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| John Cantrall descending the first drop in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
After Fat mans Misery, Andy and I headed over to the campsite where we would be based out of to prepare for a seldom visited canyon called walker gulch.
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| Alexa, John, and Andy in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
Walker Gulch is rated as a 3AII and is connects in with Orderville gulch. This canyon is technically not within the park so no permits are needed to visit.
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| John Cantrall descending the first drop in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
The canyon is rated as a 3BIII due to the hike from the top of orderville but the road has recently been improved
and now all wheel high clearance Subaru type cars can make it to the bottom and shave of 4.4 miles of total hiking.
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| John Cantrall descending the first drop in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
That is pretty huge considering the canyon itself and the hot day that we encountered. We planned a trip with Alexa Simmons and John Cantrall from Virginia to start off their trip at walker gulch.
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| Alexa Simmons and John Cantrall in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
We loaded up Andy's car and headed down the road to the trail head where we worked our way over to a wash and up to the top where we intersected another road.
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| Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
We hiked through a dead forest that was scared by a forest fire and followed a 4x4 road around the shelf to the head of walker gulch.
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| Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
On our approach we encountered a couple snakes, one was a diamond back that was a bit surprised to see us. They were sunning themselves since it was cold the other night.
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| Alexa, Andy, and John climb over large logs in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
Once we got to the entrance and saw water pouring over the edge of a cliff but we soon realized that we have to bypass this cliff and work our way down a scree slope into the canyon.
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| Alexa Simmons descending the first rap in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
We make our way down and found ourselves walking through a bit of water and some quick sand. it was a little mysterious as the beta mentions that this is a bone dry canyon. later we found that the water seeped back underground and we were on dry bedding.
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| Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
Soon after we can to a sand stone contact and the impressive first rap into Walker Gulch.
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| John Cantrall in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
The first drop is a 150ft. wall drop into the canyon. The canyon itself had a beautiful view from the top and was impressive to see.
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| baby Owl in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
We rigged from a side tree and took turns rapping down to the bottom with no issues.
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| Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
This was John and Alexa's first canyon so this was a great place to start things off. There were a couple more small drops that we encountered and some downclimbing sections through short and narrow corridors.
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| Alexa and Andy in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
The first section was short lived but impressive, than the canyon opens up a bit with some sections of Forest.
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| Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
The entire canyon is bone dry.
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| Alexa and John in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
We also encountered a small baby owl in the canyon which was a first for me. The owl seemed to be healthy but was flying around a bit because we were walking by so we tried to go around the owl as quietly as possible.
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| top of Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
We kept going through the canyon and eventually we intersected with Orderville gulch and the canyon was over.
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| Andy in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
Walker Gulch is a great canyon for beginners and a great place to find peace and solitude, nobody is around and out there. That being said, make sure you have a call out in case something happens.
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| John, Alexa, and Andy in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
We took a break at the confluence and started to head out of the canyon. we passed by Birch Hollow which is another technical canyon in the area.
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| Birch Hollow canyon |
I wonder if there is a way to make a loop trip out of birch hollow from the same trailhead.
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| Andy and John in Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
After topping out orderville gulch we got to the car and started our way up the dirt road which the Subaru did great in!! If it rained than we would be stuck there but we made it up and headed out to dinner.
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| Andy Orr descending Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
What a great weekend with friends and new canyons to check out. I do recommend this one if you are in the remote area and want to check out something off the beaten path.
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| The top of Walker Gulch. Zion National Park, Utah. |
MORE PHOTOS HERE: https://www.flickr.com/photos/exploration-worldwide/albums/72157682220357582
