EISPIRATEN

Went down the Devil's Canyon Trail to the trail camp and the falls a couple of weeks ago.

There was a little bit of water in pools in the side creek that the trail follows down to Devil's Canyon. Some of the pools looked a little stagnant. A couple looked filterable.

There was no water at the Trail Camp, but there was water about 0.5 miles down stream. The water in the stream is patchy, but where it flows over solid rock, there are some good pools and even spots with flow. The closer you get to the upper of the two falls, the more water there is, although it's all low this year compared to years past.

The trail itself is in pretty good shape down to the camp and downstream of the camp for maybe a mile. There's definitely poison oak, although it's not too bad.

Trail camp in decent shape although a lot of beer cans in the bushes. Not sure it's a good place to be when the partiers are around, but we had the place to ourselves and it was great.

I read one guide book that listed the distance from the Trail Camp to the falls as 1.5 miles each way. Maybe if you're a drop of water, but based on our GPS it's more like 2.5 miles one way if you're a person. You have to zig zag back and forth down the water course once the trail peters out to get around brush, pools, rocks, etc. The route isn't obvious. There are multiple, conflicting ducks in places. There are also a lot of yucca, some stinging nettles, and quite a bit of poison oak in the off trail section. It's quite rocky, with some good sized boulders that one has to scramble up over. The last half mile is quite a bit of work, but probably not to bad at all if you're an experienced canyoneer. The trail to the trail camp is about 3.5 miles plus about 2.5 miles to the falls, so about 6 miles one way to the falls or 12 round trip.

The upper falls itself is nice albeit not spectactular, but the pool at the bottom is quite large indeed with a lot of small fish, trout I assume. Nice swimming spot. We went on the left (east) side along a ledge to a point that we could class 3 down to the water level on the south end of the pool. We were able to get past the upper falls without any technical equipment other than about 25 feet of nylon webbing that we secured to an outcrop for safety purposes.

Supposedly, there is a way to climb around the upper falls with out doing any class three by ascending to the ridge east of the falls, but we didn't try this.

We just went swimming and did not attempt to pass the lower of the two falls which is suppossedly class 5 which is beyond our ability.

We saw a couple of abandonded mtn. bikes down there. Talked to a friend of mine on Sierra Madre SAR; apparently two guys were missing but were found. Don't know if the bikes were recovered, but they were nothing fancy (Schwinn, no clips, kinda low end), certainly not worth hiking down to carry out. Didn't check the second one, but the first was not in rideable condition, which may be why they abandoned them and attempted to walk out. I don't think they should have tried to ride them in the off trail portion of the creek bed with all the boulders and brush. Great way to thrash a bike, and then you've got to go UPHILL to get out. You'd have to carry the bikes 95%+ of the time in the lower section; why freakin' bother?

An area I'd like to visit.

How big are the falls?

The upper falls are first a cascade and then more of a falls. I'd say on the order of a 20' drop. It's kind of fun to "do" some of the rock walls, although test your hand/foot holds! One came off in my hands.

The pool below the falls is really big and worth seeing in its own right. I think this is the biggest and deepest pool I've seen in the San Gabriels.

The lower falls are also on the order of 20' although much more vertical. They kind of take a cool twist through a narrows at the top of the falls. I made no attempt to get down these falls which also have a big pool at the bottom, comparable to the upper falls.

Christopher Brennan describes the upper falls in his Devil's Canyon Loop write up and the lower falls in his Lower Devil's Canyon writeup. See http://www.dankat.com/dankat/dankat.htm

Really pretty area: http://www.dankat.com/advents/slides/lowdvl.htm

Gotta clean those holds (IE destroy them) in the San Gabriels before you can climb! SOP for this range!

I would like to visit lower Devil's canyon too, but with such a far distance, it seems advisable to time it just right. In Jerry Schad's May trip he just got in time...http://www.sdreader.com/php/roamshow.php?id=20070510 and makes it seem like a wade/walk.

Compare that to Nov 1st Erik Siering, http://angeles.sierraclub.org/hps/archives/hps01349.htm
who jumped the gun so to speak..."We whacked serious brush"

That would indicate a season of Feb-late April, which is the scenic canyoneering time period for most wet canyons, a period of cold&rain.

AW wrote:..."We whacked serious brush"

How does bush whacking indicate that one has "jumped the gun?"

based on the premise that bush wacking is a negative. My personal opinion is that at a minimum it is a unpleasant time-wasting distraction and at a maximum could pose a danger to a persons safety&health. I have no idea of the actual science, but the vegetation doesnt make it through the winter. There is a difference between when a canyon is as clean as it gets vs this is an OK time as the brush is dying or dead, etc. So then usually by November canyons start to turn around. During 1997, from Feb until Nov there was only .53 inches of rain with daytime highs still averaging 80s.....sounds similar to now, maybe worse.

Of course this is not true for all canyons. Some routes are going to be murderous year round. Others are clean year round.

With lower Devil's canyon though, Feb-Apr means a lot less daytime to work with though. Assuming the West Fork SG river part was done in the dark, thats 8 miles R/T in approx 8 hours, a long day indeed....of course I would be more worried about my car left alone for so long....all of these SG wilderness routes have time concerns...not a whole lot of time to be dealing with some brush.