Englestead Hollow

A sudden, impressive, series of drops to the canyon bottom followed by a succession of rappels and winding narrows. Eventually joining with Orderville.

Englestead has a few options to choose from when descending

The canyon drops abruptly. The first anchor is a tree LDC near a small corner about 50+ feet from the head of the canyon; follow the trail slightly away from the cliff edge, then back to the edge. You can walk RDC a little and get a pretty good view of the first rappel including the mid-wall rappel station 90' below, under a block of rock. There often is webbing on a tree close to the canyon head, but the pull on this station can be a problem and there is no intermediate station so a 300 foot rope is required. Another option is to rappel down the center of the watercourse which is 250' from one of a couple of trees 15-20' back from the edge. This rappel is somewhat less vertical than the one above and the pull is easy. Standard Rappel 1: 300' from a tree LDC to the canyon bottom OR 250' from a tree ~20' back from the edge canyon center. Alternate Rappel 1: 90'/28m (a 60m rope works) to a small ledge (1 square foot) anchor station with 2 bolts to the rappeller's right, which has room for 2 people to clip in (very exposed, see video below). There is a larger ledge right of the bolts with a single angle piton pounded halfway into a drill hole (not a single point safety!), which allows for 2 or 3 more people to stand. From here it's 150' to a large platform suitable for 10+ people. There is a bolted rappel station from this platform 50' to the bottom. See diagram below. This option can be done by two people with 2 x 200'/60m ropes; or a larger party with 3 x 200'/60m ropes (of which one can be 2 x ≥30m knotted). Also, there is another rusty bolted station in the water streaks about 100 feet below the 90' station. This station had webbing and rap ring that had heavy mineral deposits on it. The webbing and ring were removed 20JULY2019. It is assumed that this station was installed to allow 120 foot (40 meter) ropes to be used to do the whole canyon. This station is not on the diagram below. After the 300ft rappel there are an additional 10-15 rappels depending on canyon conditions ranging from 10ft to 100ft. Most are off chockstones or logs. The last rap is off a deadman/cairn, although it can be climbed around canyon left.

Englestead Hollow is fairly short and soon comes to Orderville. Depending on your comfort level of down climbing, you can remove your harness here, or just keep it on. You will follow Orderville down canyon until it meets the narrows and then exit via the Temple of Sinawava. Having your wetsuit on for the narrows is fun, as you can avoid the bottlenecks caused by hikers and just stick to the watercourse. You can often just float down, making progress much quicker. No-shuttle loop exit up Orderville: if you prefer to exit up Orderville, you can take a right at Wild Wind Hollow (37.3244, -112.8703) and make your way up the well-worn trail back to your car. This works as a loop if you parked your car on N Fork County Rd here: 37.3068, -112.8608. Keep in my mind that exiting up Orderville from the end of Englestead requires one somewhat challenging (but doable) up-climb. More information can be found here: http://web.archive.org/web/20240229153613/http://canyoncollective.com/threads/birch-hollow-zion-exit-information.24889/