EISPIRATEN

The crux of the day would be found in getting across the Big Tujunga several times and finding our way to the Grizzly Flats trail. I'd done the hike before for Silver Canyon, but it isn't exactly a simple task during high water. Once we reached Grizzly Flats, we proceeded to head north to northeast down an easy embankment of pine needles. I didn't bring Brennan's beta with me so I was slightly unsure how far to continue, until I ran across a cairn. Could it be this easy? It was. A small steep drop-in leads to the nice and narrow upper portion of Vasquez. Soon we found a small waterfall with a downed log. There were two different anchors but we used a handline here. At the first rappel we found no anchor and used some scraps of webbing around a stream bed rock. The pools at the base of the next few rappels were mostly knee to waste deep and were very cold. The canyon is exceptionally beautiful with hanging walls of ferns that were dripping with moisture. No brush either! Somewhere along the line I found a rope bag and trecking pole lying in the creek. A tricky move was made to avoid a chest deep pool before Junction Falls. Eric did not fair well with this move. Wait a second, whats this, a hand line to get to the top of the falls from below? The purpose: to carve your name into the tree at the edge of the falls. Hand line done away with. A nice easy journey down led to the high and swift Big Tujunga. Luckily, with some good route finding, the way back wasn't quite as tedious.




Photos

Awesome shots, dude. One question though, Mike. What rope do y'all prefer?

I prefer these: http://canyoneeringusa.com/shop/product ... =23&page=1

but since I'm putting all my money towards other endeavors, I use some of my older climbing ropes.

Oooh, not really a bad price either! Thanks!

Cool! I bet that water was nice and warm.

Hey, speaking of ropes, on Sat Mike C and I used a 60m 9.0mm static rope from REI that was pretty nice. It's a tiny bit thinner than my orange BW Canyon DS rope and lighter too -- just the right size in my opinion (for experienced canyoneers anyway). Sheath is similar to the Imlay ropes but not as stiff.

Link:

http://www.rei.com/product/751713

Nice to see the water still flowing in the big t.

I used an Imlay 9mm as well...never had a problem with it...polyester(for water) and low(almost no) stretch. You'll learn... (joke)....

Of course, does Hastings even need a rope...oh I mean Vasquez... There I go again talking about 2 canyons I havent been to...add Bailey to that 8)

MikeSash wrote: ↑waste deep

Nice typo! Just to the west is silver creek and the next one over we've nicknamed "silver on the side" because it's between silver and suicide. In silver on the side, we found a pot garden in 2007, which included a 3 foot tall mountain of human poop right in the creek bed, so "waste deep" has a very specific meaning in these parts!

just before the fire we discovered a pot garden on a little hill between the GF trail and the west fork of vasquez, which is a really beautiful descent, better than vasquez proper now, with that 300 ft cascade at the junction. the pot garden is gone, but for the remnants of glass and metal camp waste.