Cherry Creek Canyon
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| | Raps:1+, max ↨60ft
Red Tape:Permit required Shuttle:Optional Vehicle:Passenger Rock type:Granite | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Best season: | Jul-Aug
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38.0829, -119.8655
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WaterflowIntroduction[edit]
Cherry Creek Canyon is a spectacular beautiful granite gorge that is most commonly descended by kayaks. However it also makes for a fun canyoneering trip later in the year once flows subside. While it is not particularly technical, the scenery is top notch, and there are a ton of really great jumps, and huge clear pools to swim across.
We descended it in late September to find the pools to be full and clear, but with no flows in between them. CDEC has a gauge: http://cdec.water.ca.gov/jspplot/jspPlotServlet.jsp?sensor_no=25583&end=&geom=small&interval=2&cookies=cdec01 My guess is between 5-10 cfs would be a lot of fun! Maybe shoot for lower if you're not experienced with swiftwater. It was actually still great with 0 cfs, with plenty of jumps and awesome scenery.
Doing this in 3 days would be easiest for most groups, but a 2 day trip is definitely reasonable, particularly if you take the shortcut at Mercur Peak. Expect a decently long, but not too difficult hike in, lots of fun hiking and jumping down a beautiful gorge, and a mile long swim across the lake at the bottom.
Approach[edit]
Head to the Styx Pass (Kibbie Ridge) TH by going all the way out Cherry Lake Rd from Hwy 120, then across the dam. Stay left at the switchback intersection, and follow this road all the way up to the trailhead.
The Kibbie Ridge trail follows a wide ridge up into the wilderness. Much of it is not shaded, so an early start is a good idea. You'll pass one intersection where you head left for Styx Pass. After climbing around 6 or 7 miles you'll top out at around 7800 feet and start to head down toward Styx Pass. On the left is dome (Mercur Peak) which is definitely worth a very short side trip up for some 360 degree views.
If you are in a hurry, the pass just west of Mercur Peak will allow you to cut west past some lakes and into a drainage that descends (west still) to Cherry Creek, and drops you out right above the good stuff. If you're not in a hurry, continuing down the trail through Styx Pass and to Cherry Creek will provide you with an extra 4 miles of mostly very easy hiking down Cherry Creek through the beautiful granite wonderland. Also just downstream of where the trail brings you to Cherry Creek is a short gorge, where it's probably not worth suiting up, but would make for a good camping spot with swimming holes.
Descent[edit]
Below the short gorge, the canyon stays mostly wide and open as you make your way down to where the shortcut comes down. Right below here things start to narrow, and you'll come into the first real gorge, which you might be able to keep dry through if you don't feel like suiting up. It opens up into trees. The next gorge you should definitely go ahead and suit up and get in.
This is the narrowest part of the canyon which descends down into a lake, that is still in the gorge. Below is "Cherry Bomb Gorge" and "Cherry Bomb Falls" which you might have heard of from kayakers. The falls will likely be unrecognizable at low flow, but is where the water pours out of the large boulder garden into the bedrock gorge below.
The canyon opens up a bit below Cherry Bomb Gorge, but gets steeper, with lots of jumps, some of them big. There are definitely rocks in some of the landings, so scout carefully. One drop has a big flat rock that takes up nearly the entire pool, and is probably best rappelled. A large boulder in a pothole (down canyon left, up a bit) make for a good anchor.
Soon after the rappel, you'll come out into another sort of lake, and swim out. The canyon opens up into a wide valley for a couple miles or so. If it's hot, it could be worth taking your suit off.
The bottom gorge is much less steep, and largely consists of boulder hopping, swimming through long pools, and some occasional shorter jumps. It's still quite fun and scenic. Eventually you'll spot the lake ahead. If the lake level has dropped, there might be a sort of log soup sort of thing like you would see in Utah fro driftwood at the bottom.
Exit[edit]
Exiting the gorge you will want to head out of the cove and south to where the east side of the lake juts out a bit leaving a place you could scramble out of the water directly south. (If things are windy, it might be a good idea to try to scramble along the east side of the lake with occasional swimming along cliffs to avoid a long tiring swim into a headwind).
Once you make it out of the lake, climb south and up on the fairly open granite staying to the right of the more vegetated area, but just left of the top of the granite ridge keeping the lake just out of site. You should quickly encounter a social trail that heads south and intersects a 4WD road. Hike up this road until it intersects the main road, and turn left to go back up to your car.
Red tape[edit]
Wilderness permit required
