Woodwardia falls, upper Dark Canyon

[dima]

During the scouting mission two weeks ago I ran down the ACH past the Woodwardia canyon bridge. I saw a nice waterfall below, and today I came back to check it out. From the bridge:



I was hoping to traverse the whole canyon from ACH up to the fire road above, but was half-expecting to have to turn back due to the rough terrain. I walked the road from above, past the bridge



and dropped in to the left, a bit below. It's a steep area, and it took a little while to find a usable line. The river is working. There's lots and lots of trash here, coming down from the highway: pieces of cars, old road signs, discarded furniture, etc. Gross. This canyon is not meant for hiking



I walked up to the falls. They're nice!



And the bridge above looks cool





This is in a narrow, rocky gorge made up of shit rock. So I decided I didn't need to work hard to solve this problem, and I climbed back out to try a different canyon.

I walked around the bend to the next canyon above. The topos label this as the upper section of Dark Canyon. Unlike Woodwardia, this looks chill at the highway, and there's even a little use trail to drop into it:



There's no bridge here per se, just a concrete tunnel below the roadway





I walked upstream. After a little while it steepens, gets a good flow, and becomes much more interesting. Here're the first set of falls



And the next





There's a fixed rope on the left. And the next





There's a rope here too. It keeps going like that, but with no more ropes. Eventually I came up on a drop I didn't want to have to descend. I climbed a minor ridge on the side. This quickly cliffed out, and revealed multiple falls ahead:



These also looked like something I wouldn't want to have to descend, at the very least. So I called it a day, and walked back the way I came. This is a cool canyon:



So yeah. I was out for 2 hours, and this was just barely up into the mountains. What a nice quarter-day activity!

I think I really need to start carrying a short bit of rope with me, to be able to protect small drops. That would make much of what I did (and didn't do) today much easier. Next time.

Given what I saw I thought that surely these canyons appear in Christopher Brennan's book, but they do not. Perhaps it's just a rocky area, and waterfalls are a dime a dozen over there.

[Girl Hiker]

Thanks for the post. I've passed by this sign many, many, times wondering what's in that canyon. Hopefully Sean will go with me to check out those cool waterfalls.

[Sean]

Thanks for the report. Willie and I attempted to descend Woodwardia a few years ago, but we hit a big cliff not far below the highway, and we couldn't find a bypass. Exploring other branches of Dark Canyon is on my bucket list, but I think they're all packed with falls.

[Girl Hiker]

Cool! I never seen this video

[tekewin]

Another great exploration. Thanks for posting.

[dima]

Wait, where did you drop into Woodwardia, and which way did you go? I more or less walked from just below the bridge to the falls just above the bridge. Where was your cliff?

[Sean]

I think we dropped in south of the bridge and only made it about 600 or 700 feet downstream. We climbed out on the slope that leads to the water tank over there. There was/is a motorcycle down on the slope.