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| Canyoneering | 1.80 Miles |
523 AEG |
| | Canyoneering | 1.80 Miles | 2 Hrs 45 Mns | | 0.65 mph |
| 523 ft AEG | | | | |
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| | Intermediate Canyoneering - Difficult or dangerous; Tech Climb; rope reqd; descent anchor; exit technical; | | C - Strong current; wading/swimming; waterfalls; possible wet/dry suit | | II - Normally requires a half day |
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| no partners | | Thunderstorms had moved into Phoenix Thursday night and it rained all day Friday and into early Saturday morning. As we drove to Tortilla Flat early Saturday morning, we could see the snow capped peaks of Four Peaks. We knew that Headdress would be full of water and it was likely that all three rappels would be waterfalls. We were right.
Seven of us parked at the overflow parking lot just east of Tortilla Flat at about 8:30 AM. We hiked west up the paved road about a quarter mile until we came up on the chain link fence on the side of the road. At this point, we started climbing south up the hill to the first small ridge. There's a use trail that starts at a small white National forest sign and it ends at the top of this small ridge. We started southwest along the ridge and then dropped into the drainage. We cross the drainage and continued climbing due south. A few groups I know of started climbing up towards the peak to the southwest. You do not need to climb up and to the west. The canyon begins due south of where you started on the use trail. The climb is only 500 ft.
Once we crossed this first major drainage, we continue south careful not to drop in too early. We made sure we circled around to the west of a large rock formation on our left (formation is a couple hundred feet high). We dropped in at this point.
The first rappel was 30 ft and it was a waterfall due to the recent rains. We put on our wet suits and rappelled into the water below. It was a swimmer. The second rappel is 15 ft down a waterfall and it was a swimmer, as well. We could have bypassed this rappel on LDC, but why. It's a waterfall rappel. The third and final rappel is right on top of the second rappel. It was also a raging waterfall however we were still able to climb down under the boulder to reach the start of the rappel. The alcove below was full of water, but you didn't need to rappel into the water. We rappelled to the ledge above it and down climbed. When we were there three weeks earlier, the alcove was dry.
Once we finished the last rappel we spent the next 25 minutes rock hopping down the creek to the road. There were a number of pools of water as we worked our way down the creek.
We finished in about 2 hrs 45 min. It was a great day to be in the Supes. |
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