Materials

One 200 ft static rope, one 120 ft static rope, 6 rappel rings, 60 feet of webbing, helmets, harnesses, lots of carabineers, ascension kit, prussic loops, and chain reactors, warm clothing, warm hats.

Start

We began our trip by leaving one vehicle at the canyon exit, and driving in the second to the trailhead. The trail begins at a locked gate on a paved side road off of the Mt. Wilson road just after Red Box. We geared up, and began our hike up. We were treated to some pretty spectacular views of Red Box, Josephine Saddle and Strawberry Peak, and a large section of the Angeles Crest Hwy.

Side Trip

After over a mile of uphill walking on asphalt, we arrived at the dirt road that leads to the canyon. We wanted to go see the "Supercloud Hollow", as Brennan calls it, so we followed his instructions. We followed the dirt road to the end, and then continued on a deer trail which contoured up the slope toward the ridge. This turned out to be a very difficult journey. The trail was nothing more than deer prints and the slope was steep and slippery. After over 30 exhausting minutes, we reached the ridge, out of breath, and tired. We attempted to find the hollow, but it would have been several hundred feet of elevation loss, which we would have had to recover. We decided against it since we still had a canyon to do. Instead of following our ascent route, we walked the ridgeline back to the road, and the road back to the dirt entrance road. If you plan on going to the hollow, this is the path to go, not the animal trail! Overall, an hour and a half wasted.

Drop In

We again followed the dirt road to its end. This time we skipped the animal trail, and instead began to drop in. It was quite steep, but the ground was soft and sandy. We stumbled down, trying to follow a very faint trail until we reached the canyon bottom. The path continued through the canyon bottom which was still rather steep and consisted of a lot of boulder hopping.

Rappel 1

As we approached rappel #1, we could see a huge drop off before us. It's quite intimidating until you reach the edge, and see that it drops 50 ft to a large shelf, and then 70 ft to the bottom. A bolt anchor with brand new green webbing was on the left. It was a simple vertical descent.

Rappel 2

The second rappel followed immediately. This one had bolts on the right, and was also quite straightforward. It had some interesting rock formations on the way down. We ended up looping our 200 foot rope, and it let us off about 10 feet up an easily downclimbed slope. Rope recovery was a little difficult, because the lip extended out quite a bit, and the rappel is at least 70 ft.

Rappel 3

After the first two stage rappel, a short section of canyon filled with boulders and small downclimbs followed. The third rappel was a small 30 foot drop with webbing around a tree up a dirt slope on the right. Dennis set up the biner block and we all descended quickly. This fall actually had a little bit of water going over it.

Rappel 4

After another section of downclimbing and boulder hopping, we reached the fourth rappel. It consisted of a large downed tree anchor and an interesting moss covered drop. We all decided to try a double line rappel on this one. Carrie expressed concern, but decided to go for it. The rappel was quite simple, and the double line was an interesting experiment. It certainly made rope retrieval faster and allowed for much greater friction in the rappel device.

Rappel 5

We approached rappel #5 without realizing it. We came to a boulder strewn downclimb, and passed the first hurdle when we came to a large boulder stuck in the center of the canyon, with a narrow 25 foot slot beneath it. Only when we looked behind us and compared the view with our guide picture did we realize we had come to the next rappel. Since we had already descended the first section of this drop, we didn't find the existing anchor. Instead we built a one-wrap-two through tunnel created by an enormous boulder on top of a smaller boulder. This rappel was a little awkward, as it required that you proceed through a narrow and V-shaped slot. We chose to double line this one to save some time.

Rappel 6

After another tree covered section of easy canyon, we arrived that the final drop. It's a 90 foot vertical drop into a little glen. There were several anchor choices: a tree on the right, and bush on the left, and a large dead tree pinned in the center. We chose the central tree, but we retied the webbing because the tails on the water knot were very short. We looped our 200 ft rope, and it just got us to a ledge about 15 feet above the bottom. I think this drop is closer to 110 feet, rather than 90 feet. Fortunately, the ledge has a pretty easy downclimb on the left. While disconnecting, I almost fell off this ledge, but fortunately I still had the rope loop in my hand. Another reminder that the most dangerous parts of canyoneering are when you are off the rope.

Canyon Bottom

The exit hike out of Supercloud follows the canyon bottom for some distance. There were two sections that required fairly technical downclimbing. In this section the creek was running pretty consistently, although once we passed the bedrock section, it went underground. We eventually picked up a faint trail as we crossed the confluence with Cloudburst Canyon on the right. The trail took us up the left bank to avoid two 50s era debris dams.

Faux Exit

I had read that we were not supposed to take the first fire road that we would come across, so when we saw it, we went back into the stream bed on a trail that went across a log. We continued up that trail as it crossed the stream and headed up the right bank and eventually away from the canyon bottom. We continued on this rough road for about 10 minutes, when I noticed that we were getting farther from the car, not closer. Using the GPS and my memory of the TOPO map, I remembered that there was a road that led back to Red Box (this is a possible route for avoiding a car shuttle). We turned around and headed back for the stream bed.

Exit

This time we continued down the stream bed until we reached a different fire road, which after a short jaunt uphill, took us back to the Angeles Crest Hwy and our car. We drove back to where we had left the second car, separated our gear, and headed home.