I’ve now been in Europe almost 5 months. 2 Weeks of work fol­lowed by a month of canyon­ing on and off in Spain & France. Hav­ing set­tled down in Mostar, Bosnia & Herze­gov­ina for a few weeks my mind wan­ders back to how my life was at the start of 2016. After a big storm (by cur­rent LA stan­dards) I vis­it­ed a few of the local canyons near my home in Los Ange­les. The canyons that had been all but dry the week before.

Thursday — Little Santa anita canyon

It was still dark as I drove down the rainy 210 free­way East towards Pasade­na,  too ear­ly for the noto­ri­ous LA traf­fic, which gets even worse now that it had been rain­ing for a few days. But I’ll deal with some traf­fic if it means the local canyons are flow­ing again.When it rains there are a few drainages in the San Gabriel moun­tains that turn into nat­ur­al water-parks. Jump­ing, slid­ing and rap­pelling into pools and water­falls. And it had been rain­ing, hard, for two days. 5 inch­es in 48 hours! Hit­ting the “refresh” but­ton on the rain­fall track­ing page hap­pened at least a few times an hour while I was at my com­put­er inside the office lis­ten­ing to the rain pelt­ing the roof, all while keep­ing an eye out for leaks.

Water in Lit­tle San­ta Ani­ta! Pho­to by Fran­cis­co Camberos.

Excite­ment built as I could hear the water a few hun­dred feet away in the canyon below as we hiked up to the drop-in point, “First Water” in Lit­tle San­ta Ani­ta Canyon, one of the main drainages of the famous Mount Wil­son. A nice jaunt to start the day. I had­n’t seen it flow­ing like this in almost 2 years. David and Fran­cis­co were crazy enough to get up on a work­day and meet at 6:30 in the morn­ing at the trail head.

Donned the wetsuit.….it was cold and I’d brought extra neo­prene. I rushed ahead to get into the canyon, the flow was look­ing good and I was eager­ly antic­i­pat­ing being sub­merged in it, rap­pelling through it. Set the first rap­pel and I went down.

Stand­ing in a Los Ange­les water­fall before work!

Water­fall after water­fall we played like kids at a water park. Kids at a very cold water park wear­ing neo­prene. Slid­ing, splash­ing & rap­pelling in the water as much as we could. A drainage that rarely sees more than a trick­le over recent years was a rag­ing tor­rent by contrast.

The penul­ti­mate rap­pel is a sin­u­ous chute that ends in a large pot­hole, which in dry­er times we used many times as a canyon par­ty venue, snug­gly fit­ting 15 people.

LSA Pot­hole Par­ty (On a much dri­er day)

Four days ear­li­er while explor­ing an upper trib­u­tary of LSA I found myself in this same pot­hole, alone in the dark devis­ing a method of escape. You see, from the ground in the pot­hole there is a wall of gran­ite, 7 to 8 feet high with an over­hang, that you must climb up in order to get out of the canyon. I had tried climb­ing but was so exhaust­ed from the long day I resort­ed to the next tech­nique, the pot­shot. Sim­ply a bag you fill with sand, attach a rope to and toss over a ver­ti­cal obsta­cle and then use the rope to climb out, hop­ing there is enough weight that you don’t pull the bag of sand up, over and on top of your head while try­ing to climb out. It’s kind of like a grap­pling hook but with a coun­ter­weight instead of a hook. Today, after much antic­i­pa­tion, it was final­ly a “swim­mer” again, for at least half of it. No spe­cial tech­niques nec­es­sary, just a sim­ple swim out.

Soon enough we were walk­ing back through the sleepy com­mu­ni­ty of Sier­ra Madre. A quick change out of my wet­suit and it was off to work, dream­ing about Rubio the next morning.

Sun­rise over Los Ange­les. Approach to Lit­tle San­ta Ani­ta Canyon. 

The water is flowing! 

Look­ing down rap­pel #1 in LSA. 

Fran­cis­co com­ing down the first rappel. 

Rope bagging. 

Fran­cis­co gets a fresh mouth of LSA rain­wa­ter run-off. 

Dav, super­vis­ing rap­pel 2. 

More Water! 

Bag­ging the rope. 

That’s me on rope! One of the few pictures. 

Dav rap­pelling inside the water­course as much as possible. 

This can some­times be a down-climb in dri­er weather. 

Recent rock­fall. When it rains rock and mud slide into the drainages. 

Fran­cis­co rap­pelling into the cur­tain of water. 

Dav behind the same cur­tain of water. 

Small down-climb in the water. 

Fran­cis­co finds a dirty pool of foam. 

Fran­cis­co finds a dirty pool of foam. 

The water con­tin­ues to flow! 

The “Hall­way” Near the end of Lit­tle San­ta Ani­ta Canyon. 

Look­ing down into the pot­hole. Just last week I climbed out of this thing and it was as dry as a bone. 

Look­ing at the water flow­ing out of the pot­hole. “Swim­mer mode”. 

Fran­cis­co rap­pels into the pothole. 

This part of the pot­hole you can stand. Then it gets deep and you have to swim. 

All smiles when there’s water in Los Ange­les canyons! 

Screw the bolt. This is a down-climb. 

The water in Lit­tle San­ta Ani­ta is actu­al­ly flow­ing to the damn. Anoth­er day and this will all be dry. 

Friday — Rubio AM

The next morn­ing was Rubio. Anoth­er short canyon before work in the front range of the San Gabriel Moun­tains. Two friends, Scott and Lainey  were excit­ed enough to meet me at the trail­head at 6:30am. Inci­den­tal­ly this was Lainey’s first canyon dur­ing the day (night canyoneer­ing has got­ten pret­ty pop­u­lar with our group).

Rubio fared much less with regards to water flow. There was def­i­nite­ly more water than usu­al but noth­ing like the pools and short slides of LSA the morn­ing prior.

POV shot look­ing down Leon­tine Falls. Not a huge amount of water but enough for a sprin­kling when the rap­pel turns into a short free-hang.

While I have descend­ed Rubio Canyon almost 20 times, the view look­ing down from Leon­tine Falls is some­thing I nev­er tire of.

Hik­ing up to Rubio Canyon bright and early! 

Approach­ing the drop-in. Lainey’s first canyon dur­ing the day. Scott pon­der­ing what the canyon might hold. 

Rap­pel num­ber 2. Scott get­ting ready for the last 100′ of Leon­tine Falls. 

“So this is what it looks like dur­ing the day!” 

Scott on rap­pel. Leon­tine Falls in Rubio Canyon. 

Lainey on rap­pel. Leon­tine Falls in Rubio Canyon. 

POV shot look­ing down Leon­tine Falls. Not a huge amount of water but enough for a sprin­kling when the rap­pel turns into a short free-hang. 

Diana’s bath. This used to be a deep wade. Now filled with sand. 

Rap­pelling Thale­ha­ha Falls with just a trickle. 

There was­n’t enough water for a wet­suit in Rubio (I had high hopes and thought we might need it) so it was a quick change of clothes and off to work.

The next day we planned on descend­ing San Anto­nio Falls. Up there at Mount Baldy where the falls were,  all the rain from the last storm meant lots of snow. While I have descend­ed canyons with some snow tun­nels before, I’d nev­er run a canyon cov­ered in snow. The big ques­tion was: do you wear a wet­suit or dress in some­thing more like moun­taineer­ing gear.

A pre­vi­ous night descent through Rubio Canyon. David Angel rap­pelling Thale­ha­ha “Falls”. Just enough water to make things inter­est­ing to try to stand.