Jul 02, 2019 — Immaculate Canyon uses a very similar route to Illusions Canyon, which we did a couple of months ago. There is an option for a sneak route, but we wanted to enjoy the downhill and to explore a bit more of the West Fork of Oak Creek, so we set up a shuttle: one car along the road just outside the Call of the Canyon Trailhead (apparently it's a small fortune to leave a car past closing), and took the other to the top of the plateau. It's a long drive on a web of forest roads.
Starting from a point on a forest road where a downed tree blocked further driving progress, we headed into the brushy drainage that marked the start of Immaculate Canyon. A few obstacles led to the first few rappels, which pooped us down mossy, pretty chutes into waist-deep water at most. Eventually, we made it to the first big rappel of 150 feet, a sheer cliff with a narrow crevasse, which sucked. We tossed the ropes pretty far but they managed to get caught on every single pebble within the crevasse, resulting in a very long and tedious rappel for me as I had to reflake the rope at least three times.
Another mossy chute led to the longest rappel, which we could have broken into two parts because a bolt was placed halfway down. A deep pool met us at the bottom that we avoided with some acrobatics and a log, and then another long rappel appeared directly after. This rappel was the prettiest in my opinion, with a really nice colorful chute. A short and silly final rappel led to the mouth of the narrows, and then the drainage opened up, the canyon requiring some more bushwhacking through annoying greenery and downed logs of dubious stability. Eventually we made it to West Fork of Oak Creek, a lovely hike back to our second car.
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