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Jun 07, 2020 — Christopher Creek Gorge was a very fun canyon with a mild approach and escape. Its fun scrambling, rappels, and swimmers made for a great day. We were happy to have wetsuits, even in June. We parked on the side of a spur road from the highway since the official Christopher Creek Gorge trailhead is closed, requiring a walk along the highway to get to the start of the start of the official trail. We decided to instead head through the woods to avoid the loud highway sounds, and intersected the trail at some point. I included both routes on my attached map. The obvious Christopger Creek Gorge Trail led us down to the drop-in point, where we put on our wetsuits and started down. The canyon can likely be down climbed or jumped except in a couple of spots where a rappel is the only safe bet, which definitely makes this a technical route in my opinion. There weren't any surprises along the way - just a few rappels and some minor route-finding to find the easiest way around some of the obstacles. Expect to swim a lot and despite the relative shortness of the canyon, it took us much longer than anticipated. Granted we had a party of 6 and also took our time because it was a blast, it is also like a slow-moving obstacle course for the majority of the distance.
A cairn on the right of the canyon marks the exit route. The trail gets convoluted after a few hundred feet, and we messed up around here. I edited the route on my map to reflect the better route option to ascend out of Christopher Creek Gorge, but getting turned around isn't the end of the world. We found an animal trail (or just a social trail used by enough others that it was easy to follow) and pretty easily made it out with minimal bushwhacking.
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