Waterfalls and forks
Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2014 7:06 pm
I read John Robinson's "Mines of the East Fork" recently. In it he mentions off-hand a waterfall I've never heard of: Cape Horn Falls. I half-forgot about it until I read the Glen canyon falls TR here a few days ago. Feeling ambitious, I decided to hit both in the same trip.
First, Cape Horn Falls. This is a North-flowing canyon, meeting the East Fork San Gabriel river around where Shoemaker Canyon road starts. At that point the road is on the North side of the river, and the canyon is on the South side, so the river must be crossed:
I employed the put-your-legs-in-garbage-bags method of keeping dry, which worked well-enough. I got to the canyon and started walking up. It clearly has been dry for a while, with rains only recently:
Still, the canyon was alarmingly dry. I kept moving past this mini-falls:
And then I saw them. Behold! The mighty Cape Horn falls:
This looks like it would be a really nice spot if there was any water in the falls. Well, I guess there was SOME water in it:
In any case that was that, so I went back out to the East Fork. At least I got some loot from the canyon:
Walking back to my car, something caught my eye:
Could it be? Shellfish in the San Gabriel river? Is fresh-water shellfish even a thing? Then there was more:
Oh. OK. Somebody must have had a pleasant outdoor lunch.
Moving on. I then went out to the West Fork and biked to the Cogswell Dam. The high peaks look really nice from the spillway:
Then back to Glen Canyon. The lower falls look like they did in Missy's TR, which is delightful:
You can see one of the upper cascades from the bottom:
I did climb up to above the first cascade. It's just as sketchy as described elsewhere: a very steep earthy slope where one relies on exposed roots for support. It's a root route, so to speak. I found that the descent was actually easier since you could lower oneself from a root in a way that's impossible when going up, since the ground is too unstable to grab the higher roots. Above, one can see the 2nd and 3rd cascades:
At this point my camera decided that it has no more juice to continue, and I didn't want to keep climbing on unstable ground, by myself, near the end of the day.
So yeah. Two waterfalls and one even had water in it! Also the West Fork is really nice.
First, Cape Horn Falls. This is a North-flowing canyon, meeting the East Fork San Gabriel river around where Shoemaker Canyon road starts. At that point the road is on the North side of the river, and the canyon is on the South side, so the river must be crossed:
I employed the put-your-legs-in-garbage-bags method of keeping dry, which worked well-enough. I got to the canyon and started walking up. It clearly has been dry for a while, with rains only recently:
Still, the canyon was alarmingly dry. I kept moving past this mini-falls:
And then I saw them. Behold! The mighty Cape Horn falls:
This looks like it would be a really nice spot if there was any water in the falls. Well, I guess there was SOME water in it:
In any case that was that, so I went back out to the East Fork. At least I got some loot from the canyon:
Walking back to my car, something caught my eye:
Could it be? Shellfish in the San Gabriel river? Is fresh-water shellfish even a thing? Then there was more:
Oh. OK. Somebody must have had a pleasant outdoor lunch.
Moving on. I then went out to the West Fork and biked to the Cogswell Dam. The high peaks look really nice from the spillway:
Then back to Glen Canyon. The lower falls look like they did in Missy's TR, which is delightful:
You can see one of the upper cascades from the bottom:
I did climb up to above the first cascade. It's just as sketchy as described elsewhere: a very steep earthy slope where one relies on exposed roots for support. It's a root route, so to speak. I found that the descent was actually easier since you could lower oneself from a root in a way that's impossible when going up, since the ground is too unstable to grab the higher roots. Above, one can see the 2nd and 3rd cascades:
At this point my camera decided that it has no more juice to continue, and I didn't want to keep climbing on unstable ground, by myself, near the end of the day.
So yeah. Two waterfalls and one even had water in it! Also the West Fork is really nice.