch to start it to add a little more excitement to the day. A lot of the people you run into in birch are with the guide company's and they are usually really good at letting people play through.

[canyonguru]

cool thanks

[Iceaxe]

Orderville by itself is a long day for most groups. With several noobs in the group I believe adding Birch will be too much. You will also have a large group which will compound your time problem. Pack headlamps because I'm pretty sure you are going to need them. Biting off more then they can chew is why we read about scout troops in the news.


Tap'n on my Galaxy G3

[nelsonccc]

Having just done Orderville a few weeks ago I can tell you that it's a long day and we only had 5 people in our group. But with traffic we ended up spending a lot of time in Orderville due to other groups taking so long at the downclimbs. If you have a big group and you run into others (which you will on the weekend) then it'll be a long day.

[mzamp]

If you have been down birch and up orderville then you should be able to determine the time hit you will take with the group you are bringing.

We did Birch down Orderville over Memorial weekend with 2 noobs, 1 intermediate, 5 total. It took us 9 hours TH to Shuttle, but we did get lucky of nobody being in front of us in Birch (YMMV). We took one break for lunch about 2 miles down Orderville. The time lost in Birch with the noobs was made up for with them being strong hikers in Orderville. Still Orderville will wear them out and then you still get the "joy" of the conga line you will run into in the narrows.

[Deathcricket]

yeah I think the advice about waiting to see how they do in Pine Creek is good. The top of orderville is not very interesting though. So if you can bypass it and add Birch Hollow it will be a more exciting and memorable trip. Orderville is also very very dry this year, not a lot of pools to play in.

So just pay close attention to the speed through pine creek and make a decision then I think. :)

[canyonguru]

Thanks all for the info. Bummer about orderville being dry, i put in for Subway but didn't have any luck this year. I got subway and Mystery last year. I really don't want to run into a bottle neck in orderville or Birch. i wait and see how they do in pine creek. My thought was to do pine creek later in the day around noon just after lunch. i know pine creek packs up quick in the morening.

Should we shoot for an early start or hope that pine creek dosen't get packed up in the afternoon. My group size is getting smaller we might only have 3 or 4 boys going so its going to be a smaller group.

[TommyBoy]

Right now PC is a very quick canyon since its almost bone dry. Granted we are experienced and were a small group, but my bro and I did it from top to the last rappel in 1.5 hrs and we weren't trying to hurry either.

[Iceaxe]

FWIW: We normally do Pine Creek car-to-car in 2 hours.... and I don't consider myself fast (just efficient). If you are not able to complete PC near something resembling that time you really shouldn't be adding Birch Hollow to Orderville.

And if you are getting stopped or slowed down by "bottlenecks" in Orderville you really don't know how to move fast and/or efficient. There should be no bottlenecks in Orderville if you know what you are doing.

YMMV

[canyonguru]

yeah i am not to worried about pine creek there have been a couple of times where i had to wait close to 2 hours at the first rap for the goups in front of us. I am hopeing that i will be tippy top full when we go we still have a month of monsoon weather before we get there. Ordervile i think we will just do from the top. will make for a more relaxing day.

I have never done pine creek full of water. i really would like too. I am acutually comeing up on the 26th of july and doing PC with a coulple of friends just to get out of HOT las vegas we will have to see what the canyon looks like then.

[tpax11]

So this is my first post on here. I'm kind of a creeper and usually just read other peoples' posts, but since I have some valuable experience in this field I thought I'd better share.

My wife and I did Birch and Orderville last fall with my friend and his wife. My friend and I are fairly proficient rock-climbers with a little experience canyoneering, and as I'd done Birch before I think we were fairly well-prepared. We got a fairly late start (sometime between 10 and 11) for various reasons, and when we got there all the webbing at the anchors were gone. We lost a lot of time setting up webbing at each rappel. On top of that, my friend's wife got some blisters and slowed us down CONSIDERABLY. Long story short, we didn't make it to the trailhead until 1am, and being that the buses had stopped running, we had to spend the night huddled together on the bathroom floor for warmth.


My advice would be to make sure you get an early start and make sure that everyone in your group is in good physical condition. I know that sounds fairly elementary, but it's a long hike, and it kinda sucks treading through a slot canyon around midnight.

Good luck!

[JBartlett]

I did Birch Hollow + Orderville + Narrows last week. With a small group of three adults, all of whom are very comfortable and efficient rappellers and all of whom are very physically fit, it took us 9 hours. I think we might have been able to do it in 8 if we didn't take photos and if it wasn't 100 degrees out; this time of year, the portion of Orderville between Birch Hollow and Engelstead sees quite a bit of direct, scorching sunlight at mid-day, and that slowed us down for sake of needing extra rest to cool off.

But let's do the math here, just on the distance alone, using a combination of Tom's excellent beta and drawing tracks in Garmin Basecamp:

Your approach hike for Birch, from the best parking spot along the North Fork Rd, is about 2.5 miles on easy terrain. Then you have the canyon itself, which is going to be something like another 0.5 miles (except it has 7-8 rappels IIRC). Then you have a 2.0 mile hot, dry slog to the "first obstacle" and the park boundary. Then it's another 3.5 to the Orderville/Narrows junction, which of course includes two short rappels and several waterfall downclimbs; after that, it's another 2.5 or so to the Temple of Sinawava shuttle that will be waiting for you if you can get there before 10:15 PM local time.

If you're playing along at home, that's just about 11 miles, and only the approach (and sidewalk near the Temple) on any kind of trail or road. That's also 10 different places you have to rig a rope, get a half dozen boy scouts -- 50% of whom are "noobs" -- down the rope, then derig it. You'll also likely need to rig a couple of downclimbs that come before the first 100-footer in Birch, being a scout group. Speaking of 100-footers, several of those rappels are a good distance, just like the exit rappel for Pine Creek, and that's going to chew up time.

My point? You're nuts. Heaven help you if one of the boys is a slow rappeller, develops a blister, gets tired, struggles with downclimbs, twists an ankle, etc etc etc. Tom's book says "3 to 5 hours" to Orderville, and scout groups almost always fall at the tail end of those spectrums -- then all you need to do is hike 8 rugged, off-trail miles, half of which is in cold water. How long does it take your boys to hike 8 miles on a well-maintained trail with dry feet and no awkward climbs? Whatever that number is, double it.

If you want to do Birch Hollow with your Scouts, hike back up Orderville when you're done and call it a day. Heck, you don't even need the Orderville permit for that. It's a beautiful canyon, beginner-friendly and no one will feel cheated.

Biting off more then they can chew is why we read about scout troops in the news.

^ what he said.

[ratagonia]

I did Birch Hollow + Orderville + Narrows last week. With a small group of three adults, all of whom are very comfortable and efficient rappellers and all of whom are very physically fit, it took us 9 hours. I think we might have been able to do it in 8 if we didn't take photos and if it wasn't 100 degrees out; this time of year, the portion of Orderville between Birch Hollow and Engelstead sees quite a bit of direct, scorching sunlight at mid-day, and that slowed us down for sake of needing extra rest to cool off.

But let's do the math here, just on the distance alone, using a combination of Tom's excellent beta and drawing tracks in Garmin Basecamp:

Your approach hike for Birch, from the best parking spot along the North Fork Rd, is about 2.5 miles on easy terrain. Then you have the canyon itself, which is going to be something like another 0.5 miles (except it has 7-8 rappels IIRC). Then you have a 2.0 mile hot, dry slog to the "first obstacle" and the park boundary. Then it's another 3.5 to the Orderville/Narrows junction, which of course includes two short rappels and several waterfall downclimbs; after that, it's another 2.5 or so to the Temple of Sinawava shuttle that will be waiting for you if you can get there before 10:15 PM local time.

If you're playing along at home, that's just about 11 miles, and only the approach (and sidewalk near the Temple) on any kind of trail or road. That's also 10 different places you have to rig a rope, get a half dozen boy scouts -- 50% of whom are "noobs" -- down the rope, then derig it. You'll also likely need to rig a couple of downclimbs that come before the first 100-footer in Birch, being a scout group. Speaking of 100-footers, several of those rappels are a good distance, just like the exit rappel for Pine Creek, and that's going to chew up time.

My point? You're nuts. Heaven help you if one of the boys is a slow rappeller, develops a blister, gets tired, struggles with downclimbs, twists an ankle, etc etc etc. Tom's book says "3 to 5 hours" to Orderville, and scout groups almost always fall at the tail end of those spectrums -- then all you need to do is hike 8 rugged, off-trail miles, half of which is in cold water. How long does it take your boys to hike 8 miles on a well-maintained trail with dry feet and no awkward climbs? Whatever that number is, double it.

If you want to do Birch Hollow with your Scouts, hike back up Orderville when you're done and call it a day. Heck, you don't even need the Orderville permit for that. It's a beautiful canyon, beginner-friendly and no one will feel cheated.

^ what he said.

[canyonguru]

i have already decided to just do ordervile pretty much when i started this thread but thos are all great points. I did think that birch would be a little much to handle. My group is started in dwindle down to just one boy who has commited and a bunch of over eager leaders who need a vacation.

On a side note and to be discused somewere else. Being so involved in the LDS scouting program it has become very disapointing to me how many dead beat parents there are out there. We as youth group and scout leaders sacrafice a lot of time, money and effort to help raise a generation of kids that will actually give back to scociety, but there freaking lazy ass parents cant even drop them off on activity nights, suply there kids with proper gear, plan for anything, and just overal let someone else raise there kids. We did a cooking night once and all but one of my boys had never even cracked a freakin EGG before. Just plane nuts..........Sorry to rant......I have thunder ridge scout camp monday and a lot of work has gone into it, with no work or support for the parents. SAD!!!!!