Change Creek

August 8, 2021

Home»Blog»Change Creek

This is day four of my PNW Intro to swift water canyoneering course with Get In The Wild. Take a look at my Day One and Two and Day Three blog posts.

View canyon rating for Change Creek

Building on all the things we had learned up to this point in time, today we were almost exclusively in Change Creek.

Side note: since the PNW had been in a prolonged drought combined with the fact that it rained quite a bit the day before, our lead instructor spent a very long time going over and over the potential for rockfalls and mudslides in the canyon. Consequently we entered the canyon shortly before the biggest rappel and skipped the upper section.

My one experience with rockfall is detailed in my Mystery Canyon blog post. Rockfalls are rarely talked about in canyoneering because they are so rare and once one happens there's almost no time to react. Someday I'll write an article on it.

Most of us being lazy while the instructors set up the rappel

1/11: Rappelling the big waterfall was the highlight of the trip - water running splashing everywhere and having to focus so I could breathe, several overhung lips so I had to be meticulous with my footwork and I couldn't see where they would go because of the waterfall, multiple stages so I could stop and have the "I'm really doing this!" moment. I was so excited when I got to the bottom of that rappel that I yelled, "THIS MOMENT IS WHY I CAME HERE!". Photo credit: Jessie Coffey.

I had so much fun on this trip and can't wait to get back there!

The crew - Ben, Clark, Jess, Will, Jared, Sadegh, and Chris

View all images

Previous Page: BlogNext Page: Hall Creek