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| Hiking | 6.50 Miles |
1,932 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.50 Miles | | | |
| 1,932 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Middle Copper Mountain Points Canyon > Point 4 > Point 2 > Point 3
naming ref: [ photo ]
Well, I wasn't expecting much from this canyon and was still left dissapointed. It worked and the majority of our time was spent up on the points, which still worked out great!
We decided to just take greenback creek from where FR236A washed out to avoid bushbashing. Both forks had light flowing water and were easy walking until the middle fork drainage. It was smaller, mostly dry (a handful of smaller pools), but not too rough. Only one real point of interest, an all too short section of purple slickrock, but whatever. Maybe it'd make a nice non-technical approach from FR236A to the points. Around 5150ft it became overgrown - we'd hop out to the N side of the canyon, drop back in, rinse and repeat. Not much fun at all. Around two hundred feet later the northern side opened up, though the creek itself alternated between mediocre slickrock and thick bushes. Around 5,400ft there was a really cool set of chonky cascades, but you're better off just dropping into that from the top if you're up there vs going all the way up.
All of the point traverses are easy and pretty open - we first went along point 4 to scope out the lower canyon (looked promising with a lower section that looked like open trees, it opened up to an area with some pools, then after closed up a bit but still had some gaps in the canopy to the fork. Came across what seemed to be a very old road (doesn't show up on any maps) along the eastern rim of point 4, intriguing but it wasn't going our way.
Copper Mtn Points tank was full of gross water (some rainbow banding on the ice in it using polarized glasses) - some hunters left camo shelters in disrepair. We dragged the lower one back up to the upper beneath a tree less than a hundred feet from water and piled up some other trash there. The "un-sporting" tree stand was still there, a bit worse for the wear and padlocked heh.
Hopped over to point 2 and checked out the rim of the south fork of the upper canyon and pointed out the drop point, enjoyed that area again, then walked around the rim of the north fork of the upper canyon. AMAZING views down, and really neat to see things from a different perspective - lots of great view points with no inches from the edge fear, though people could get closer than we went if they felt inclined.
Some old really weird cairns there in seemingly random non-navigation centric places. At first I thought they were marking drops to abritrary viewpoints, but after a while noticed one had quartz chips around it, and another had a small pick and shovel tilings right below it. We also encountered a modest mining prospect not on USGS.
Finally we walked around point 3, enjoying a view of both forks of the upper canyon along the side and greenback valley from the tip, and dropped down the spot we had eyed earlier in the day. It was steep but pretty straightforward, and we again found a giant cairn. As it led into a bushy gully we opted to ignore it and just read the terrain out.
Back at camp we campfire cooked up more of those discount top sirloin fillets (grabbed more the last day they were on sale before the trip) and heated up some beans on the marine stove - a filling meal for the lower canyon trip coming up the next day! |
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Copper Mountain Points Tank |
76-100% full |
76-100% full |
| | | Rather brown water and some rainbow banding on ice when looking through polarized lenses. Hunter trash in the area to be packed out. | | | |
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