.The super steep descent down to the river avoiding the snowed out north facing slopes. I went a different route that was twice as long in time, staying in the gully....glissading in the middle section which was fun. I encountered the river downstream of the first set of waterfalls. It wasnt long before I got to the first waterfall, approx 65ft. There was a 40ft waterfall right after that, which I bypassed canyon left.
Then it was a long slog down a steep river. It seemed the snow was never going to go away completely, but luckily I only had to go through it for a short section of the river. This route can be described as a wide canyon with Copter ridge on one side and the Hawkins ridge peaks 6345 and 6327 on the other. Interestingly the river disappeared for some length, which was fine by me. Time was going short and I wanted to get to the Iron Fork. When the river did appear again, it did so with a vengenance. The canyon had narrowed quite a bit, with a couple of very pretty small waterfalls. I made it to the Iron Fork with about an hour of daylight remaining.
After a cold night and early morning, I set out to complete the route. Cold temps had obliterated most of the vegetation up to this point, but that doesnt make this section use up much less energy avoiding pools of water. There had been a landslide at one point that had covered a pretty section, but the creek removed 1/4 of it, making travel easy. Then I hit the swim, which is a turn around point for dayhikes from Heaton. BRRRR, ...and ouch as I swam as fast as I could ,ending up in hypothermia stage 1 right away. Changed clothes and finished the lower canyon. The water level was just below flood CFS, but nothing above 3ft of water. A lot of the trash was gone, and the rest was organized at least.
At Iron Fork camp, all this camp needed was some plastic side walls to complete the house? I spotted some dogs resting along the path to the river and tensed up, but the owner spotted me downclimbing and noted the dogs were friendly. The East Fork of the San Gabriel river was much the same as usual. Trails everywhere, a lot of tents.
Downstream of Laurel Gulch, there were signs of the FS and LAFCO posted to not travel on top of a boulder pile. This useless short segment I believe was constructed by the stimulus money and the CCC corps....and I hope no one was hurt on it. The sign noted the situation was waiting for the San Gabriel trailbuilders to show up to construct a new trail(most of which was already forged out) across the river and back. Apparently there is no end to the sissification of this place. All of this to avoid walking over and around some low height boulders. Graffiti removal of the beginning was nice, but its sad to see the new graffiti farther upstream thanks to the improved access.
Clear day out along the road
Descending into South Iron canyon
The downclimb just before the rappel
Bottom of first rappel
Next drop from the top
Bottom view
One of the tallest trees in the Gabes, if not thee tallest.
One side of the canyon or the other was typically missing. This wall is part of Copter ridge.
A long section of a lot of whitish rocks
Some snow at 4600 ft still
canyon travel
camera ran out of power at pk 6327
) ...pricey, but excellent. They have this tire tread on them that Im sure we'll be seeing in canyoneering shoes.