Axis Mundi — Canyon Exploration in Big Tujunga

There I hung at the end of the rope, dan­gling only a foot above the water. I rap­pelled far enough down so if I stretched my foot I could dip it in. Water sprin­kled down all around me, trick­ling out of the rock and drip­ping off of the ferns, like a rain­for­est. Dan­gling there I savored the moment alone. It was beau­ti­ful and serene.

I had my rest, now it was time to ascend back up the 160 feet of rope above me. I attached my rope grabs and inched up a few feet at a time. I was fair­ly wet at this point so when I hit a sec­tion of loose dirt it show­ered onto me stick­ing to my clothes and face.  I called up to Dave above me “Okay, I’m halfway up the rope”. 10 min­utes lat­er the drone buzzed above me sound­ing like an angry swarm of bees. Ben was pilot­ing it from the road across the reser­voir. Mov­ing my ascen­ders up the rope they got jammed with veg­e­ta­tion and dirt, I wor­ried that one might get stuck open or not grab the rope prop­er­ly. Hey, at least there’s water below me. My har­ness was attached to both of them so that was high­ly unlike­ly, yet still a bit unsettling.

I even­tu­al­ly made it to the top of the rap­pel despite the rain­ing dirt, water, and veg­e­ta­tion, where we had anchored off of two small trees in the water­course, the drone still buzzing around us. It was Dave’s turn now to rap­pel down and ascend back up. It seemed almost point­less if you thought about it too much. Rap­pelling to the bot­tom of the rope only to come back up. This was how­ev­er the best rap­pel of the canyon and the main draw of descend­ing this route. I had seen this drop count­less times pad­dling through the reser­voir (or walk­ing through the mud at low water lev­els), exit­ing oth­er canyons in the area. Damned if I skipped this last rap­pel! It’d haunt me every time I looked at it.

We start­ed the day at 7:30 and began the 3,000 foot gain hike to just below Fox Peak in the Ange­les Nation­al For­rest, the back­drop of Los Ange­les. Views from the ridge­line were amaz­ing, with 360 degrees of moun­tains and canyons.

The descent was steep and crumbly. Cling­ing to the moun­tain­side and to small tufts of veg­e­ta­tion we clam­bered down unsta­ble slopes, rocks rain­ing below us loosed from our feet. Great views. Hel­mets on!

The low­er we got the more sta­ble to rock was and more canyon-like the route became, a typ­i­cal phe­nom­e­non when descend­ing a canyon from the top of a drainage.

The first rap­pel was almost a down-climb. What some might call a “nui­sance rap­pel”. Much safer and eas­i­er to rap­pel than to attempt a sketchy climb with major penal­ty points for slip­ping. Then the canyon dropped off. Anchored from a bush high on the left we used just about all of the 200 foot rope.

A short bush­whack fol­lowed by anoth­er short rap­pel and some down-climbs and the Big Tujun­ga Reser­voir came into view. I radioed to Ben that we were get­ting close so he could pre­pare the drone.

Here is a video of the trip that Ben put togeth­er. All of the non drone video I took so it’s most­ly the Dave Red show, although I did man­age to fit in one or two shots of myself. The awe­some drone footage by Ben makes the video. For best results view full screen and HD (1080)