A careful look at land ownership suggested there was a wild and scenic section of Murray Canyon that could be descended on national monument land and legally accessed through the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. Key to the puzzle is the Maynard Mine Trail which crosses reservation land but ends in a block of national monument in a 2.5 mile section of canyon. Since the national monument is administered by the BLM and USFS it was also possible to scout the canyon by drone. The upper section looked beautiful with bedrock narrows and two particularly dramatic waterfalls. The lower section looked to have some of the best pothole chain pools with great palm trees peppered in. Unfortunately the bottom 1400 feet of the canyon is within reservation land (no off trail travel allowed), and so the crux would be finding a place to climb steeply out of the south side of the canyon to reach the north side of the West Fork trail within the national monument. That and trying to do the whole thing in the 8am to 5pm window the reservation was open!
Best of the upper section
Murray is one of the bigger and higher catchments draining San Jacinto (along with Andreas and Tahquitz) and so even in mid-June has pleasant crystalline flow that would be a delight in the Palm Springs summer heat. We set off up the Maynard Mine Trail as soon as we could, about 8:15am and climbed quickly as we could feel the heat of the day creeping upward. In less than 3 short miles the trail climbs over 2100 feet, providing views of Andreas Canyon waterfalls and the Coachella Valley below. Above the metamorphic rocks and granite at the head of Andreas reminded me of Mineral King in the southern Sierras. With a couple water breaks we arrived at the Maynard Mine in a little less than an hour. A quick poke around revealed the mine only went in about 15 feet and so we did not linger.
From here we descended 500 feet vertically down the the creek bed, finding the old mine camp and some heavy machinery remnants just above the creek. Murray Creek was beautiful! Fast flowing and lush, we soon found poison oak patches along its sides (fortunately these were somewhat limited). We were down the hill by 10am and kept a fierce pace rock hopping along the creek towards the upper canyon section. Along the way we passed a few nice bedrock sections with stripy potholes and some short falls to climb around.
We reached the final falls of the upper section at 11:15am and fortunately found an intricate route that climbed steeply up the north wall. We climbed about 250ft vertically to where the terrain eased slightly, allowing us to traverse on intermittent sheep trails. We did this canyon bypass perfectly- it only took us 20 minutes to regain the creek! A few bypassable waterfalls and a mandatory waist-deep wade brought us to the horizonline of the main 26ft waterfall. I brought a thermal wet top just in case but this first plunge pool revealed that the temperature was going to be perfect all day. This first falls was a beauty! After about a minute of searching we found the large boulder directly in the watercourse had a perfect pinch point to anchor off of. It was a lovely non-awkward rappel with a frog paradise pool below. In some shadowy overhangs on the side of the pool frogs were stacked three high!
The next two-stage waterfall (also about 25ft high) provided greater challenges with anchoring. After considerable searching and discussion we both settled on a knot chock feature about 40ft back from the falls. Some more wading pools led to the 16ft waterfall we recognized as the end of the upper section. We used a fiddlestick off the healthy sycamore on canyon right. At 12:45pm we pulled the rope we completed the upper canyon. We both agreed it was a beautiful section of canyon but a long way to go for three rappels and an hour of canyoning.
We retraced our steps back down canyon, reaching the base of the old Maynard Trail at about 2pm. Decision time! We really hoped for more time to complete the lower canyon given our 5pm curfew and so were debating taking the Maynard Mine trail back out. After a few minutes discussion and a realization that we would have to step up our game and hope for some luck, we continued down canyon at a clip. The walls narrowed and the beauty soon dialed up to a 10. Beautiful rocks, crystalline water, fern grottoes, canyon wrens, palm trees, and millions of frogs!
For a while the obstacles were easily bypassed or downclimbed. Then room-sized chockstones stacked three high began to wedge in the narrow canyon. We carefully skirted out a exposed rock ledge to where we could awkwardly rap down a palm tree. Novel, definitely, but once down we found out that what looked like a dangerous downclimb in the streamcourse from above actually would have been actually been a quick and easy downclimb. With no time to lament the lost time, we hurried onward and downward. The next section was particularly picturesque and friendly with obvious anchors (palm tree, chockstone pinch, palm tree) and non-awkward rappels. It was the perfect combination of pools, falls, granite, and palms. And frogs of course.
The beauty continued for another cruisy 500ft, bedrock everywhere.
The grand finale was presented by several more room-sized rocks. Unfortunately at the first obstacle we wasted more time rigging a rappel down the awkward slot watercourse when we could have downclimbed at the far left. The next feature was a mandatory rappel in an even more awkward slot, arguably one of the worst rappels I've ever done. And the final feature was a 5m steep slab waterfall that I was pretty convinced was a clean slide. I meat anchored my companion down to check the pool depth. He reported up 5ft depth which was more than suitable for me but he seemed alarmed that I would consider it sufficient. It was great! A fitting end. Now we had to escape.
Just below the slide on the parcel boundary the canyon walls opened ever so slightly, just enough that we could cautious pick a difficult but solid route up the south wall of the canyon. It was harder than I expected and suggest this is a major limiting factor for future visits. The wall eventually rolled over into the slabby slopes which we charged across to reach the trail. Short of time, we full-on ran back to the trailhead, arriving five minutes after 5pm. The park ranger unamused we quickly hopped in the car and peeled out. It ended up being a solid day. I was thankful for a bit of adventure and to have the opportunity to see such a wild and scenic place.
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