The Infamous "Devil's Canyon"

For years I had heard of this mysterious place in the Angeles National Forest. Legend had it there was a narrow canyon with large waterfalls and everyone that went there felt strange. No one could ever tell me exactly how to get there or where to find it on a map. I met Nathalie a while back and she introduced me to this site called Extreme Things. Sounded right up my alley. As luck would have it they had a trip planned for Devil's Canyon. I couldn't make it but in another bizarre change of events they rescheduled and there was no way I was going to miss it this time. Nathalie and I headed up to La Canada on a Saturday morning and met the group. We followed them up the Angeles Crest Highway and found the trialhead.

I was excited to see the sign. The place really did exist and it really is on the map of the forest. Who knew? Apparently very few people. Round trip for Nathalie and I was going to end up being just over 7 miles. Nothing big for us. The total elevation loss was only 2000 feet. The two factors working against us were heat and the fact this hike was upside down, meaning you hike down into the canyon and then must climb back out. Still, nothing out of the ordinary for us.

 

When we first started hiking down the canyon there was a beautiful view. The canyon stretches for ever. This really is an amazing place to see.

 

After an hour or so on a well defined trail we got to the stream, which was really just stagnant pools of water this time of year. The trail pretty much disappears at this point and we half way bush whacked our way to some sort of remote campsite. This is about the 3 mile point of the trip. We ran into one of those things you hear about when speaking of Devil's Canyon. It had to be near 100 degrees and when we got to the camp site we ran into a group of redneck teenagers complete with knives, guns, long black jeans, and a rotweiler. Now the crazy part was they had a huge camp fire roaring away in the middle of the day, with a high fire danger because of no rain in 9 months, when it was 100 degrees. We ate lunch and the entire group minus Nathalie and I headed back to the car. We decided to keep going in pursuit of the mysteries we had heard of. Big horn sheep, waterfalls, and who knows what else.

This trail hurt us bad and I'm still not sure why. It wasn't any more difficult than anything else we do. We were only 3.5 miles from the car and I felt drained. It had all been down hill too. We didn't find a waterfall or anything else. We did however encounter a nice big snake.

We amazingly ran into 2 other hikers down here in the middle of no where. They had gone down even further and seen no evidence of the legendary waterfall. We turned around and headed back. The picture below gives you a feel for what the trail is like at this point. There really isn't a trail. There are some kairns stacked up but they are difficult to see.

We got back to the camp site. The jackholes had left a big fire going and they were no where in site. NICE!

We continued our almost endless climb out of the valley. It was pretty but it seemed to take forever. We made it back to the car and both agreed the hike hurt more than it should have. I guess you can add that to the mysteries of Devil's Canyon, it definitely does strange things to you. We plan to go back when there is more water in the stream which should be cool.