Catalina Packraft April 21-23

Looking for something interesting to do locally, I thought to revisit the idea of a Catalina packrafting and hiking loop. Pouring over maps it seemed a figure 8 loop around the west side of the island with Two Harbors at the crossover would make a solidly ambitious trip including some off-trail hiking and a committing paddle along the exposed Pacific side. Unfortunately the hike-in campgrounds necessary to do this trip were all booked, not to mention I would have difficulty recruiting a partner to join. Realizing that Catalina's boat-in campgrounds were remarkably under-utilized (still wide open days before departure) I side-stepped into a more mellow traversing option: start at Two Harbors and paddle 13 miles to Avalon over the course of two days. This turned out to be a real winner and overall I was surprised at the lack of people and pristine nature of some of this coastline.

The 8:30a ferry from San Pedro got us into Two Harbors by mid-morning. A short 500ft is all we had to walk to start organizing gear and inflating packrafts; we pushed off as soon as we could. In short order we paddled past the bleak but full Two Harbors Campground, completely hosted on a sizable landslide deposit. The cliffs along the coast turned out to be considerably more interesting than I would have guessed- bedded diatomite, submarine channel deposits, volcanics, and volcaniclastics (not to mention abundant, varied, and sizable landslides). Lining the top of the cliffs were delicate but robust native succulents, a colorful island subspecies of dudleya. Beneath us clear waters revealed kelp beds and a plethora of bright orange garibaldi. Seals swam or lounged carefree. Had we realized this stretch of coast would boast the best snorkeling we probably would have stopped, but the clarity meant that paddling over the kelp was nearly as good. Along Blue Cavern Point we ducked into several small sea caves and the one more lengthy Perdition Cave, which we could paddle into one entrance and out the other. We stopped on a cobble beach just before the rock quarry area for a short lunch before embarking on a two mile paddle to Empire Landing, where the coastline would become more interesting again. Fortunately the light swell and winds were in our favor. 

        Perdition Cave

Rippers Cove was the first boat-in campsite we reached. Well occupied, it seemed a nice enough spot with the best hammock prospects of any of the boat-in sites. We stopped briefly at Paradise Cove, the smallest site with barely room for a tent.

        Paradise Cove (and next)

A thousand feet on from Paradise was Lava Wall Camp, a sizable cliff-lined camp with an interesting bedrock channel we scrambled up. We marveled at the great metamorphic rocks and minerals here- garnets, actinolite, hornblende, anthophyllite. The diversity was impressive. Nice succulents and intricate lichens too. This seemed like a nice camp option but we were to paddle onward to Cabrillo.

        Climbing out of Lava Wall

        Catalina live-forever (Dudleya virens subsp. hassei)

        Life on Mars?

The wind swell picked up as the skies became cloudy adding drama to this steep stretch of coast. We paddled past Gibraltar Beach, exposed to the swell, and around the corner to comparatively calm Cabrillo. 

Cabrillo Beach turned out to be quite the idyllic spot. A long shingle beach, a gracefully tilting rock island, colorful sparsely vegetated hillsides and a couple picnic tables. We selected the best spot to pitch a tent and then went about exploring. Although there were multiple campsites that could have been booked we had the beach to ourselves. I hiked up the hillside to the southeast side of the beach which presented great views. I enjoyed a peaceful pink sunset and reading my book on the beach overlooking the faint glow of the distant Los Angeles Port.

        Cabrillo Beach (and next three)

With less than five miles to paddle the second day, we had a leisurely morning at Cabrillo. I attempted to snorkel but found the visibility to be pretty poor and the water cold, and so quickly lost interest. Once packed we paddled past Goat Harbor, another picturesque camp spot beneath a colorful promontory. The region around Twin Rocks was particularly nice. We had a brief snack and sunbathing stop at Italian Gardens (not the most interesting camps), and then stopped again at Long Point Beach. This spot I really liked, having the wildest feel of all the beaches and being entirely cliff-lined such that there was no overland escape. With considerable difficulty I managed to rig a hammock on the chossy rocks.

        Long Point Beach

Pushing off from Long Point Beach, it was another straightline paddle past a few coves and summer camps to Willow Cove, our camp for the night. Willow Cove was cozy- a short beach, cacti coated cliffs, a nice grassy camp area, a dryfall just inland, obese squirrels, and a steep grassy hillside that led to the top of the 350ft cliff to the south of the cove. After setting up camp I paddled in and around the rocks towards Toyon Bay. We prepped our freeze-dried meals and then hiked up the hillside to have our dinner looking down on our camp below. The temperature was thoroughly comfortable.

        Willow Cove

We wanted to give ourselves ample time to get to the 10:15a ferry in Avalon, which necessitated a 5:30a wakeup. We were packed and paddling by about 6:45a. Other than the distractions of tuna lobsters swimming around and spotting four deer munching on coastal cliffs, we made great time paddling for Avalon. Coming upon the cliff coating resort of Hamilton Beach was quite a contrast to the previous two days of mostly wild coastline. Disassembly and packing went smoothly in Avalon, giving us plenty of time to track down breakfast before the ferry back. The ferry back was loaded with backpackers which made me very thankful for the trip we did- rather than camping with row after row of tents in a full campground we had our beaches all to ourselves.

So all in all it was a nice weekend away, a pleasant coastal paddle, and a rare opportunity to camp on wild southern California beaches with not another person in sight. Thanks to Sara for helping with logistics and joining.

Thunder Canyon Cave April 15

Thunder Canyon Cave is the most extensive known granite talus cave in San Diego and one that I had been curious about for a long time. So when I heard a trip was being led through the SoCal Grotto I jumped at the chance to get on a trip to check it out. A very early departure from Riverside had me the first to arrive at the meeting spot, a pleasant enough area of classic San Diego rolling granite hills that seemed to have good bouldering and climbing potential. I enjoyed the quiet apart from the birdsong as I packed my bag and others slowly arrived. In all there were ten of us, a solid group, and somewhat surprising most were about my age best I could tell. Everybody seemed very friendly. For a couple this would be their first vertical cave trip.

We set off along a meandering network of dirt bike trails towards the caves, the trip leaders thankfully having good memory of the cave's whereabouts- this would be an easy area to hide talus caves! It was already getting a little warm but we chatted as we cruised along, reaching the cave in a about an hour. The entrance was completely unassuming- just a particular space between several boulders in a field of thousands of other similar gaps. One of the trip leaders rigged the "top drop" entrance while the rest of us snacked and readied. I was quick to get in line to drop into the cave, craving its cool confines and curious to explore it. The drop was a little awkward the way it led down a chockstoned crack and over a bedrock fin but I was soon down.

The cave is no Millerton Cave (wet, active, intricately fluted and potholed, king of CA talus caves) but I was glad to see that the same water-polished granite walls were present throughout the cave. Occasionally water did flood spectacularly through this cave but the intermittent nature meant there were flowstone falls and rimstone dams in places, both better developed than in any other granite cave I've seen. It was clear there would be considerable time spent waiting for everyone so I convinced someone to give me a boost so I could climb the flowstone fall up into the uppermost portion of the cave. Here a nice 50ft stretch (Serpentine Passage) led to a more prolonged tight slot. I hung out at the top of the falls taking photos of the others coming down.

Once we were all down the drop and in the cave we moved as one group through the narrow passage, working our way over and under boulder chokestones and shimmying through narrow spaces. It was all very social with a person just in front and just behind at all times. Progress was slow but we eventually reached the middle entrance area (Bat Entrance), where one of the party decided to climb out. While that was happening I moved the rope down the cave and rigged the Cathedral Room pitch. This room was easily the most surprising and standout feature of the cave. Instead of the narrow slot passages a balcony-like hanging pothole led to a 50ft flowstone waterfall descending into a spacious room (frontispiece). I was the first down and waited a solid 35 minutes until the others began to descend, but it was easily the nicest and most comfortable place to wait. The temperature was so perfect in this cave as to not render a conscious thought about it. 

In the Cathedral Room we all got a briefing of the rest of the cave. We'd have a handline down a vertical chimney, then another down a flowstone falls, then the infamous squeeze, which has been the site of at least major rescue. A lot of care went into sequencing everyone for the squeeze and passing through all the packs. Everyone got through the squeeze without much issue. I didn't even have to take my harness or helmet off so I'm not sure I'd really count it as a squeeze. 

One of the group managed to drop their headlamp into the tighter bottom part of the crack, which sans helmet and harness now, gave me an opportunity to really test the squeeze. I was able to recover it without much effort. One final short climb and a bit of a breakdown maze brought us out the bottom entrance and into the warm sun. The plan was to hike back up to the top entrance with someone dropping into the middle entrance to de-rig the drop there. Nico and I instead volunteered to go back through the whole cave, de-rigging everything, and meeting at the top entrance. With some reluctance we were given the go ahead and went back into the cool confines of the cave. With just two of us we made excellent time, even including ascending the drops and de-rigging them. The ~500ft of cave which took the group over 4 hours to traverse took the two of us 25 minutes to return through. In fact the others beat us to the top entrance by only a couple of minutes. It was immensely satisfying being able to balance out the slow but social trip with a second exercise in speedy efficiency. The uphill walk to the car in the afternoon sun was slower, but eventually we all made it back. It was probably the slowest cave trip I've ever been on before, but I enjoyed seeing the cave and enjoyed meeting nine friendly people in the process.

I've been in at least a half dozen granite talus caves in California now and find them endless fascinating and enigmatic. The general idea is that they are deeply incised slot canyons that then have boulders collapse over the top to create an enclosed space. While this works for much of the length of the caves, all these caves have passages where the floor, walls, and ceiling are all in situ bedrock indicating that along some stretches water is capable of tunneling through the granitic rocks rather than just downcutting. For a few meters a stream could do this by drilling a bedrock pothole and then breaching its wall (and this does happen often), but for longer stretches a different mechanism seems to be at play. I'm not sure Thunder Canyon gave me any new insight, but these caves remain of interest. Thanks to the trip leader Jess and Nico for going back through the cave with me.

Deep Creek Mar 23

The wait for water. Keith and I had been monitoring the latest storm with great interest. As it came through Riverside the intensity was decidedly less than advertised but we still hoped some local rivers would appear. We monitored the USGS stream gauges for the Santa Margarita near Temecula, Big Rock in the San Gabriels, and Deep Creek in the San Bernardinos. We scheduled a 5:30a check-in to see what happened with the gauges. Santa Margarita and Big Rock had too small of a response but Deep Creek peaked at about 1500 cfs, almost certainly too high. The only trip we knew of did it at 100 cfs but we both felt pretty sure we'd want more water than that, like say 400 cfs. So we played the waiting game, watching the latest readings came in just after the top of each hour. By noon we identified that it was decaying at about 80 cfs per hour and by 2p we decided to give it a try. We drove over the San Bernardinos to avoid the Friday traffic, and started hiking across the dam at the confluence with the Mojave at 4:15p. 

The hike. The trail is actually the Pacific Crest Trail and is adapted from a perfectly graded former flume high on the hillside. Graffiti, trash, unfortunately nothing special. We could see most of the river from the trail which gave us a good sense of the obstacles we'd face: bouldery rapids and water filtering through thickets. We were pressed for time and were already getting worried about the dropping creek level and so decided to put on at the rainbow bridge about three miles up. By the time we inflated and suited up it was 6:15p when we finally put on to the foamy brown river.

The put-in. Almost immediately we encountered the worse stretch of thickets which we had to plow through. This was unpleasant and also slowed us down considerably. After a few minutes of working our way to the best channel, we were back onto a better behaved creek. The creek was fast. Conveyor like pools prompted careful looks downstream and quick decisions of where to maneuver before committing to a particular line down a rapid. It was a little bumpy overall and it was clear we actually would have benefited from more water (should have gotten an earlier start!). There were some moments of fun and the bedrock sections were rather nice apart from the ever-present graffiti.

The bashing. Everything was straightforward enough until we reached the mini-gorge of Prime Time Falls (frontispiece), a solid bedrock drop with two paths and two tiers each. Keith smartly made the decision to portage while I stared at it looking for a good line. There wasn't one. The top left had a nasty slot with a lateral wave but a clean second drop into the pool below. The top right was a straightforward drop, which led to a bony second drop that landed on bedrock at the edge of the pool. I chose left; I chose poorly. The narrow passage led me too close to the left wall where the lateral flipped me and I got bounced upside down the rest of the falls. When I came up my paddle had drifted off out of sight into the foam, I could taste blood, and my elbow was pretty severely bruised. Adrenaline was doing its job though and we searched for my paddle as quickly as we could, finding it beached just downstream.

        Prime Time Falls, a moment from inversion

The race for light. Every minute was a minute closer to darkness and so we speed on as best we could. Fortunately the quality of the river generally improved through this stretch, though there was still the occasional tight passage between clumps of vegetation. We had gone two miles, we were losing the light. We had one final right turn before we reached the stream gauge where the valley opened up and I thought we would get just enough light to finish our run when we came across two people on the left (wrong) side of the creek. As one of them was up to his knees in the water my first impression was they were fishing and camping there and I was about to plow past with little acknowledgement when one of them asked us for help. We'd have to save downstream for another day.

The rescue. Turns out we had two local kids from Hesperia that had hiked down from the bridge and now found themselves on the wrong side of a flooded creek. They had tried crossing unsuccessfully, drowning two cameras and soaking their clothes in the process. They had no flashlight other than on their nearly dead cell phones. Without us they would have continued hiking down the left side, probably until it was too dark and their lights were used up. Rescue would not have come until the morning and they were looking to have a miserable night ahead of them. To say they were excited to see us was an understatement. We paddled upstream a hundred feet to the calmest part of the river in this stretch and used the throw rope to setup a fixed line. I sat one of the kids in my boat and explained how to cross. The fastest part of the current almost got him but he figured it out and made it. The second kid crossed a little smoother. I then swam across while pulling on the throw rope. They were ecstatic. I had Keith help me peel my wetsuit off my stiff left arm and we then began collapsing our boats. Fortunately I found an excellent foottrail that led us up the hill back to the PCT, where uneventful hiking took us back to our car and one of their severely pissed off moms.

So it was a strange trip between the late start and the legitimate rescue. We ended up having a flow of about 550-450 cfs while we were on the creek and we both agreed that more would have been better. We only ran about 2 miles of creek but made really good time ticking it off in about an hour and it was worth it to get out. I'd love to do the full 14 miles that are boatable sometime. Thanks to Keith for the trip. Photos of me thanks to Keith.

Bonita Canyon Mar 11

Keith and I had hoped the rain would be enough to bump up a local river paddlability but on arrival we saw a rather pathetic excuse for a creek and so resorted to the backup plan, a canyon. Keith's vote was clearly for Eaton but I leaned for something shorter that I had not seen before. Bonita Creek up Lytle Creek had rave reviews for a short San Gabriel canyon and so we gave it a shot. For probably the entire hike and canyon there was some graffiti or trash in eye sight which was a real bummer. The weather was a comfortable misty morning with peaks hiding in clouds.  We veered off the good route to the top and ended up finding our own loose way. I enjoyed seeing all the native dudleya succulents at least, amazingly resilient given the frost and occasional snow they must have to endure. 

The first nuisancy rappel led to a hanging rebelay on a tree to rap down the picturesque top falls. The falls was great but the anchor spelled awkwardness for Keith and I. The middle falls was a shorter slabbier affair. The bottom falls had a number of people at its base so I had to carefully manage the rope bag until I could and get an all clear to drop the rope. Once dropped this was a fun rappel, the perfect slope to go fast with 10-15ft leaps at a time. One of the more fun rappels I've had in a while. With Keith down we packed up and strolled the short fifteen minutes back to the car. One of those once is enough places that has been thoroughly trashed.

Thanks to Keith for suffering through it.