Monkeyface Canyon Feb 28

Sara and I had a fun winter's day descending an up-and-coming classic southern California canyon with some new friends, only 35 minutes from Riverside! The weather forecast was for snow...and snow it briefly did. We parked our cars on the side of the road with Monkeyface canyon towering above us. The approach was up a steep and often loose scree chute, but on the plus side we wasted no time gaining altitude. Meanwhile the clouds seemed to roll in and we were wondering whether this was a good idea. We were all pretty chatty on the way up which help to break up the climb. Eventually (20 minutes?) we reached the saddle, just above the snowline on the opposite, shady, side of the valley. A short rappel down a loose gully and then another hundred feet or so of scree and we were at the water's edge.

This was a pretty compact canyon and it wasn't long before we reached our first rappel. This slabby falls was easy to stay dry on but I knew that wouldn't last long.

        The first wet rappel.

After the second and third rappels there was an interesting turn in the canyon through some bedrock narrows, then another turn down the main event: a steep fault-controlled chain of four excellent waterfalls with the road visible far below. This section of canyon would be lots of fun in high flow.

My hands were getting a little numb and it intermittently snowed or hailed on us, but we were all smiles. Unfortunately the last two falls were somewhat accessible by punters, such that even here, there was graffiti and trash. Despite that the rocks were still exceptionally pretty, with water-polished megacrystic feldspar gneisses.

Shortly we arrived back at the road, de-suited and searched for the nearest cup of hot chocolate we could find. Thanks to Alden, Scott, and Sara for a fun few hours.

Drywater Canyon Feb 27

Desperate for a couple hours escape, I was all game when a mate was interested in checking out a couple suspicious shadows and a "falls" marked on a topo a short 40 minutes away from my front door. Further, it was in an area I have been increasing intrigued by in terms of its tectonics. We arrived in good time to find the wind absolutely howling through the valley. After a little bit of discussion regarding how best to approach the canyon, we set off. The route was steep, but highly scenic and certainly the most direct. It only took us about 20 minutes to reach the head of the canyon.

The narrows of the Miocene conglomerate slowly grew around us. Ahead I could see an obvious horizon line which I approached with anticipation. The view exceeded all expectations- a beautiful long and clean drop followed immediately by another, in a twisty narrow slut. I yelled out in delight, but moments later Alden found webbing behind me on the most obvious anchor location which downgraded our enthusiasm a bit. This was not going to be a first descent, but it sure did look like we were going to have some fun.

        First and second drops into the twisty narrows

There was just enough water on the drops to wet the rope, which our belay device then messily rung out all over us. The first two drops were followed by several short downclimbs and a surprising amount of water. We even saw a few happy frogs. The conglomerate was interesting- thoroughly hard rock in its water-polished form.

It was clear there had been a flood since the previous descenders went through. The second rappel dropped into a nice pothole shaped hallway.

Then more downclimbs and a slight widening of the canyon before its narrow finish.

One final downclimb led to the last big 125ft rappel- this one looked much bigger above than from below! We used a fiddlestick to avoid a potentially nasty pull on this last rappel.

We were back at the cars in less than 2 hours, satisfied at our little find. Really a beautiful little area! Too bad there are not more canyons like this one around! Thanks to Alden for a fun couple hours.