Canyoneering down Falling Leaf Canyon
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:44 pm
First, some links. Chris Brennan’s site from his first descent of the canyon: http://www.dankat.com/advents/fallef.htm
Ropewiki, our community’s resource for nowadays sorta jazz: http://ropewiki.com/Falling_Leaf_Canyon
I’ve thought of this canyon for years, but only got around to it on Sunday. I used to engage in spirited driving on GMR and Ridge when I had the money, and now occasionally I ride past this canyon on my bike. Amanda and I decided on it last week instead of Allison Gulch, which I’ve done a few times. GMR and ridge were closed due to red flag warnings, so we parked in Baldy Village on ridge and hiked in to the drop in, right at the turn marked Falling Leaf Canyon on maps. The first rappel was about 20min down with easy bushwhacking, and is 150ft or so with a little bit of water dripping down. I was nervous, since I haven’t been doing anything with ropes in ages, just riding bikes all the time. Further down we found two wheels from a Ford Fiesta ST, lots of body panels and wiring harness bits, and later a wheel/hub/caliper/half shaft from a Honda S2000, I believe. It had 17/235’s so I guess that’s an S2K or maybe a pimped out Odyssey.
There were 5 more rappels, I believe, all tree anchors. We did a real short one using a special ghosting technique which only uses the rope, so there is no anchor at this 15ft or so drop that I was uncomfortable downclimbing.
The bushwhacking only really picked up near the very bottom where it joins Cattle Canyon. I have a newish ESEE Junglas, a large knife meant for this job, which I’d wanted for many years since I’ve been aggressively bushwhacking since I was a little kid in the hills near chino. It’s shorter with a thicker, heavier blade (9” I think) than my old Ontario 18” machete I got as a teenager, so it deals with the dry dense wood we have here better, but it’s not something I use close to the ground, since hitting rocks would damage a fancy expensive blade like this. I have finely diced garlic and other foods with it, and it’s not so large as to be unwieldy for normal tasks, so it’s a good practical choice.
Amanda brought her short loppers made by Fiskars, which were perfect for 1-2” thick limbs. She cleared that sort of stuff much faster than I with less work. I suggest these loppers for canyon work.
There was a fair amount of bushwhacking to get back to the scree slope exit, but we took care of most of it. Generally, one should follow the streambed most of the way. There are game trails here and there, and lots of bear poop. One section of trail was a low tunnel about 3ft high, so I assume it’s a bear trail. I crawled on my hands and knees through this part, imagining what it would be like to be a bear trying to consume as much random crap as possible, suddenly coming across two weird looking humans gardening their way upstream.
The exit slope is scree and some minor brush up to a prominent turnout east of the drop in. We found tons of trash, including a trophy which we will be hiding in another technical place for others to retrieve. Should be a fun game. Let’s see who can get it and take a photo with it where it’s found. It’ll likely be clipped in to an anchor on a rock, alpine, or canyon route.
Anywho, it was a fun day with my OG homeslice Armando, and we got some good gardening in. It’s a cool little canyon, pretty easy on the bushwhacking scale for the SGs. Adios.
Ropewiki, our community’s resource for nowadays sorta jazz: http://ropewiki.com/Falling_Leaf_Canyon
I’ve thought of this canyon for years, but only got around to it on Sunday. I used to engage in spirited driving on GMR and Ridge when I had the money, and now occasionally I ride past this canyon on my bike. Amanda and I decided on it last week instead of Allison Gulch, which I’ve done a few times. GMR and ridge were closed due to red flag warnings, so we parked in Baldy Village on ridge and hiked in to the drop in, right at the turn marked Falling Leaf Canyon on maps. The first rappel was about 20min down with easy bushwhacking, and is 150ft or so with a little bit of water dripping down. I was nervous, since I haven’t been doing anything with ropes in ages, just riding bikes all the time. Further down we found two wheels from a Ford Fiesta ST, lots of body panels and wiring harness bits, and later a wheel/hub/caliper/half shaft from a Honda S2000, I believe. It had 17/235’s so I guess that’s an S2K or maybe a pimped out Odyssey.
There were 5 more rappels, I believe, all tree anchors. We did a real short one using a special ghosting technique which only uses the rope, so there is no anchor at this 15ft or so drop that I was uncomfortable downclimbing.
The bushwhacking only really picked up near the very bottom where it joins Cattle Canyon. I have a newish ESEE Junglas, a large knife meant for this job, which I’d wanted for many years since I’ve been aggressively bushwhacking since I was a little kid in the hills near chino. It’s shorter with a thicker, heavier blade (9” I think) than my old Ontario 18” machete I got as a teenager, so it deals with the dry dense wood we have here better, but it’s not something I use close to the ground, since hitting rocks would damage a fancy expensive blade like this. I have finely diced garlic and other foods with it, and it’s not so large as to be unwieldy for normal tasks, so it’s a good practical choice.
Amanda brought her short loppers made by Fiskars, which were perfect for 1-2” thick limbs. She cleared that sort of stuff much faster than I with less work. I suggest these loppers for canyon work.
There was a fair amount of bushwhacking to get back to the scree slope exit, but we took care of most of it. Generally, one should follow the streambed most of the way. There are game trails here and there, and lots of bear poop. One section of trail was a low tunnel about 3ft high, so I assume it’s a bear trail. I crawled on my hands and knees through this part, imagining what it would be like to be a bear trying to consume as much random crap as possible, suddenly coming across two weird looking humans gardening their way upstream.
The exit slope is scree and some minor brush up to a prominent turnout east of the drop in. We found tons of trash, including a trophy which we will be hiding in another technical place for others to retrieve. Should be a fun game. Let’s see who can get it and take a photo with it where it’s found. It’ll likely be clipped in to an anchor on a rock, alpine, or canyon route.
Anywho, it was a fun day with my OG homeslice Armando, and we got some good gardening in. It’s a cool little canyon, pretty easy on the bushwhacking scale for the SGs. Adios.