Conditions:Fish Fork-20250220012741

Latest:	2 Apr 2022 (3 yrs, 1 month ago)

Reported by:	Willie92708 (997 reports)
Quality:	Amazing
Waterflow:	High
Wetsuit:	Full wetsuit
Water temperature:
Difficulty:	Advanced
Time: "+" is not declared as a valid unit of measurement for this property.	30 hours

Team: 4 people

Trip report URL: https://www.facebook.com/groups/socalcanyoneering/posts/5232586470110356/

Comments: This is posted from my friend's report. His pictures look amazing, but read his report for the full story.

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
24 Sep 2023	Amazing	Moderate	Thin wetsuit	Normal	14 hours	4 people	Jcsjcs (120 reports),Kristoffer (12 reports)
Comment: Dropped off the shuttle vehicle at Heaton Flat. The road to Lupine was decent for a high-clearance vehicle. We camped for the night and were on the trail at 4:30 the next morning. Some of the fire roads on the approach were difficult to stay on in the dark but we made do with a bit of bushwhacking. We dropped in at Little Fish Fork camp at 7:00 about half a mile upstream of where the beta indicates that the descent begins, as there did not appear to be a good path on the east side of the drainage. There were a few rappels in this upper section with existing anchors. The main portion of the descent had sections with a variety of characters such as flash flood debris, short slides, and long sections of creek walking. Fish Fork's technical challenges are largely concentrated in two groups about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way down the descent, characterized by the chockstone waterfall and the big waterfall respectively. The chockstone rappel had an intimidating amount of flow but ended up being easily doable by either swinging behind the waterfall at the bottom or keeping the rope DCR while on rappel. The big waterfall was a treat with some powerful flow at the bottom but no hydraulic challenges to speak of, as the water on the surface would easily carry one downcanyon. There were a few more miles of pretty creek walking after that before we arrived at the junction with East Fork at 14:15. After a break, it took two hours to get to the bridge and another two to complete the exit. All in all, Fish Fork was tremendously rewarding as well as challenging, and in our opinion deserves its mythical status in SoCal canyoneering lore.
2 Apr 2022 Trip report	Amazing	High	Full wetsuit	Advanced	30 hours	4 people	Willie92708 (997 reports)
Comment: This is posted from my friend's report. His pictures look amazing, but read his report for the full story.
30 Sep 2021	Amazing	Low	Thin wetsuit	Normal	3 days	2 people Beginner to Advanced	Stinky buds (7 reports)
Comment: Super gorgeous canyon. The approach was a bit longer than imagined. Came in from inspiration point..we kinda ditched the trail up at the ridge and just started shooting down into little fish fork camp which is where we camped at the first night. Our second day we shot straight into our canyon from little fish fork camp which was fun.. just a bit of bushwhacking and route finding but soon after you start hitting your rappels… all anchors are webbing… most are good except for two (the two bigger drops) needs to be replaced soon.. there was one rappel that we had to use a ghost anchor method on a tree due to no anchor... side note one of the bigger drops(guessing 90-100 ft) has an anchor a bit far from the drop We only had a 70 meter rope so we extended our rope by tying in another rope to give additional length in order to retrieve rope after rappel.. so I would suggest bringing extra rope or anything longer than a 70 meter… The canyon had a great mix of jumps and slides with the rappels… once you get to fish fork camp area (fish fork meets San Gabriel river) you will no longer have rappels.this is where we slept for our final night before our exit.. It’s about 3 miles from fish fork to the bridge to nowhere and then 5 miles from the bridge to our second car.. with no special tasks or anything.. once you hit fish fork it’s basically just walking through.. such a beautiful peaceful canyon…
7 Oct 2017	Great	Moderate Low	Thin wetsuit	Normal	27 hours	3 people Advanced	Mcc (20 reports)
Comment: This was a strenuous adventure surrounded by beautiful fall scenery. The handful of technical sections were really cool and pretty, but few and far between. Lots of creek walking. Most anchors were in decent condition. No special challenges. The flow was mellow and the water is cold. A thin wetsuit for those that get cold easily or a some kind of top is ideal. We did the shuttle route from Guffy Camp (since the gate to Lupine Camp is closed for some reason. This adds an additional 3 miles to the approach, but it's all downhill) down to Heaton Flat. The long shuttle sucks but this way might be the least worst option. From Guffy to Fish Fork camp at the confluence with San Gabriel River took 10 hours. Then an easy hike out the next day. Take your time and enjoy this grand adventure. It's long and tiring but well worth it.
12 Sep 2015	Great	Significant	None	Special challenges	2 days	2 people Advanced	Fitbiker1031 (8 reports)
Comment: we started at inspiration point and hiked along the fire road from inspiration point to lupin campground. (9 miles) this took us 3 hours as we were traveling mostly at night hiking quickly. we slept for the night then started out at 6 am on a trail clearly marked fish fork. few turns and roughly 5 miles late, we dropped into fish fork at around 930 am. fish fork was a beautiful canyon, but a few setbacks. the canyon was much longer than we expected, (a guess of 8-9 miles) to reach the San gabriel river. it recently rained so the river was very muddy all the way down fish fork, which led to falling knee deep in mud pockets a couple dozen times. most of the time was spent doing fairly easy bouldering. expect a lot of just hiking in the canyon between repels. we finally reached San gabriel river at 730 pm. spent the night and started the hike up the San gabriel ( a lot of bouldering, easy, but alot) to join with the vincent gulch trail. all together our trip was about 30 miles. a very long hike no matter where u start from. fish fork was a beautiful canyon, just plan it being a little longer than u think.
7 Sep 2015	Amazing	Significant	None	Easy		1 people	AW~ (1 reports)
Comment: Travelling through elevations 6800 to 5800, aka the upper non-technical section, from Pine Mountain. Brisk water flow. Flash flood scars with large amount of gravel flooded the canyon....making for easy travel, but no pools or ponds. Hope some storms can clear it up.