Bailey Canyon, Sierra Madre, CA - 3AIII - 8.5.12

[Eric Holden]

Bailey Canyon, CA - 3AIII

Its been a while since I have posted on Bogley, but its been a while since I dropped into a canyon too! Here is my latest Trip report.

We left the car at 8:15am and started up the San Gabriel mountains, just north of Los Angelos. The sun was high and it was getting nice and toasty. We hit the put in point, an old stone cabin that was only partially built way back in the day. Lots of poison oak (24 hours later, still no sign... fingers crossed!).


Frank and I at the put in point, about 2.5 miles and 1300ft elevation from the trail head. You can see the remains of the cabin at our feet.

The first few water falls were all down climbable, no pictures. Our first rappel was about a 50ft drop as my 60ft doubled over did not reach the bottom.


Frank on the first rappel.



Here is a typical anchor in the San Gabriel mountains. Two bomber bolts with webbing. There are about 15 rappels in this canyon, we ended up replacing one sling, fixing two anchors that were tied in the american death triangle , and replacing two quick links.

The day was going great, not to hot, hiking in the shade, canyon was pretty much dry with just a small stream running through it at times. After a few hours and a couple rappels later we came to an old mine. Didn't dare go inside!


Frank in front of the old mine entrance.


One of the inhabitants of the canyon. Saw about 50 lizards, 1 newt, 1 Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, 1 Desert Phase Kingsnake, lots of frogs and too many bees to count.


After about 3 more rappel I ran into the first real problem of the day. On the picture above I had come down first and ran into an issue as one of the ropes had an overhand knot in it some how.... Live and learn, we didn't check the rope before throwing it down and just clipped into the middle. Somehow it got the knot between this rappel and the previous one. Luckily there was a ledge in the middle of the rap that I could stand on and after tieing off my pirana I was able to pull up the rope and remove the knot. No tossing the rope without checking it all first!

After a couple more raps we came to the big daddy of the canyon, a 110ft rappel on a sloping face. We rigged up our 200ft rope and our 60ft rope to allow us to rappel on a single rope. We tied a figure 8 on a bight then put a locker on the loop and clipped it into our main rappel rope. Worked perfectly.


Frank at the start of the 110ft rappel.


Half way down the 110fter

A couple more rappels and we made it to the first our first ever free rappel. Frank went first and took my camera. I am a 300lb 6'2" fatty, and rigged my pirana up for full friction. Worked great! No leg loops needed.


Our first free rappel, quite fun! This is one of the only picture of me.


Another shot of the free rappel in the canyon.


This was a very cool rappel through a slot. The day was now getting hot, very hot... uncomfortably hot.... and the shade here was nice.

By this time the temperature was about 98degF or so. I started to suffer from heat exhaustion so we took a break in the shade. Drank some water, at some food, a good 30 minute break and I was feeling much better. We each brought 3L of water on this 6 hour trip and I ran out of water about 1/4 mile from the car. Definitely could have used another liter.

Eventually we came to another over hang, no picture of this rock, but it was pretty gnarly. It was a large slab boulder that spanned the width of the canyon, a dirt hole had opened up in front of it, but the rappel was off the back of it. Great times.

The last rappel of the day is "Bailey Falls". There is a trail that you can hike up to this falls and is visited frequently by hikers. No poison oak here!


Frank on the final rappel, Bailey Falls.

Great trip, lots of bush wacking and spider webs, still need to do a nice Utah canyon some time that isn't filled with Poison oak, but I will take what I can get.

6 hours total round trip from car to car
About 4 miles hiked
1300ft elevation change
15 rappels
Great fun safe time!

[Taylor]

Nice report, cool canyon.

[ratagonia]

Awesome. Congrats on getting back out there!

Tom

[deagol]

we did this canyon while out in SoCal last xmas. I recomend a rope protecter for the free-hanging rap, as there is a nasty sharp edge there... I also remember pappeling through a swarm of bees.

[Deathcricket]

Nice TR dude! That mine would have been impossible for me to pass up though, hehe.

[Eric Holden]

we did this canyon while out in SoCal last xmas. I recomend a rope protecter for the free-hanging rap, as there is a nasty sharp edge there... I also remember pappeling through a swarm of bees.

None of the edges were "Too" sharp, we ran the rope on a spot on the rock that looked pretty worn out, but a protector is definitely not a bad idea. We found the same swarm of bees. We went very slow and tried our best not to piss them off.

[deagol]

We were leapfrogging and I was last man down on that rap (rap had been set by someone who chose not to use the rope protector). The rope protector was already down canyon with him, if I remember. I wanted to install it and saw some bad abrasion on the rope sheath. I re-arranged one of the boulders at the lip to give a smoother surface for the rope, but this was a pain. The rope now has a bad spot in it that I am not comfortable with.. oh well..
Overall, this canyon is good practice, I would say. pretty rapid-fire raps that are very easy to rig.
The bees were a unique thing..

[Eric Holden]

Lots of poison oak (24 hours later, still no sign... fingers crossed!).

Spoke to soon. PO on the upper arms and a little bit speckled around other places as well