First Descent of SMC Creek (Canyoneering)

Jun 6

Summer is quickly approaching in the Pacific Northwest, which means canyon season will begin soon! The amazing canyons of the PNW are another reason why I love living here. The massive amounts of precipitation we receive combined with steep terrain makes for some fun waterpark-esque canyons. Unfortunately these same factors also mean many canyons are flowing too high in early June.

There are still hundreds of canyons left to explore and plenty of early season low-hanging fruit. My friend Nick and I decided to check out SMC creek, a canyon that has only been partially explored. We had heard the upper section of SMC creek ‘was not worth it’ and the original team had bailed halfway due to bad weather. Based off LIDAR data combined with slope angle shading layer on CalTopo, we believed there was good potential for a fun canyon, below where the first party had bailed.

*Slope angle shading of SMC Creek, we entered at SMC falls, where there is an obvious drop off (seen by the purple shading). This was our biggest rappel at ~150’.*

We drove to Snoqualmie tree farm after obtaining our $15 permits to recreate on the land. Nick brought bicycles to speed up our approach on a 3 mile logging road. From the top of the logging road we did a short bushwhack to the first waterfall, which was close to 150’. Right off the bat, we were pretty excited. We had brought a bolt kit and drill, but there were so many trees and logs in the canyon that we did not need to bust out the drill. All anchors were off natural features.

Throughout our descent, things went quite smoothly. There were about 6 rappels in total with 3 waterfalls around 150’. The canyon was a little brushy at times, but we didn’t mind…. It was great to be exploring a new canyon. The big rappels were typically in the flow and made for some exciting descents. Overall, we rated the canyon 3/5 stars, certainly one worth doing if you are itching for an early season canyon.