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3BIII - Rubio Canyon, CA - 9/3/11
Ah Rubio Canyon, my second canyoneering adventure. After doing some research on it we were expecting a dry canyon this time of year, Nope! But lets start with the ascent to the drop in point. We were going off of information found on the web and it turns out it was very vague. We ended up missing our turn off and instead of heading around and then down the side of a mountain we got to the top of it.
I sat down and went over our maps and other devices to find our location and best way to drop in. Turns out that there used to be a tram way to the top of this mountain back in the late 1800s, that dropped customers off at a hotel. Long since gone, but the ruins are still there, very cool.
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After a good break and recovery from the intense hike in the 90+ weather, we decided to hike down a dirt path that lead toward the canyon. Now I use hike very loosely as it was more like dirt skiing down to the bottom of the hill. Finally we get to the bottom and begin our slog through an extremely overgrown jungle of poison oak and point sharp plants. Pain... so much pain. Blood was left to the canyon gods and the plants that wanted it. Eventually we made it to our first rappel, no gear so we set up a quick anchor and quickly went down.
The second rap was a two stage 75ft with a beautiful pool. Neither one of us had water proof cameras so little was done in the terms of pictures.
The next rappel was the one that took my breath away. A 100ft rappel down. Thalehaha Falls. We should have put in almost right above these falls instead of the wacky way we went.
Setting up the rappel....
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Myself Descending. 100ft, vertical drop. Wet, slippery.... Wow.
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What this picture doesn't show is how my hand is shaking. First time in a long time I have felt that kind of adrenaline.
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Frank posing showing the length of the falls.
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After that everything paled in comparison. We had about 6 more rappels ranging from 30-55ft. The entire canyon is overgrown with poison oak, and sharp, thorny, plants. We finally made it back to the car after 6 hours, from leaving. Well within our timeline for the short route, instead of the longer one that we took. All in all, a good successful trip, that we left a lot of blood and sweat on.
