We are calling this one, French Beauties…the West fork of Marten Creek, in the French Creek Canyon, just outside of Detroit, OR.
Found some nice stuff in there. You definitely have to pay to play, but it was worth the cost.
The approach starts from the French Creek Ridge trailhead, and travels about a mile on trail, hang a right and aim for the south Marten Butte. Once at the saddle, it’s all down canyon…
This drainage starts out as a trickle of water on a bed of moss…and blossoms into a full creek before hitting the main Marten Creek drainage. There were about 9-10 falls ranging from 20’ to 100’ plus. We used about 15-raps to descend.
The trees are big here, and so are the log jams…a very scenic drainage. Unfortunately, for a canyoneer, the fun ends just before the “lava field”, with about 1.5 miles of creek walking back to the lower shuttle.
All the falls are beautiful, but one stood out…we’re calling it French Beauty Falls. A two tier mini Parkett.
Fun long day exploring this first descent of the French Beauties
Karl, Keith, Wim, Wade, Sean, and Jake…strong team!
Approaching from the French Creek Ridge trail…we like spring snow, spring snow feeds the creeks 🙂
Last big view before dropping into the French Beauties drainage…
Found it…
Rap 1…thrashy!
We call this one…Sealy Mossturepedic Falls 🙂
Cold water down the neck…
French Beauty Falls…
Big log jams…
Wim moving the logs…
Short narrows…
The USGS Topo map shows this as lava, although it’s really just a pile of Basalt from the cliffs above…
More pics here, courtesy of Wade Hewitt, Thanks Wade!
🙂
That looks really neat. I’ve started between the buttes before but never got to that nice looking place in the second picture. Makes me want to go there (the place in the second picture) this summer. I’ve driven up toward that way off the road to the Byar’s Peak trail, but don’t think it took me in that far.