"Messy Productivity"

28-January 2022: Neither of them sounded like a great option, but we made our decision and continued to pursue the steep trail.

Sure enough, the eroded trail descended and disappeared right into a sketchy gully.

Although this trail didn’t look all that steep from where we were standing, it became obvious that once we committed to the steep scramble, we pretty much had to continue at this point.

Indeed, the further we went down, the steeper and more loose this terrain seemed to be, and we eventually had to sit and scoot (or slide more like it) our way down.

I knew this went against all the principles of leave no trace wilderness ethics (not to mention that our safety was at risk), and I told myself as I slid down this slope (without stopping mind you) that we weren’t going to go back up this path again…

It was 5:30am when I awoke to the alarm.

With Julie and Tahia still in bed, it was feeling like a normal workday except I was actually waking up an hour later than I normally do.

On this day, Mom and I spontaneously decided to do another Friday Waterfall Adventure, but this time it was without Dad, who was still sore (and scarred) from last week’s Devils Gulch Falls hike, where we didn’t even make it to the Bridge to Nowhere.

The main goal for today was to reach the Lower Fox Canyon Falls (or Lower Falls of the Fox) which was primarily a canyoneering or rappeling adventure, but I was aiming to see if we can reach at least the lowermost of the falls by foot.

After having experienced Josephine Creek Falls about a month ago, I had a pretty good idea of roughly where that waterfall was located.

However, I was a bit nervous about how we’d get down to the Big Tujunga River from Josephine Creek Falls or from the continuation of the Big Tujunga Canyon Trail (from what this guy Carlos told me a month ago about the steeper and more straighter path).

And that was the adventure part of today’s hike, where we’re not sure if we’re going to get a good result or not.

So after getting my kefir breakfast and gearing up (in a bit of a rush), I was fretting that I couldn’t find my trail runners until Julie told me that she had put them in my car already!

I guess in the chaos of not finding things when I needed to, I started to head to Mom’s place by 6:45am, but along the way, I realized that I had forgotten to bring my water!

Regardless, eventually by 7:10am, I arrived at Mom’s place, where she was pretty much ready for me (including the backup water that I had forgotten to bring).

By about 7:20am, we got some foodstuffs and both Mom and I were ready to go, with Mom driving this time.

The familiar drive out to Sunland (this had to have been the third or fourth time we’ve done this drive this month) was for the most part uneventful.

There was a bit of rush hour traffic, but we mostly avoided the worst of the traffic even going on the I-210 west.

Eventually we got to the familiar Sunland Blvd exit, and then took the turn at Oro Vista before following it towards the Big Tujunga Canyon Road.

The drive remained uneventful as I was now the passenger taking road shots along the way.

It was also strange to see that there were only a handful of cars at the familiar trailhead for Trail Canyon Falls since we had been used to seeing that place get all filled up on Saturday mornings (but I had to keep reminding myself that today was Friday).

Anyways, eventually by about 8:35am, we made it to the familiar unmarked trailhead for Josephine Creek Falls, where we were once again the only people there.

When we got out of the car and started to gear up, there was a bit of a wind on this day, which caused a bit of an unexpected wind chill.

But when we opened the trunk, we saw that apparently something had been spilling water, and it turned out to be the water bottle that was allocated to me.

Its lid was not closed and so I probably lost about half of the water in that bottle (and I was a little concerned if any of the electronics were damaged, too).

Fortunately, just my GoPro strap and Mom’s hat as well as the exterior of my Tamrac holster camera bag got the worst of the spillage, but not a big deal.

As far as the gear we put on, I once again went with the Altra Lone Peak 5 shoe with wool socks knowing that we’re going to get wet again.

I didn’t bring neoprene socks this time around.

Meanwhile, Mom started off with hiking boots again but she also brought her own Adidas train runners as her backup.

The most important thing was that our shoes needed grip because I knew this hike had a lot of narrow, eroded sections with steep dropoffs.

Anyways, it was actually a bit cooler than I had expected, but I knew that we were going to be active for this adventure.

Eventually, it was about 8:45am when Mom and I finally started the hike.

Since this was not a busy weekday, the thought did cross my mind about someone with bad intentions perhaps wanting to break into the car or something.

But with us going (and not coming back for a few hours), there’s nothing more we could do about that.

In any case, my first concern with the pursuit of Lower Fox Canyon Falls was the level of the reservoir of the Big Tujunga Dam.

About a month ago when I was here, the reservoir actually went back beyond the mouth of Fox Canyon so it wasn’t really feasible to get to without a swim.

And as Mom and I got around the first bend, a quick glance towards Fox Canyon’s mouth revealed that the water levels were indeed low enough to pursue the Lower Falls by foot.

That said, Mom wasn’t used to a trail as narrow as this and progress was slow by steady as she made sure that every step she took was not going to result in a slip and fall.

Nevertheless, Mom wasn’t terribly happy with her old Timberland hiking boots that she was wearing because apparently the traction wasn’t great, which undermined her confidence.

At least my new Altra Lone Peak 5 trail runners were doing quite well with this trail (at least as well as my old Vasque St Elias boots that I had worn last time).

When we got to the familiar ridge with that teasing and overgrown glimpse of the Josephine Creek Falls, it was now much harder to see it than it was a month ago.

So that wasn’t a good sign as far as the longevity of that particular waterfall.

Nevertheless, we pushed forward as the trail went from the dicey cliff-hugging ledges at the start towards the ridge to our left as the trail started to descend switchbacks.

After getting past the familiar boulder with the “Big Tujunga Canyon Trail” scrawled on it (which kind of assured Mom that this was more or less a maintained trail), we then welcomed the sun to offset some of the initial wind chill.

We also noticed that the Josephine Creek Falls was looking rather dry (or just leaving a wet wall) against the morning sun, which made me wonder if it was even flowing at all barely a month after I had seen it with decent flow.

That kind of was a statement of the dry January that we’ve had, which had been a disappointing pattern when we’ve had drought years in Southern California.

We continued with the somewhat benign descent until we got to the familiar trail junction where the path on the right would have continued to the base of Josephine Creek Falls.

But instead of taking that path, we opted to take the steeper path on the left based on what this guy Carlos told me about a month earlier.

He did mention that it was a steep trail to get down to the level of the Big Tujunga River, and I guess we decided to pursue it.

That said, I did recall an earlier trip report where she went to Josephine Creek Falls before doing a bit of a bushwhack through the thick overgrowth towards the Big Tujunga River.

Neither of them sounded like a great option, but we made our decision and continued to pursue the steep trail.

Sure enough, the eroded trail descended and disappeared right into a sketchy gully.

Although this trail didn’t look all that steep from where we were standing, it became obvious that once we committed to the steep scramble, we pretty much had to continue at this point.

Indeed, the further we went down, the steeper and more loose this terrain seemed to be, and we eventually had to sit and scoot (or slide more like it) our way down.

I knew this went against all the principles of leave no trace wilderness ethics (not to mention that our safety was at risk), and I told myself as I slid down this slope (without stopping mind you) that we weren’t going to go back up this path again.

When Mom and I made it to the bottom of the descent at 9:40am, Mom decided to change her shoes and get into the running shoes that she brought knowing that were going into the Big Tujunga River to continue.

While she was doing that, I was scouting out possible places to scramble upstream and into the thick growth to get to Josephine Creek Falls without going back up that dicey gully again.

But after going this way and that, I really couldn’t find a suitable scrambling spot to go back upstream into the thick Josephine Creek Falls, and I figured that perhaps we can try this again when we came back after Lower Fox Canyon Falls.

That said, I didn’t see a candidate other than perhaps a bushwhack along the base of the cliff that we had just gone down in an effort to reach Josephine Creek Falls.

Anyways, Mom and I then went downstream with a benign crossing that didn’t really get our feet wet, and once we got to the other side, we then tried to follow faint trails or wide open areas as much as possible.

The scrambling down at the base of Big Tujunga Canyon wasn’t as obvious as I had hoped as it was pretty much a choose your own adventure while pursuing the most open spaces possible.

But every so often, the thick overgrowth would take over and we’d have to bushwhack our way through before stumbling upon the next open area.

So it was already an uncomfortable hike in spots, but at least we had also seen some footprints from people who have been here before.

During our scramble, there were also signs of people being down here before.

For example, not long after we had crossed the river, we noticed a circle of sandbags that seemed perplexing and out-of-place.

Then, further on in a more narrow part of the scramble as we rounded a bend in the Big Tujunga River, we noticed what appeared to be some kind of wildlife camera or something like that.

That was weird, and it also felt weird that we might appear in one of their footages or something for having gone past.

Ultimately by around 10:05am, we got to a spot where we either had to bushwhack our way to stay dry keeping to the right of the Big Tujunga River, or we had to give in and get wet wading into the river itself.

After bushwhacking and getting into what seemed to be thicker vegetation, we ultimately turned back and gave into the wading.

Besides, the banks of the river were all sandy and very loose, and the embankments were steep enough that we either sunk right in or we’d have a hard time climbing back out.

So ultimately by about 10:15am, we finally arrived at the mouth of Fox Canyon, and from there, we had to scramble our way upstream in search of the Lower Fox Canyon Falls.

At first, Mom and I had this idea that we could perhaps stream scramble our way up to the Lower Fox Canyon Falls.

However, after hitting waterfall obstacles and some deep pools as well as overgrowth even in the stream itself, that kind of made us not want to pursue that approach.

So we then had to cling onto vegetation and fallen trees in an effort to climb up steep and loose stream embankments on either side of the creek.

At first, we scrambled up the left side but then it didn’t take long before the scramble disappeared and forced us into overgrowth again so we’d have to get back down to the creek and look for another way up an embankment on the opposite side.

Generally, we found the most success sticking to the right side of the creek (though we had to earn our way up while getting stabbed by yucca plants as well as going up dicey and loose footing that included loosened wedged boulders).

There was also some kind of side gully that piqued my interest, but that gully quickly disappeared at what looked like a twisting dry fall so that pursuit didn’t last long.

Eventually, our dry hiking on the right side of the creek helped us to make a bit of progress as we also finally got our first glimpse of the Lower Fox Canyon Falls up ahead.

So that hastened our steps until we encountered what looked to be a rather fresh rockslide.

Traversing this rockslide definitely seemed kind of dicey to us because Mom mentioned that she had a friend where such a rockslide had loosened and fell on her foot making her stuck and needing to be rescued.

Since we were in a very remote part of the canyon with very little access to help, we treaded very carefully here and tried to make sure that every step we took in the rockslide were as surefooted as can be.

After the rockslide, we then descended back into the creek and found a way to the other side.

Once there, we then had to scramble past more stabby yucca plants before ducking under a fallen tree, which was where we finally started to get a cleaner look at the Lower Fox Canyon Falls.

After the fallen tree, we then crossed the creek once more, and then scrambled all the way to the foot of the waterfall, where not surprisingly, Mom and I got this place all alone at 11:10am.

So it took us around 2.5 hours to make it down here with all the headscratching moments and dicey scramblings as well as change of shoes in Mom’s case.

Perhaps even more impressive was the lack of graffiti and litter here, which I suspect is because it’s much harder to get to this spot than it is to say Josephine Creek Falls.

So Mom and I spent a pretty solid 30 minutes or so just taking pictures and videos as well as Switchpod-aided selfies.

We also had some cold “sushi” (though no raw fish since that’s a recipe for parasites) as well as some oranges.

Eventually at 11:40am, Mom and I started to make the slog back out.

Knowing what we knew on the way in, we now tried to stick to the left side of the creek as much as we could though we eventually got to a point where we reached the side gully after the yucca patch.

At that point, the trail became more overgrown and narrow again, and in hindsight, perhaps that should have been where we were better off crossing to the other side and then coming back down via the stream.

Oh well, whatever, we eventually got back to the mouth of Fox Canyon and its confluence with the Big Tujunga River, and then Mom and I waded in the river back into the quite scenic narrows with the midday sun casting some nice lighting in the water and cliffs.

However, as we got out of the water, it didn’t take long before we somehow lost the trail we had taken on the way in, and we even somehow missed the wildlife camera (though we did see it but didn’t bother scrambling back towards it).

And so it was quite the uncomfortable bushwhack (the whole time I was worried about ticks), and ultimately we got to where it was open again as we rounded the bend in the river and crossed back over in front of the steep gully we had come down earlier at 12:40pm.

But now we were scrambling around looking for a way to scramble upstream to the Josephine Creek Falls in an effort to avoid that gully.

While there were some “trails” that we stumbled upon, they then became overgrown scrambles again, and the evidence of sheep dung kind of hinted at the fact that these were indeed animal use-trails and not paths that people have gone on before.

Therefore, after spending several minutes bushwhacking in the hopes of finding some kind of hint of a trail to get back up to Josephine Creek Falls, we eventually gave up and decided to make the steep scramble up the way we knew we had gone down earlier.

And with that, Mom and I just went for it knowing full well how dangerous it was to make this scramble given the slippery and loose footing.

In the back of my mind, I was thinking how this gully could only continue to get steeper and more dangerous with time as more loose and eroded soil would settle to the bottom and expose more conditions for landslides.

I was definitely not liking this scramble as we went up, but for both Mom and I, our trail running shoes actually had decent enough grip for us to make the climb without sliding back down!

I couldn’t imagine how this could be possible with any lesser shoes that couldn’t grip hillsides like this.

Regardless, we were quite relieved when we made it back up to the familiar trail for Josephine Creek Falls at 12:55pm.

From there, it was a bit of a cakewalk (relatively speaking since we were still dealing with narrow ledges) to reach the base of Josephine Creek Falls at 1:05pm.

Once we were this close to the falls, we could see that the waterfall was still flowing, but it was barely hanging on to the remainder of its flow (give it maybe a week or two before it’s just a trickle and then eventually dry).

This place looked a little bit different than it did when I was here a month ago mostly because the fire ring now had a grill and there were other litter down here.

I guess this place wasn’t as secret as we’d like to think it was, especially when you have people who can’t practice proper wilderness ethics and leave no trace.

After taking a few more videos and pictures just to further add to our datapoints regarding the longevity of this waterfall, Mom and I then headed back up the trail at 1:15pm.

Eventually at about 1:50pm, we made it back up to the car, where thankfully, it was not broken into.

We also took some time to change out of our shoes and let our wet feet breathe for a bit, especially in my case since I only had Chacos to fall back on.

I asked Mom if she still had energy to do the Fall Creek Falls hike but we won’t aim to scramble to its base this time around like we did three weeks ago.

Mom did it with half-enthusiasm since we had just done the Lower Fox Canyon Falls, but we mind as well do it since we were already here.

So by about 2pm, we made it back up to the familiar gate by the Fall Creek Falls Road, where we were once again all alone though there were some cars whizzing by which made me wonder about break ins again.

And like with Josephine Creek, the hillside was full of litter (not surprising since we saw it last time), but it was just disappointing how such places get trashed when they’re so close to the city.

It’s as if the cities spread their cancer into the wilderness, which was supposed to be the antidote for “civilization”.

Anyways, Mom and I quickly got out of the car, and got our gear again, and quickly made our way down the familiar fire road.

It seemed like as the day wore on, the easier the hikes became since we started with the hard one to Lower Fox Canyon, and then it got progressively easier with Josephine Creek Falls, before finally going down this wider fire road for Fall Creek Falls.

Indeed, we were going down quickly as we already knew what this place was like, but we were doing this hike primarily to see the state of its flow compared to the Josephine Creek Falls experience.

I was already in the mindset to dock the Josephine Creek Falls’ score due to its short season, but I wondered if Fall Creek Falls would suffer the similar fate?

On the way down, we couldn’t help but notice about 5 minutes into the hike that we could see the Lower Fox Canyon Falls in the distance into Fox Canyon itself from the Fall Creek Falls Road.

While it was hard to see in the shadowy gorge, it was clearly there, but it also looked like it was hard to see the Great Falls of the Fox further upstream so it would still be elusive to mere mortals like us who don’t canyoneer down waterfalls.

Well, eventually after going past the side waterfall, which was still flowing pretty well, at the mile mark from the trailhead, we then continued the descent until ultimately getting our cross-canyon views of the Fall Creek Falls.

With the afternoon shadows, it was a bit harder to photograph, especially with the Sony Alpha7 3 camera, but we could see that the falls was still going pretty well at this time.

Mom said that the falls had noticeably lower flow than when we saw it three weeks ago, but it was at least not trickling or nearly done like Josephine Creek Falls was.

So that put in my mind that Fall Creek still deserved its 2 rating even though it might struggle to perform by the end of February if we end up with another dry month like January was.

After having our fill of the cross-canyon views of Fall Creek Falls at 2:55pm, we then headed back up to the parked car.

We made it quick since we were pretty much done for the day and looked forward to our post hike dinner where we were thinking of getting Dad so we can have another nice dinner together like we did last week.

So by about 3:50pm, we made it back to the car, where thankfully, the windows were still intact.

And then we savored our productive day as we drove back down the familiar Angeles Crest Highway (where numerous cars were going the other way towards the snow, I’d imagine).

And after getting through the familiar La Canada-Flintridge neighborhood, we eventually got back on the 210 Freeway, where it was fairly light until we got towards Pasadena.

From there, it was a bit of a rush hour commute on the way back, until Mom had me take a local route on Santa Anita Ave towards Longden, and then ultimately towards Live Oak, were we then got back on the 605 Freeway.

Eventually at 5:15pm, we got to the Kouping Restaurant, which wasn’t open last Friday, but it was definitely open today.

And so with Dad meeting us there, we ultimately had our dinner here for the first time in what seemed like forever.

I guess part of the reason was that the food here had lots of gluten, which I know my body was becoming less tolerant of as I was getting older, and Julie definitely couldn’t be having this stuff anymore.

Nevertheless, I did my cheat with their green onion cakes and fried dumplings, but we also hit the spot with their house special garlic chicken as well as two bowls of this Korean-Chinese spicy seafood noodle soup.

Indeed, this was stuff that I hadn’t eaten in years, but the nostalgia was kicking in as we were enjoying our dinner before more people were showing up (and making it a little more COVID sketchy even though they do check for vaccination records).

By 6:25pm, we got back in the car, and then I chilled out at my parents’ for a few minutes while transferring my gear to my car.

By 7:20pm, I left the parents’ place, and finally by 7:50pm, I made it home where Julie and Tahia were busy watching Chinese drama TV for their Friday night per their routine.

And so ended this rather productive but messy adventure day, where I probably had enough of doing Big Tujunga Canyon (since it seemed like every week in January we had gone there).

We’ll have to figure out alternate places to go in the coming months, especially if this is it as far winter in Southern California!