The Way Things Happened: Heath Canyon

[Sean]

So I drove up to Wrightwood yesterday to check out the Flume Canyon spring below Guffy Camp.



It was flowing at a rate of one liter per two minutes.

Then I noticed that across the gully there was an old roadbed. Hey, I thought, that must be something. So I hopped over some logs and followed it. After a pleasant journey around the head of Flume Canyon, the road climbed up to the Blue Ridge and PCT Trail, amongst dead tree field west of Guffy.



During the walk back to the Acorn Trailhead I bumped into several thru-hikers. They had already done 300 miles and looked real beat up, except for one young dude who was rather sprightly.

After seeing these monsters, I decided that my little trip to Guffy was unworthy of such a beautiful day. So I continued eastward to Wright Mountain and logged my visit in yet another one of Mars Bonfire's register books.



Still unsatisfied, I went all in and tried something that might get me in trouble: a descent of Heath Canyon, which helps drain Wright Mountain on the northern side.



First I followed the NE ridge to Point 8027.



Then I backtracked a bit and dropped off the ridge, into a flat area, before finding a steep, muddy, loose side gully to follow.



For the next few minutes I debated with myself whether to continue, not knowing whether I would get stopped and have to retreat back up to the ridgeline. Ultimately, I convinced myself that it would probably be okay, and so I dropped in.

I'm pretty sure it's impossible to stay upright in this small tributary. I had to carefully slide down on my butt several times. Even so, I nearly went head over heels once and banged up my side a bit. Some trickling water led into the main course, which flowed nicely down a series of lovely cascades.



Unfortunately I left my Panasonic Lumix camera at home, and my crappy dumbphone pictures don't do this area justice.





After much fun bouldering and downclimbing the canyon next to a baby stream, I looked for a way to cross over a ridge or two and reacquire the Acorn Trail.



Thankfully the way was fairly obvious and I located the proper network of trails and got back without much difficulty.

Approximate route: http://caltopo.com/map?id=2Q1R

[ur2slo]

Nice pics and great tr, Sean. Anyone know the history on the hot tub and old boiler hut that sits at the spring in first pic? Curious.....

[Taco]

That's rad. I've always wondered what it looked like on that face/canyon system thing going on up there.

[tekewin]

That is a cool canyon. Weird formations carved out of the rock.

[Slowest_Hiker]

Hot tub? I always referred to the little building as a pumphouse. Where is the tub? There was once a fire lookout at Guffy and I figured there had been a pump to fill the tank up by the campground. There's also a concrete slab near the campground signboard that could possibly have been access to septic or some other underground stuff.