Our last attempt to visit Mecca Hills was unsuccessful as the access road was closed due to the Tropical Storm Hilary aftermath, and my back up plan of checking out nearby Five Palms Oasis turned up information that the oasis had burned to a crisp a few weeks prior! I had a couple ideas of loops I still wanted to check out. I'm sure the holiday weekend was partially to blame but the Painted Canyon Road was busy with several cars going about 15 mph on the well-graded road and well over 70 cars parked at the trailhead. I noted that there seemed to be up to 1m of added sediment in the wash presumably related to Hilary. Fortunately for us any ladders swept away seemed to have been reestablished. For this hike we past Ladder Canyon and continued on up the main Painted Canyon for about a mile where two good ladders led up dryfalls. We continued another quarter-mile to the prominent side canyon on canyon left that I hoped to ascend.
I probably should have expected it but the first tall dryfall in this side canyon also had a ladder, albeit a slightly sketchy one hanging off the ground on two rusty bolts; the ladder also did not quite reach the top of the fall requiring some handholds to continue over the lip. Around the corner was two more falls with ladders to climb. At the top we crossed the weird drainage divide that must have fairly recently formed, and continued up the main canyon. The canyon twisted its way up with some nice exposures of the bedrock metamorphic rocks at stream level. We turned right at the prominent junction into one of the better slot sections on this hike and had one more ladder to climb before I spotted an obvious ridge to climb out onto the top of the badlands.
We followed an actual trail for all of 150ft before dropping down into the neighboring canyon via a very loose rocky slope. An unspectacular wash gave way to a dramatic 25ft fluted dryfall requiring a rappel. I was hoping to not leave any anchor material behind but the safest option in this instance seemed to be a webbing anchor. Once down and rope pulled, we were more or less committed to whatever came next. The canyon continued open and soon had a unique 500 ft long slickrock patio section.
We then passed the canyon's abandoned meander where we were presented with a dramatic horizonline of the last portion of the canyon, a 150ft vertical descent through the metamorphic basement back to Painted Canyon wash. To my surprise this canyon actually had a sketchy ladder and two handlines already installed in it. We opted to rappel 30 ft off of a natural anchor instead down the first two-tier drop and then I meat anchored down the subsequent two of three downclimbs. Next was a short handline that led to a two-stage 80ft rappel with a single bolt already installed. While we were rigging this final drop a group of three appeared in the wash below and we overheard them talking about bolts, etc. In a few minutes they had climbed up to our position and revealed that they were the ones that had installed the gear in the canyon only a few weeks before. I am sure they were just as surprised to see us in the canyon as we were of them.
Once down and rope pulled we had a simple walk back down the wash to the car. There were still a surprising number of people out hiking and over forty cars still in the parking lot. So by the end of it we had hiked 3.5 hrs on a 4.5 mi loop with 7 ladders and 2 rappels. The second canyon was especially unique for its patio sections and steep bedrock section, unlike anything else in the Mecca Hills. The usually blocked off main wash was apparently open and so we drove up a couple of miles before turning around and passing more slowpoke drivers on the way back to pavement. We stopped off in Redlands to visit with a friend on the way back. All in all another pleasant day of mild adventure in the Mecca Hills.
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