Birch Creek, What's happening?

Hello Ya'll,

When it comes to Zion canyons, there's often quite a lot of publicity when it comes condition reports. Finding beta for most canyons in Zion is also not too difficult when it comes to CUSA, BluuGnome, Ropewiki and Facebook. However, with that said, Birch Creek appears to be elusive. One can only find information about it through historical text (pre-2012 haha).

Is the canyon itself closed to access? And if not, why isn't anyone talking about it?

From what I can gather by the spare information, is that the canyon itself is "meh" by Zion standards and particularly hard to get too.

I just find it funny that such a large drainage has no information about it.

Maybe someone here can give me insight to a canyon that seems even more elusive than the Stinger or the South Guardian Angel Canyon.

Thank you!

The canyon was done by Brian Cabe, a regular poster on CC. He did it with Kip Marshall in 2001 I believe. He wrote a great trip report. I will see if I can find it. We went to do it several years back, but decided not to commit due to a scary sky and a forecast of rain. I saw their pictures and it looked great. They found it dry-ish that year, but that was a drought year. Last I heard, Church Mesa, which is climbed on the approach is now closed as an RNA (https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/rmrs/rnas/usingrna).
Here is the TR
http://canyoncollective.com/threads/birch-creek-descent-10th-anniversary.15295/#post-58877
and
https://www.math.utah.edu/~sfolias/canyontales/tale/?i=birchcreek

I have heard about the Church Mesa closure. I was just wondering if the National Park Service has fully closed down the canyon. Looking at topos, google earth and other beta, it seems like it may be doable with a some trad gear. However, it would be an adventure to say the least. It also may be more work then what its worth. Lugging around trad gear and a dynamic rope sounds less then enjoyable, then again that's half the fun!

There's a non-technical way in there that avoids Church, but boy is it an earner...

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10227314509143695&set=pcb.2804531409690243

Wow, looks like a lot of fun. Perhaps a lot of type 2 fun.