Black Star Canyon
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| | Difficulty:3A III (v3a1 III) Raps:1, max ↨150ft
Red Tape:No permit required Shuttle:None Vehicle:Passenger | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Condition Reports: | 4 Jan 2025
"Canyon conditions were pretty good. R0 was intact with red webbing off of the tree dcl. It might be spicy for some folks to downclimb from the split s |
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| Best season: | Jan-Apr
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33.7661, -117.6792
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Introduction
Black Star canyon is normally done as a hike to the base of a unique and beautiful waterfall. When the waterfall is flowing, the water will split in two channels: one going down the natural route and one going down a man-made cave located in the last 20 feet of the waterfall. While there is only 1 significant rappel and quite some hiking, the canyon makes for an easy full-day hiking adventure. It's also an excellent mountain bike ride out and back for a 2 to 3 hour round trip canyon adventure and serious aerobic workout! Be warned that there is a lot of poison oak in the technical canyon and the lower creek bed, but all is avoidable with care.
Approach
The hike skirts along OC parks land and Edwards Ranch land and there are numerous no trespassing signs and electric fence signs. About 2.4 miles into the hike, the trail will take a hairpin turn to the left with a brown steel sign that says "Black Star Canyon Falls". Make note that this is where you will exit the creek if doing the big loop on foot.
Hiking only
- Option 1 (Out and Back): Hike up Black Star canyon road for 2.5 miles. Hike down into the creek bed at the brown steel sign that says "Black Star Canyon Falls". Hike / climb up the creek bed for 0.9 miles to the bottom of the 100 foot waterfall. See gully climb (below).
- Option 2 (Big Loop): Hike up Black Star canyon road for 4.6 miles and take the side trail at 2 bare steel poles straight down the slope. Near the canyon the trail forks left and right. To the right is the bonus 65 foot rappel off a bush into the canyon. To the left is the standard hike into the canyon.
Bike and Hike combo
- Option 1 (Out and Back): Bike up Black Star canyon road for 2.5 miles. Lock you bike to the brown steel sign that says "Black Star Canyon Falls" (yes, there are scumbags that might steal or joy ride your bike). Hike down into the creek bed at the sign. Hike / climb up the creek bed for 0.9 miles to the bottom of the 100 foot waterfall. See gully climb (below).
- Option 2 (Big Out and Back): Bike up Black Star canyon road for 4.6 miles and take the side trail at 2 bare steel poles. There is a chain attached to one pole that will fit a small padlock or cable lock. Lock your bike here. Follow the trail straight down the slope. Near the canyon the trail forks left and right. To the right is the bonus 65 foot rappel off a bush into the canyon. To the left is the standard hike into the canyon.
Out and Back hike, gully climb around technical canyon
- Option 1: climb (literally rock climbing) up the gully DCL (on your right facing the falls) about 150 feet back from the bottom of the 100 foot waterfall. This gully often has a crappy hand line in place. But even without it, carefully checking around the rock edges you will find nice hand holds to make the rock climbing moves which are about like a 5.5 gym climb. There is some exposure and a fall would be bad. Once up 30 feet through rock moves the terrain gets much easier and less exposed. You can easily belay people up as there are many solid trees for a belay anchor. About 200 feet up (linear distance from the very bottom) is a side trail on the left that traverse directly to the top of the 100 foot waterfall. Use this trail if you just want to do the 100 foot rappel, or repeats, or climb back up the technical canyon to exit if you biked the long approach.
- Option 2: climb the same gully as option 1, but continue to the very top, hug trails in the brush on your left and this will take you across the ridge, and down a steep trail to the creek bed above all the technical section. You can then down climb / rappel all the technical section, or exit to you bike if you did the big/long approach.
Descent
R bonus 65 feet
- option 1: Take the right hand trail of the upper approach to webbing off two bushes on both side of trail. From this anchor rappel 65 feet into the canyon floor.
- option 2: Take the left hand trail, then down climb DCL the to the bottom of the bonus rappel. Note: this down climb may be challenging when the water flow is high. In low or no flow you can downclimb a "rabbit hole" DCR as well.
R0 45 feet
- option 1: 45 feet from webbing off a tree DCL on a shelf out of the creek bed.
- option 2: crawl under the big boulder in the center, go right under the boulder, and down-climb the various boulders DCR. Note: this down climb may be impossible when the water flow is high and tricky when the rocks are wet and slimy.
- option 3: 55 feet long piece of webbing (hidden in bushes) from a tree up high DCR, directly down the main water course.
R1 80-150 feet
- option 1: 125 feet webbing from boulder in center (webbing wrapped around a rock pinch) directly to the ground.
- option 2: 125 feet webbing from a big tree DCR directly to the ground.
- option 3: 85 feet from bolts with chain DCL directly to the ground. These bolts require rappelling or belaying to get to them. There is an rappel anchor off a large bush on the side trail DCL which drops about 30 to 40 feet (depends on webbing length) to the bolts, or use either of the option 1 or 2 anchors to belay out there.
- About 3/4 of the way down, a cave (looks like a pothole from above) has been blasted and the exit is down-climbable assuming no flow or very little flow. If you rappel into the cave and down-climb the exit, then leave the end of your rope piled in the pool inline with the rappel so you can pull your rope more easily.
You can continue to rappel through the cave, but add 10 feet to the rappel distance. Also, if you rappel through the cave, the pull side must be on the outside, otherwise the friction is too high and you cannot pull your rope. Even so, from option 1 or 2 anchor the friction is huge. From the bolts, the friction is not an issue to pull your rappel rope all the way up through the cave. Alternatively, if you are hiking back up top using the gully and side trail, you can rig your rope "fixed", hike back up, and then pull it up from the top.
- option 4: 150 feet from a big tree on the side trail DCL. This option is useful when the flow is too high as it takes you down the large face DCL of the main waterfall into the pool at the bottom. This can be rigged for pull down or fixed line.
- Also, be prepared to rebuild any/all webbing anchors as all of these rappels are frequented by "hikers" who scramble up the side gully, and or approach from the top and they may cut or take the webbing. Given the ease of climbing around all the technical obstacles in Black Star, no webbing anchor is likely to stay in place long.
- And rigging a fixed line may "played with" while you hike back around to retrieve your line as I found out on a busy day.
Exit
Hiking Only or Hike and Bike with bike at bottom Follow the obvious trails and short down-climbs back down the creek until it intersects Black Star Canyon road. This point is marked as "Creek bed intersection with Sign" on the map.
Hike and Bike with bike at top Climb back up gully either all the way to the top and follow trails hugging to the left back to the upper creek bed, then the upper approach trail back to your bike. Or climb the gully 200 feet, take the side trail to the top of the main waterfall, then climb up the rest of the canyon to the upper approach trail.
Note:Poison oak abounds on the exit so be careful!
Red tape
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Trip reports and media
My wife and I just did this canyon and rappel on 10/7/2018. Thanks for the helpful info on this page. The conditions were completely dry, except for the puddle my rope landed in on the main rappel. The use trail going from Black Star jeep trail to the creek bed is straight and easy to hike, but mark the entrance with a waypoint so you head down at the right place. It isn't marked or labeled at the top of the jeep trail. Descending down the creek bed to the big rappel there was one 10 or 15 foot down climb that we chose to short-rope rather than risk injury. For the big rappel we used 1" webbing on a big oak tree instead of the boulder. We had two 60 meter ropes and they reached the bottom with about 40 feet to spare. So make sure you have enough rope to reach. The hike out to Black Star road was quite fun for us. We love hopping and down climbing boulders. The last 2 miles on the road is just boring. Wish we had bikes for that! Overall, we really enjoyed this trip.
