Materials

One 100 ft static rope, one 60 ft static rope, one 40 ft static rope, 8 rappel rings, 100 feet of webbing, dry-bag, paddle jackets, helmets, harnesses, lots of carabineers, ascension kit, prussic loops, and chain reactors, warm clothing, warm hats.

Start

This canyon starts with a grueling 1.5 mile hike up the Mt. Wilson trail from Sierra Madre to First Water. It was a cool and overcast morning (about 65 degrees) but we were both dripping with sweat. Make sure you stay hydrated! At approximately, (34.176847 N, 118.044909 W), we saw Brennan's burned stump off on the right on the ridge that we would use to exit the canyon. The trail coming up the ridge was quite evident from the main trail.

When we reached First Water, we geared up and started the hike down the canyon. Almost immediately the canyon narrowed down to several knee to waist deep pools. Getting our feet wet for the first time was tough as it was still very cold and cloudy. Carrie put on her fleece and paddle jacket to stay warm.

Rappels

The first two rappels were quite simple, with excellent bolts and very recently tied black webbing. These were 40 and 25ft drops into small pools. These were followed by a pretty steep and slippery downclimb into a deep and murky pool. We avoided this pool by using a very thick dead tree that had fallen into the pool. It required us to do the splits to reach it because the rock itself was so water polished.

The Spout

After a short distance, we came upon a 15 foot chute into a small pool, followed by a sharp right turn another 5 foot drop into a large pool. This pool has an impressive boulder jammed into the canyon above the pool. You must proceed under the boulder through the pool to continue. At high water, this must be quite a challenge. Fortunately for us, the water level was quite low. The "spout" wasn't really spouting, so we rappelled straight down the chute into the large pool, and waded underneath the boulder.

Swimming

The Spout was followed by two more rappels, a 35 and 40 ft. They both had nice bolt anchors already built with more black webbing. The first of these surprised Carrie as she went to drop into the pool beneath, and found she could not touch bottom! So this rappel marks our first swimming disconnect. On the next rappel, we both removed our prussik loop before dropping into the pool to ease disconnecting.

Cold!

Since we had just been submerged up to our necks twice, we were getting quite cold. The temperature was still quite low, as the clouds had not yet burned off. We came to a cascade that we were to downclimb on the right, but we first stopped for lunch. Carrie began to shiver. Even though we had on synthetic shirts, fleeces, and paddle jackets, we were still quite cold. Fortunately, the sun began to come out in short bursts, and eventually we warmed enough to continue. The cascade had bees in it, but we stayed away from the watercourse, and they left us alone.

Continuing to Rappel

The following waterfall went into another deep pool which would have required a swim, but there was a ledge just at the waterline which allowed us to get into knee deep water before disconnecting. After that was another waterfall over a huge boulder, with an awkward chute on the left. Carrie ended up swinging several feet on this one and scraped up her knuckles.

Dry Canyon

What followed was a few simple downclimbs, and a gentler section of canyon that involved boulder hopping and bushwacking. During this section, the creek went underground, and the temperature went up drastically. I removed my paddle jacket and my fleece, yet was still a little hot. We downclimbed the first part of a two stage drop, and rappelled down the second stage, a vertical chute between a rock wall and a boulder. At the bottom, we realized that it would have been a simple downclimb to the left using a fallen tree. Brennan calls this curtain falls, but as it was totally dry, it was a little hard to picture.

Keeper

The canyon then narrowed and consisted of several small dry cascades, until it dropped us into a pothole about 20 feet wide. At the far end was a lip about 3 feet high. The pothole was filled with sand and rocks, so escaping it was simple. However, after winter rains drain out the sand and rocks and fill the pool, I imagine getting out of the pothole could be challenging. On top of the lip was another bolt anchor for descending a short 10 foot drop, but we chose to just run a piece of webbing through the quick-link and lower ourselves down.

Looking for a way out

The canyon then widened and took a left turn. I knew this meant we were close to our exit, so I kept checking the south wall for the trail. We came to an edge, with a murky pool about 3 or 4 feet below it. I saw the landing was clear, so I jumped for it. I landed easily and Carrie followed. I grabbed a stick that was about 3 feet long, and tested the pool for depth, it didn't hit bottom.

Steep Exit

After a few more minutes of boulder hopping, we finally saw a spot on the south wall that looked trail-like. We began to ascend, but found it difficult as the trail was all soft dirt, loose rocks, and dead trees. It was also extremely steep. For the first 50 feet or so, I'd call that 4th class or possible easy 5th class climbing. There were so many loose rocks, we couldn't help but send a few rocketing down into the canyon where they burst into pieces in an impressive display of momentum.

Return

Eventually the steepness eased off, and we found a well defined trail that followed the top of the exit ridge back to the Mt. Wilson trail. It had several offshoots, and it had become quite hot now. After several minutes of laboring up the ridge, we arrived at the trail in the same spot that we noticed on the way in. After that, it was a simple walk down the trail back to our car. I could tell I was tired because I took a spill on the easiest part of the whole trip. We reached the car at 4 pm, for a total canyon time (car to car) of 7 hours.