South Canyon Route & Salt Trail Canyon

[joebartels]

I'm looking to do South Canyon Route and Salt Trail Canyon in the later half of September (separate trips). If you are interested in joining me on either PM me. Each would be a 3 day, 2 night trip. Any days are fine.

[te_wa]

ooooh, ahhhh. maybe.

[joebartels]

Salt Trail Canyon snagged up quick. "Possibly" room for one more, PM if seriously interested.

If I have to do South Canyon Route alone and die due to poor judgment there will be no more HAZ... get in there

[joebartels]

South Canyon is also now set. Room for 1-2 more if seriously interested and capable PM me.

[louie]

Is south canyon technical or am I getting this mixed up with big canyon. Any advice on what the LC flows should be at Cameron in order to be pretty confident the water will be blue instead of brown? Are their any other addtional perrenial flows that come into the little colorado beyond Cameron that could increase the volume before blue spring takes over?

Much thanks

[azbackpackr]

South Canyon isn't technical, it's just a pain in the kazoo. And it's nowhere near the LCR. Access is from House Rock Ranch area, on the way to the North Rim near Lees Ferry.

[joebartels]

Any advice on what the LC flows should be at Cameron in order to be pretty confident the water will be blue instead of brown?

You want the gauge at Cameron to be 2 feet (under a 100 cfm) or less for a week.

It's best to wait at least a full week after the last rains. After a few days it's gets a little blue but it's more like a chocolate blueberry fizzy.

Big Canyon can flash and flood the LCR without any flow through Cameron since it has a huge catch. Watch the forecast and pray.

[sam_hikes]

Big Canyon flashed in 2001 from a storm many miles off and 2 died below. ( 1 was Mancuso who was very well known )

http://www.eliasbutler.com/mancuso.htm

[louie]

The emerald pool of big canyon the author refers to...is that a warm spring? I thought I read somewhere there are warm springs in big canyon. I also read if one wants to travel down this canyon from the rim it is technical and involves substantial rappeling.

[joebartels]

Not sure on "warm" springs. From what I understand there is suppose to be fresh water instead of the calcium carbonate. However we found it just as repulsive. Big Canyon is technical for thru travel.

Mancuso was here http://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=106164
One of the chubb taggers ( Dennis? ) can tell you a nice story about George if you run into him.

[BobP]

Dennis has lots of good stories

[toddak]

The springs in the lower part of Big Canyon http://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=166002 are much warmer than you would expect, but I'd guess they are no more than 75 degrees F as they emerge. Its definitely technical rappelling to descend Big Canyon, and its ABSOLUTELY worth the effort to do so. South Canyon is nice, but not even close to the experience of Big Canyon.

[louie]

Thank you for all the helpful info Is it technical from the mouth of big canyon to emerald pool or the warm spring? About how far upstream is big canyon from where the salt trail meets the Little Colorado?

[cactuscat]

@toddak
I'm sold - where do I sign up?!

[toddak]

@cactuscat
Kind of tough in the winter and early spring with the short days and the higher likelihood of the LCR running brown with rain or snow melt. But April/May could be good. PM me sometime if you're serious, it's an incredible place for sure!

[toddak]

@louie
You can reach the Emerald Pool from below without technical gear.
From the bottom of Salt Trail upstream to the mouth of Big Canyon is about 0.5 miles.

[cactuscat]

@toddak
Will do - I'm definitely serious!

[louie]

@toddack and cactuscat

Planning on doing Big Canyon May 25th through the 28th. If I can figure out how to do it I'll post the event on this site. I'm a work in progress regarding my canyoneering skills. but am going with a pro and the more people who can join us with skills the more likely I'll get through this unharmed. My only concern is this is Memorial Day weekend and I'm not sure how popular this canyon will be that weekend and also watching the flows as I only want to do this if the water is running blue.

Back up plan would be to do a North Rim hike that weekend. Thunder River is pretty sweet!

[oceanwithin]

I'm doing Big/Salt as an overnighter in a few weekends... hoping the water is blue by then. Gonna be interesting packing in a ton of water since the water in both Big Canyon and the LCR are undrinkable. You probably don't need to worry about running into another group up there, I have heard of it happening though.

[louie]

So I'm being told this hike will be too hot the end of May, but also want to make sure the water is flowing blue and am guessing if I try to do this in April their will still be spring runoff making the water brown instead of blue. What do you guys think? I still think if I get a jump on big canyon going in and salt trail going out at the crack of dawn I'd be fine. I know it's hit and miss with the blue water, but would think end of May would be my best shot.

So I just realized I'm talking about Big Canyon when this thread was started as a conversation about south canyon. Sorry maybe I should have posted my big canyon canyoneering plan elsewhere. I get all this post/blog etiquette mixed up.