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| Canyoneering | 10.00 Miles |
3,200 AEG |
| | Canyoneering | 10.00 Miles | 11 Hrs | | 0.91 mph |
| 3,200 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | A long day through this very seldom-traveled Mazatzal canyon. The approach was a pleasant several miles up the Y-Bar trail, eventually cutting over and down into Y-Bar canyon. The canyon itself is gorgeous and drops sharply with some really awesome long waterfall tiers to rappel down. There was enough flow to be fun plus a couple of frigid pools to swim through, and there was a crazy strong wind that had all of us pretty cold at times despite wetsuits and the sunny weather. Found some anchors intact but had to set new ones on several drops where they were completely missing.
And then, the exit. It's long, tiring and... long. After the last rappel there's 2 miles of boulder-hopping, which is pretty slow going with all the pools and dead fall to navigate. Beyond this is another section of narrows that require rappelling, but by that point it was too late in the day so we climbed up and around to bypass. We stayed high for awhile, hiking through wildflowers and eventually navigating back down to the creek so that we could find the Deer Creek trail. This section is extremely overgrown with thickets of catsclaw, so it was easier to just stay in the creek instead of attempting to thrash along the "trail" that was designated with tree branch markers. Eventually we saw a real trail cutting up off the side of the creek, and we were all happy to see that this part of Deer Creek trail was very nicely maintained. Once on here we picked up the pace and made it back to the car we staged at Deer Creek TH just as darkness was setting in.
There's a reason why this one doesn't get done very often (the exit) but it's worth it if you done all the other Mazzy canyons in the area. As always, a great trip with wonderful people. |
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