Porcupine Creek, Colorado

I was on a Colorado trip in July. I was solo and picked canyons that could be escaped. Porcupine Creek was first on the list. Porcupine Creek is rated at a three star. I always ignore the star ratings. I often find that the three stars are more like five star ratings for myself. I descend into canyons to see the beauty and tend not to focus on the rappels. With Porcupine Creek, I knew that I was going to get both. The area was magical with storms coming in. I also knew that the descent would be challenging. The last descent was back in 2014 during the initial first descent. Going down class C solo is on the more extreme side of canyoneering. I camped at the trail head in altitude. That night, I threw up from altitude sickness. The next day, I listened to my instincts and decided to probe the canyon to see how the afternoon storms would affect the water flow. The probe exposed a Garden of Eden with other creeks flowing in the area. Here is a timelapse of one of the beautiful unknown waterfalls.


The plant life was amazing. The storm came in and it was incredible walking through the forest in a rain storm. The flows looked great for the next morning.

I started early in the morning. I was feeling a little better with acclimation of the altitude. The views were incredible. There is a moderate approach that takes you through the forest; arriving up above timberline. The drop in is 11,000 plus feet.
The water temperature was freezing. The rappels were fun. Every anchor that I could find, the webbing was rotten. I could tell that the canyon has not been descended since the original first descent. This was most likely the second descent and I was solo. It provided an additional challenge to the canyon. To save time, I rigged
retrievables where no anchor material was found. I rebuilt all the anchors that I could find and removed all old webbing from the canyon.

Here is a video of that incredible day in the canyon: