This trip is on Chris Brennen's "Adventure Hikes and Canyoneering in the San Gabriels" Sheep Canyon
ACA Rating: 4ARIV
With an ACA 4R rating this is not for the casual canyoneer
Our equipment
300ft x 8.5mm rope
200ft x 9mm rope
6 quick links
120ft 1" tubular webbing
Knowing that Chris's beta is as he explored the canyon we saw no reason to descend as the beta described. The alternate route up Fir Draw described did not fill us with warm fuzzies either.
I'd looked at this several times on hikes in Ice House Cyn area and virtual scouting on Google Earth and felt Lost Creek could be a better option.
I don't know what Fir Draw is like but it looks steeper than the route we took and I'd not recommend it to any one.
Our traverse of Lost Creek required crossing several scree covered slopes to areas where trees and plants where growing and holding the soil/scree together making steep ascents with our 500ft rope load and other needed gear arduous
But we finally got to Sheep Flat about 10:15am about 1hr 50min after leaving Ice House Cyn Trail 1000 vertical feet below, the traverse of Sheep Flat was a breeze as was the descent of Sheep canyon to the chasm where the headwall is.
We where greeted with early season water flow adding a level of beauty and difficulty not experienced by Chris and his group.
Our feeble plan was to avoid the multi-pitch by using the 300ft rope . We anchored on the tree described in the beta and removed the tattered webbing on the rock.
Rappelling off the rock would put you directly in the water flow, I'm unsure how this would affect the access to the tree but caution is advised.
The ropes all piled up on a ledge about 100ft down and untangling this mess in the water was a difficult chore. The pull cord became entangled several times below too, Our radios where indispensable in formulating plan B where Bernd hauled up the pull rope and stowed it in his pack and played it out as he came down.
By some sort of divine intervention the rope once moving did not get stuck on any of the countless cracks, crevasses and knobs on the way down, I thought for sure we'd be back the following week to recover the ropes from the top and another bite of the apple.
The lower canyon has many down climbs / scrambles and we arrived at the trail 2:30pm about 7hrs after starting up Lost Creek.
The canyon was swarming with Ladybugs which was a bit annoying but it beats flies and mosquitoes any day.
Thanks to Bernd and Sarah and Chris for his beta!
