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.