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.
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.
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