Wonderland of Rocks Sept 24

Another month almost without any escape, I left Riverside predawn to spend a few hours working on my Wonderland of Rocks Floor Is Lava Project before the heat of the day set in. I thought I would try to tick off some of the forbidding terrain north of Rattlesnake Canyon. I started hiking at Indian Cove's Rattlesnake Canyon trailhead before 8am. Recent thunderstorms meant the washes were moist, making better travel. Along the way I found a surprising number of pools and even more surprising number of small red-spotted toads hopping out of the way of my footfalls. On familiar terrain, I made it to the Rattlesnake Canyon talus cave in just over a half hour. This would be the last major wash crossing I would have to tackle on my traverse. Fortunately there were ample boulders strewn along the floor and in about 10 minutes I was able to find a route scrambling across to the north side of the wash. The game was afoot.

I scrambled steeply a few hundred feet up slabs and worked my way northwestward as best I could. In no time at all I felt the remoteness surround me. The humidity won over the early hour, resulting in drenching sweat. Puffy white clouds already began to form. The terrain was much less cooperative than I hoped and I soon came to realize that this area might be the hardest section to crack. I struggled to sidle around a sandy wash and when I finally gained the saddle I realized there was more sand. After only about 75 minutes in lava-mode I broke the route to beeline out, still requiring another 70 minutes by path of least resistance to regain my car. In the end I hiked a little over 4 miles in 3 hours. I was way too tired and my marathon through-trip felt a little further away than before. I would probably need to find a completely different route further west. The ultimate goal feels far away. Hopefully I can try to make some more progress over the winter months. It was nice enough to spend a few hours locked in deep wilderness.

Eaton Canyon Sept 11

My last visit to Eaton Canyon was way back in January 2016. This would be late season in the middle of an epic drought but we held out minor hope that the remnants of Hurricane Kay passing through the day before would boost flows slightly. It did not. What it did do was ensure that we were absolutely drenched in sweat on the hike up due to the extreme humidity despite our 7:40am start to our hike. The hike up to Henninger Flats was straightforward enough; apparently we just missed seeing some bears. Once we branched off onto the Telephone Trail we had to be rather careful with all of the poison oak infringing on the trail. I enjoyed the moments of downcanyon views out into the LA Basin and the patches of crunchy fall leaves covering the trail. 

At the creek I was disappointed to find it barely flowing. In hindsight we would have been fine without wetsuits but we all put them on since we had them. At our suit-up spot I found a cute ensatina salamander enjoying the moisture from the previous day's dampening.

The creek flow was very low and went dry completely in many places. There would be no jumps, slides, or swims and the deepest wade was just past my waist. It certainly was not the waterpark I hoped for (and looking at my 2016 pictures proves the contrast) but we were all happy to be outside and it was new to the others.

We worked our way through downclimbs that would have been slides and some dry waterfall rappels. The rappel into the short gorge section definitely lost some of its appeal without water splashing and a deep pool below. We stopped at one point for a snack but for the most part made steady progress. Some of the banded gneiss we saw was particularly beautiful, better than I remembered.

The second to last fall was nice as always except this time had a swirl of water-seeking bees to rappel through which was not a high point for any of us. I opted to take off my wetsuit at the bottom of the falls, a decision I was happy with later. Here a group of two behind us almost caught up. I forgot how long the slog was between the last two rappels.

The last falls (Eaton Falls) had its usual fanfare with about thirty people dipping toes in a meager muddy pool at the base of the trickling falls. None of us made any embarrassing moves and I think all of us got rounds of applause on reaching the bottom. The hike out was fine. We were back to the car around 3pm. Thanks to the others for a reason to get outside.