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| mike lead slinger green in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
The massive grand canyon not only has a massive vertical filter that leave all but the most committing of visitors to enter, the mystery and sheer beauty of this place is unlike anywhere else on the planet and continues to gravitate me back for more.
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| morning rise in Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Our initial plan was to visit 150 mile canyon and complete the grand loop of matkat, panameta, and olo canyons but due to the rains, we opted out of that plan and got last minute permits to middle deer canyon and the campsites toward the river.
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| Mike Green looking over the Tributaries to Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
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| first rap in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
We set out on the kaibab roads to the monument point / Bill Hall trail head.
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| Second rap in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
The roads were in fantastic shape, even after
rain storms! I was really impressed that the roads were so good.
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| Shirley modeling for the camera in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
We got a decent start and the skies were relatively clear. Weather predicted a 20 percent chance of rain so we decided to assess the situation once we got to the tail of the canyon.
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| working our way down the flash water in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
We made our way down the steep trail to the esplanade which was around a decent of 1750ft.
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| middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
We started at around 7200ft and would descend down to around 2450ft of elevation.
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| getting work done in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Continuing on the esplanade, we can in contact with the Thunder Spring trail and followed that to the tail of Middle Deer Creek Canyon.
After a ridiculous amount of analyzing and planning I decided that we should get Middle Deer complete instead of west deer since it had the most reward and I was figuring the team might not want to do another loop back down and run two canyons in a weekend.
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| Yannick the french connection in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Once we got to the tail of Middle Deer I inspected the damage that occurred when the recent rains came through and it appeared that not a lot of water came thought.
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| Yannick about to jump into middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Going down the canyon I noticed that the water did get higher from other in feeders coming into the canyon and knowing that middle deer has some long narrows, we estimated that we will be fine and our risk thresholds were not met.
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| Angela the official in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
disclaimer: use this information for entertainment and story line experiences of our group only, this information is not to be used to make decisions for your trip. please go to www.ropewiki.com or utilize the grand canyoneering book by Todd martin for more information.
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| fancy James in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
We encountered the first rap and it was around 70ft into a small grotto of sorts.
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| middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Boulder hopping down for another 30 minutes we encountered a couple more raps and opted to put our wetsuits on as it appeared the the canyon was starting to get narrow.
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| the hallway in middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
nope!! the canyon opened back up again and we were boulder hopping for a couple hours
in open sun conditions with our wet suits on, thinking that the canyon would close back up. not so much!!
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| middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Eventually, we stopped for some lunch and doubt started to spread within the group. I went to revisit the GPS and confirmed that we are indeed in the right canyon.
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| middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
We continued on and eventually came up to where the water cut into the redwall, we finally made it!
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| large bounders in Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
The walls narrowed and the signature grand canyon red varnished white/cream colored walls appears and slowly rose as we descended deeper into the narrow canyon.
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| out of the technical portion middle Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
The potholes were all filled to the brim as an indicator that recent floods came through here and caused quite the "stir" in the canyon.
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| a down climb in Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
We had a total of around 8 raps ups to 70-80 ft in length and a few down climbs to negotiate.
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| boulder hopping into the night in Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
The walls were narrow and at times, the canyon became somewhat cavernous in nature.
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| lower Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
We were in these beautiful corridors for around 2 hours until the clouds rolled in and it started to drizzle a bit!.
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| Lower Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Thankfully we were right at the end of the technical part of the canyon and with just a few more raps we were able to get out of trouble if trouble showed up.
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| Lower Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
No flashes and the rain stopped. It stayed cloudy for the remainder of the day
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| Lower Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
After changing back to hiking, we proceeded down canyon which felt like a very long time for the team. We were hiking into the night! We down climbed on the left right after leaving the technical portion and boulder hopped all they way into the night to the spring.
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| colorado river Lower Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Everyone ran out of water right as we got to the beautiful deer creek spring. We filled up water and confusion set in again as to what we needed to do. We had an option to camp close to where we were but after discussion we continued down river to catch the deer creek trail and eventually made it to the campsite.
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| Lower Deer Creek Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park |
Finally we made it!! we set up camp ate and all went to sleep from a 12 hour day in the canyon. The following day we decided to head down to the river and go through lower deer creek canyon. unfortunately the technical portion of lower deer is closed but we used the hiking trail and made it to the last ridge of the river. I stayed up with mike as everyone else headed to the river. The views were amazing.
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| hiking out of the thunder spring trail |
We headed back out and started our hike up the thunder spring trail. We passed by deer creek cave
and had a look at that before continuing up the trail. Once we got to the top of surprise valley, we realized that there was no water, anywhere!! Surprise!!!
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| Surprise valley |
We hiked up another 1500-1700ft to the esplanade and decided to camp here around some pools of water.
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| esplanade sunset |
The conditions were indeed cooler and the temps dropped to around 38 at night but the sunsets were amazing! The following day we hiked out in about 2 1/2 hours and enjoyed a cheer to another grand canyoneering accomplishment.
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| Deer Creek Canyon tributaries. |
