Rubio Canyon July 21

Few people know there are canyons in the San Gabriel Mountains minutes from downtown Los Angeles with perennial waterfalls offering refreshing canyoning trips in the heat of summer. While a pretty tame and straightforward canyon, Rubio Canyon would make a great warm-up for some of the more committing canyons I hoped to check out in the Southwest in a couple weeks. It was certainly a different breed to the canyons I have become accustomed to in New Zealand and probably the first canyon I have done that started and ended in a residential neighborhood!

We switchbacked up the Sam Merrill Trail to Echo Mountain, making good time as much of the trail was still in the morning shade. Along the way we gathering several odd glances from walkers and hikers who
were a bit baffled by our large packs and clearly had no idea what we were about to do. At the top we had expansive views of the city fading into its own grimy filth in all direction ("marine layer" they call it here). Echo Mountain itself was an interesting spot. In the late 1800s, keen entrepreneurs decided to build a dramatic cable railway up the steep hillside to Echo Mountain where they built an elaborate resort in the pines, which they called the White City. Inevitably they bankrupted. The resort was abandoned in the 1930s and ruins are now all that remain of the ambitious scheme.

We found a rough trail down into the valley easily enough and continued downstream though the oak forest, carefully avoiding the prevalent poison oak (which was probably the most challenging part of the trip!). There was a nice babbling stream pretty much the whole way, which was a welcome temperature for the heat of the day. Before too long we arrived at the first obstacle and out came the rope and rappelling gear.



A short distance downstream the canyon makes a turn and then drops dramatically 80' in a narrow defile known as Thalehaha Falls. The view from the top was more impressive than I could have anticipated- although short, this was actually a canyon! I went down first, slowly to avoid slipping on the smooth algae-covered rocks, and enjoying the cooling spray of the waterfall. My pull rope ended up being a bit short so I had to stop mid-rappel to attach another length of webbing to the bottom of the rope.







Immediately below in rapid succession was another waterfall rappel, a downclimb and two more waterfalls. We stopped at a pool between waterfalls to enjoy a peaceful lunch, the coolness of the water, and the warmth of the sun on our bare skin. Two more refreshing rappels and we were back on a good trail, and then strolling through a neighborhood with helmets and rappelling gear back the car.





Thanks to Devon for the car shuttle.