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| Canyoneering | 6.00 Miles |
2,400 AEG |
| | Canyoneering | 6.00 Miles | 8 Hrs | | 0.75 mph |
| 2,400 ft AEG | | | | |
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| | Intermediate Canyoneering - Difficult or dangerous; Tech Climb; rope reqd; descent anchor; exit technical; | | B - Up to light current; wading/swimming; possible wet/dry suit | | Risky - Extraordinary risk factors exist; solid skills/judgement reqd; no beginners | | III - Normally requires most of a day |
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| Partners |
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[ show ]
| partners | | AKA Park Creek Falls in the hiking community.
Well a climbing trip fell thru when a partner got sick, so Michael & I fell back on this canyon as a backup. After doing Parker Canyon, we'd been talking about the flow of snow runoff down this equally amazing canyon across the lake. Susan's plans fell thru also, so she was a last minute addition than morning. Gotta love the fluidness of canyoneering! 
With 200ft ropes & full wetsuits, we slogged up the Park trail passing a hunter with a recent kill of a beautiful bobcat.  The views of Tonto Basin were amazing, but we were so glad to be done climbing up the mountainside and dropping into the lightly flowing canyon.  Geared up, rock hopped a bit downstream, and made the first 40ft drop. A little further downstream is the amazingly HUGE ~250ft waterfall.  The creek oddly went underground here and came out a crack in the wall about 100ft from the bottom. This is a mulit-stage rappel and the first drop is about 150ft down that slick angled chute and then head to a midway ledge on the right (looking up canyon). Once all down on the ledge, we pulled the ropes while soaking in this super sweet waterfall & rigged the anchors for another ~100ft drop into the hallway below. From this amazing waterfall, we again pulled the ropes, and made another 20ft drop into a chilly swimmer. Wow, that was flipping amazing! A little further downstream, we hit a second huge multi-stage drop past a series of falls & cascades. It starts off with a 40ft drop past a huge chockstone to the top of the main falls, but we rappelled 100ft into a dry grotto on the rightside. That put us down to a ledge with a few options, but the quickest way is to down climb the slick flowing chute and wade another chilly pool. That was the end of the rappels, but we left the gear on until we knew we were done with the cold pools. Loads of rock hopping, some more down climbing, and a few pools to try and avoid as we continued down canyon until we felt confident enough to drop the gear and put on some dry clothes.  The canyon slowly opened up and eventually we popped out of the mountains and into the flat Tonto Basin where we got out of the rocky canyon and bushwhacked back to the TH. 
Such a great short & sweet canyon that I'm glad to have come back and caught when it was flowing on this relatively dry winter (so far). |
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Autumn Foliage Observation Moderate
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| Yea, canyoneering is an extreme sport... EXTREMELY dramatic!!! =p |
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