Ultimate Frisbee! Go play it. Do it. Now. K.
So... the canyon Stone Plus One. Heading up from Sunland, I think it's actually the very first canyon there is. It's the first ditch/canyon one hill east of the actual Stone Canyon (thus Plus One). It's one that has been on "the list" for a while since it's fairly easily accessible, being very near the road.
So this was last Friday we did it, the day before the SCUBA deal of the previous post. Yes, why didn't I post this first, why oh why. That was more interesting at the time. Anyway! So it was Josh, Zack and I again. Josh finally decided he wanted some 5.10 shoes, and he conveniently lives 3 miles from their store in Redlands - only they don't open until 1pm! So, Zack and I got down to the parking lot like 2.5 hours early and just waited around. Well, not "just waited" I suppose. We walked down to the nearby stream and had some fun, cooled down with the water (it was hot that day, quite hot). We also had a mini anchor-building class going on for him. I like teaching (so long as I know what I'm talking about lol) :)
So eventually, after waiting longer than expected, we get back in the truck and start driving out, and meet Josh as he's coming into the parking area. Ridiculously, the parking area has a sign that says it closes at 6pm, and we know we will be out later than that, so we leave and park at the first turnout up the road. To temporarily fast-foward... I was fairly annoyed when we were walking back thru the entrance like past 8pm and the gate was still open. (Pleasant part of post ends here).
So! We get our gear, our ropes, make sure we have our headlamps, etc, and start heading out. Walk down the road, back down to and through the parking area, across the stream and start heading up a very long and large stone wash - which we eventually discover is the wrong way (I had the feeling all along, I tell you!) So we go back, find the right trailhead, and start heading up the real trail. 10 minutes in and we're pretty much out of water haha, definitely should have carried more. That hike was stupid without any. Was over an hour of a hike, quite steep, and including many of those "this has to be the last turn" feelings only to disappoint. It was also very hot, as mentioned earlier. We get to and discover the lower entrance to the canyon, but opt to just head up the rest of the way and start at the upper drop-in. Oh yea... and whenever we stopped for more than 1 second we would get crazy red ants crawling up us. It sucked, bad.
After a long steep loose earth slope filled with bushwhacking to get down into the canyon and the first rappel, and the hope of running water... we get to it to find a small pool at the top of the first rap with some blood-red algae and other muck at the bottom of it. Luckily there was a small, cleaner/clear stream trickling off the rap. Being the last one down, I locked off halfway down where there were 4 nice "lines" of water streaming down off the rock on a short overhang, and started filling up my bottle (thank god for filtered bottles, we were pretty thirsty).
So we continue down a few more rappels and one tricky downclimb that Zack jumped the gun on, made me think he was gonna split his head open. I was uncomfortable with this small downclimb, just because of how exposed it was, when I've never been afraid of heights and Zack took like an hour to man up to do his first 35' rappel. Something was definitely wrong with that. The canyon was ridiculously dry for the most part but eventually the groundwater started pouring through with a small trickle of a stream flowing, eventually reaching a rappel (the last of the upper section) with enough flow that we actually got fairly wet. This rappel we already had our headlamps on, as the canyon had become dark enough to use them.
A few minutes go on of horrendous bushwhacking, going through some poison oak (which I might add once again did not affect me, yipee!), plants with thorns, logs with a BILLION red ants - seriosuly, I put my hand on it for 1 second or less for balance going down a drop, and I had at least 10 on my hand/glove. It was extremely dark without our headlamps too, so that made it more fun. Eventually we get to the point of the lower drop-in. We got a late start with the canyon (~3pm), were getting tired, knew it would take a few more hours to technically descend it, and were quite seriously fed up with all the bushwhacking and bugs. So, taking into account the fact that we'd rather do the canyon when we can actually see it, as well as weighing and managing our time and energy, we call it quits for the day.
About 10-15min followed of the worst bushwhacking of the day. Going straight uphill back to the trail, sometimes literally going "through" trees and bushes because there's no clear-cut path, scratching ourselves up nicely. After getting back on the trail it was just a fight with our painful feet to carry us on (the hike was killer on the feet), and watching out for snakes in the dark once we got back down off the trail. Crossing the stream felt incredibly good on our feet, however. There was some quick streakage going on back at the car, getting into dry clothes, which felt oh-so-nice (both the streaking and the clean dry clothes, lol). Luckily, it was pretty much pitch-black out and no cars drove by and lit me up, since I was on the road side of the truck, which would have been quite awkward and funny!
So the next day... I have probably 10 mosquito bites (not exaggerating) and a few nice cuts on my knees and just above (I love gaiters). We plan to go back and do the whole canyon. Next time, we'll pack plenty more water, and definitely get an earlier start!
CLICK HERE TO VIEW ALL THE PICTURES FROM THIS CANYONEERING TRIP!
What a pu$$y!
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