CRYSTAL CANYON 3CII, ARIZONA

April 27, 2021

Tucked away in a desolate desert deep in the southeast desert of Arizona is a short but nice canyon called Crystal canyon.

This little known canyon has two rappels and a couple of jumps.

We picked up permits from the reservation and headed out to go canyoneering in Crystal Canyon.

Once we got there, we headed down and entered into the stream where the polished rock started to take bend into the canyon itself.

We started into a couple slides and jumps and got to our first rappel.

We encountered our second rappel and soon after the canyon was over.

This went way too fast!!!

We worked our way back around to the start which only took around an hour to complete.

We started our hike back up in the heat and eventually made it back to the top.

once we got to the top, we found that the apache authorities were speaking to some of the team.

We were informed that crystal canyon is closed to rappelling and we were cited for the violation.

We were all surprised to see that we were issued permits for canyoneering as well as other recent groups in the past.

Some of these groups were even told where to park for their canyoneering trip.

Regardless, the canyon is closed and our team and the rest of the canyoneering community want to uphold the responsibility to honor and protect the rules of the apache and other tribes.

The canyoneering community is a honest and genuine group of people that ensure conservation and preservation for all landowners and their rules.

We will continue to work with the Apache to ensure that the flow of information will be known to all responsible canyoneers that crystal canyon is closed and to make no attempt to rappel in crystal canyon.

The Apache rangers mentioned that they want to keep everyone safe and make sure nobody hurts themselves in these places. We want to partner with the apache to push that message out to everyone