Conklin Gully - Yates County

[hobkyl]

Hmmm...despite many visits there I dont believe I've ever seen that flowing.

[spec]

Hmmm...despite many visits there I dont believe I've ever seen that flowing.

Yeah, I saw the rocks on my first trip there last fall, but didn't figure it was anything, and most of the year it isn't anything. When I was there in March by myself, it was flowing pretty good among the rocks and Angel was roaring (distance shot above). By the time Ben and I went back there three weeks later, there was no visible flow as it was all flowing under the rocks, and Angel had faded to what you see in the close photos. I didn't check it out this past visit. I had planned to go take some pics on my way back down the gully, but my camera battery went dead before I got back down that far.

http://www.theoretically.net/trails/Ang ... s_Area.kmz
Also check it out on Bing... if you play the rotate and zoom game, you can get it to show you an image of Angel Falls with ice around it.

[hobkyl]

Decided to take advantage of the blast of warmth yesterday and was glad I did. It really has been a number of years since Ive been to Conklin. I dont really recall why I stopped going to the themepark of waterfalls...perhaps because I had seen it so many times, or that its more difficult to navigate than other nearby gullies, or that those walls just look like they could go at anytime, or that its overrun with teens who dont have any respect for the enviornment and just use it as place to party. Or maybe all of those reasons. Regardless, I am glad I revisited.

One thing to note about this place and any gully actually, is when hiking in the spring or even perhaps a warm spell in the dead of winter...is that those ice formations that build up on the walls must come down. If youve been here then you know what I refer to as the Horseshoe Cliff (Brett-you got an amazing shot of that bend).

I hiked to the top falls(the last picture) via mostly the rim trail. I climbed up there along the "stegosaurus spine" next to Angel Falls...a first time viewing....WOW! Nice falls.

When I came back down the gully I went up a different "stegosaurus spine" above the horsefall falls instead taking the trail I came in on. It didnt look safe to climb down the falls. As I was climbing this I heard a loud dull crack. The earth seemed to stop for a second and then crack, crack CRIIIIIIICK and a chunk of ice as big as a SUV began sliding down the wall at a high rate of speed until it crashed into the water below. As I thought about how cool it would be to catch that in continous shooting mode on my camera....another chunk fell...slamming into the bottom sending a ringing BOOOOM up out of the natural ampitheater. Then it hit me...how I could have been down there. Anyone who had been surely would have been dead or severely mangled. I didnt go between the two twisty falls today which usually I would have...but the water level was too high for a safe climb. I went from wanting to photograph the wall and ice formations to....Im outta here! I hightailed it up the root and scree desert highland type terrain to the rim... (This is really fun...anyone else ever climb it?) and ran the comforting well worn trail back down to my car.

At least a dozen more falls which I didnt get any good shots of or didnt see due to where I hiked the trail.

Come on Matt...you need a page for this gully! You know you want to.

[ApproachingLight]

Thanks for the post with pics. Good to read, good to see.david

[spec]

I had a friend in from Tennessee last week, and he wanted to go climb some waterfalls..... so I took him to Conklin Gully.

10-05-11:

[spec]

I also took this while I was there with Jay... 21 individual shots stitched together.

This "thumbnail" is 5% of original size:


The full sized image ended up being around 148 megapixels after cropping to a full frame. It looked best at around 12-13% of full size, so I ended up resizing to 12.5% and calling that "final size" (for the web anyway). It is available at http://www.demonic.net/~spec/HighFalls_Final.jpg

[cbobcat49]

That falls is in Conklin? Past where the trail crosses I suppose? I always take the trail to the right back down when I get there.

[spec]

That falls is in Conklin? Past where the trail crosses I suppose? I always take the trail to the right back down when I get there.

Indeed, it's one of the last falls in Conklin. There's only one more above it.