Conditions:Ringtail Canyon-20250521162550

Latest:	16 May 2025 (6 days ago)

Reported by:	Cheveran (92 reports)
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Comments: Some water in ringtail but didn't need wetsuits on a warm day. There is a hazard in canyon right now - an unstable hanging log above the first pothole. It was difficult to avoid while on rappel. If it fell, it is large enough to cause significant injury if someone was under it.

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
26 May 2025	Good	Very Low	None	Special challenges	6 hours	3 people Intermediate	Sugi212 (4 reports)
Comment: First part of the hike was easy. Where where three stream crossings with decently deep water but as long as you pick your path right and use a stick for balance you can get through it with dry feet. The approach path once you diverve from the trail is BRUTAL. Be prepared for long stretches of crumbly uphill and very vaguely marked trail. After the third crossing about halfway down the trail that goes through the bend in the river, the metal pipe marking the beginning of the approach trail will be on the right behind a dirt mound. The scramble up to the first telephone pole is super steep and loose but the trail is decently followable. After the first group of poles, follow the ridgeline and there will be another trail at the end of the clearing. There will be what looks like a fork but KEEP RIGHT. The trail starts to switchback here. You will find a fixed rope that will help you climb up to the next group of poles. The trail from the second group of poles is straight through across the clearing from where you entered. It gets a little flatter from here as you cross to the third group of poles. Once you get to the third clearing, hook right and at the far end of the clearing you will find a tunnel through the brush that takes you to the drop in spot. The rope is old and doesn't feed well if you want to rappel but it works ok in low friction mode. The canyon itself was awesome. There was a little trickle of water throughout, great for filtering since we consumed so much on the climb up. All anchors look solid. There are some small pools, but they're pretty avoidable. Id recommend doing R8 in two parts. Overall, good canyon, tough approach. Id recommend only doing it if you're in good shape. The white flags marking the trail are virtually non-existent, so if someone brought some tape to remark it, it would make the approach much better.
21 May 2025	Amazing	Deep pools	Rain jacket	Normal	10 hours	4 people Advanced to Expert	Natureboytimflair (68 reports)
21 May 2025	Great	Moderate High	Full wetsuit	Normal	4 hours	2 people	Reiternick (35 reports)
Comment: First descent trip, after a day of rain so we had some fun sporty flow. Worthwhile canyon if you are in the area. Took us 4 hours including bolting/scouting so could likely be 2-3 hours for a standard run. The first tight section took some care to rappel in, in our moderate high flow day. After rap 2 there is an undercut in a pool thats 2-3 feet deep which could be a hazard in high flow if you become inverted on the slippy ramp that precedes it.
20 May 2025	Great	Moderate High	Full wetsuit	Normal		2 people	Reiternick (35 reports)
Comment: Afternoon start during a rainy day made for some fun flow. All anchors good. The hike up from the bottom is steep up loose terrain for the firet bit, so be careful.
20 May 2025					10 hours	4 people Beginner to Advanced	Dyln cole (71 reports)
Comment: A surprisingly worthwhile canyon, the rappels were fun and the exit is amazing, following a not terribly brutal but not in much way enjoyable approach. We tried to stay high but dropping in earlier proved best, maybe a very late drop in aiming for R1 could work, but I think this is just brush city. R6 was not very hard to miss at all, but perhaps this was due to the expectation of rappelling into it. The ledge was large enough to regather our group of 4, and at no point did we have to sequence. Pull beta is good, for R5, we got on rope from R6 and pulled at an extension which I would recommend to everyone else comfortable with this option as well. Slow and comfortable day. Stay safe my friends.
19 May 2025	Amazing	Dry	None	Normal	5 hours	2 people Advanced	Shaunaexplores (6 reports)
Comment: Fantastic, unique canyon with an exciting via ferrata towards the end of the approach that is half the fun of this run. Stunning views of the surrounding mountains once you hit the ridgeline. Some spicy exposure but the spicier moves can be protected by cables. Weather was oppressively hot for us, with little to no shade, so took the approach very slow to avoid overheating. Definitely start this one EARLY if you can and bring lots of water. Went through 2 liters and wished I had more. R1: bolted anchors, approx 100-110ft over the backside of the mountain and into the window/tunnel feature. very neat rappel. fixed cables inside the tunnel to cross through and reach the polished and exposed ledge for the second rappel. Pull here was clean but may want to meat anchor from the cables to get out on the ledge as far as possible for the pull. R2: bolted anchors DCR, 90ft to a slanted landing area. a couple sketchy scramble options from here to bypass final rappels but we opted to continue rappeling. R3: very low angle chossy rappel from an odd anchor DCL on the slanting landing area of R2. Anchor is a loop of wire cable around 2 old rusted bolts/rings and one old rusted piton. I think I pulled out about 60-80ft here. Be careful of loose rocks as you make your way down the low angle choss here. You will reach an obvious ledge with a palm tree DCR and bolts/chains DCL. R4: Approx 90ft. Bolts/chains DCL. Interesting rappel with a fun, narrow chimney finish. Hike down is straightforward and easy from here.
19 May 2025	Great	Moderate Low	Full wetsuit	Normal	6 hours	3 people Beginner to Advanced	PsychoWard (37 reports)
Comment: Super fun canyon with some beautiful rappels. Everything detailed about the approach is pretty accurate. It's tough and exposed , but I enjoyed it. Anchors and webbing were in good shape. Wore a 5mm and was plenty comfortable. I could see some of the rappels being challenging in higher flow due to the narrow chutes. The 25ft bonus rappel is not worth doing. We did a total of 9 rappels, combining some of the rappels as described in the beta. This is probably my favorite canyon in SoCal after Eaton.
19 May 2025		Moderate Low	Rain jacket		10 hours	2 people Intermediate to Advanced	EMoorcroft (450 reports),Dyln cole (71 reports)
Comment: At a leisurely canyon pace and silly hiccups, canyon was awesome. Bolts look good, water is cold but neoprene socks (3mm and 5mm) and gloves kept us mostly warm. Wouldn't go in bedrocks but I like being comfy, currently one short swim that ends in the sun.
18 May 2025	Great	Deep pools	None	Easy	1 hour	2 people Advanced	Shaunaexplores (6 reports)
Comment: Fun little cave with a neat narrow, vertical drop of about 90-100' to enter. Ledge on the hillside to reach the bolt/chain anchors can be a bit slippery. Pull rope and leave gear at the rappel landing and head left to explore some pools, tunnels, and formations. Pools were on the shallower side and required some easy downclimbing to reach. Water deepens to swimming level and there are some fun formations to swim around and between, and some dry passages to explore. Head back to retrieve gear after exploring and follow the passage to the right to exit the cavern, which will put you midway on the trail to Chipitín.
18 May 2025	Amazing	Moderate	Thin wetsuit	Normal	5 hours	3 people Advanced	Shaunaexplores (6 reports)
Comment: Unreal canyon. Definitely lives up to the hype with incredible limestone formations, pristine turquoise water, and epic jumps I will be dreaming about for months. Brought our own gear and went unguided thru Matacanes, Chipitin, Hidrofobia, and Cueva Tierrosa over 2 days. We worked with Aldea for shuttles and lodging. Highly recommend! If you're not renting two 4x4 vehicles, shuttle services are going to be necessary for both Matacanes and Hidrofobia. The drive back up the mountain is about an hour. Go early to Matacanes on weekends or expect to be passing or waiting on bigger guided groups. Most guides were very nice about us sneaking by and offered to let us do jumps ahead of them since we were a small crew. So appreciated! However, as a group of 3 young women we also experienced some rude comments and obvious misogyny from some guides and passengers. Men walking up and grabbing our rigging without asking, passengers leaving their groups to try to get ahead of us, guides telling us the canyon would be too difficult for us, etc. Unfortunate but plenty of lovely guides and folks we met as well! Bolt farms at the 2 rappels. Bolts immediately LDC of the first waterfall will put you right in the flow and is by far the best spot to rig if it's open! RDC bolts look like a blast on the second rap, but we ended up on the center nose outside of the flow. Trickier overhung start so the guides avoid it for beginners, but we were able to quickly bypass a lot of groups here and get the rest of the cave and the second cave section to ourselves. The underground sections are something out of a dream. The less spoilers the better. The jump LDC before the second cavernous section is as perfect as it gets. You can also exit the second cave and backtrack on top of it to a fun bonus jump. A bit on the shallower side compared to other higher jumps, your feet might brush the bottom here. One of our group went without wetsuit, and I felt very hot in mine. Very thin wetsuit, maybe 2mm recommended for this time of year. Wear long sleeves/ long pants on the hikes in and out, there is lots of poison oak. Bring some cash in your dry bag, you can buy some celebratory beers and ceviche at the end! Hope I will get to come back to this one.
18 May 2025	Good	Low	Thin wetsuit	Normal	4 hours	5 people Intermediate to Advanced	PsychoWard (37 reports)
Comment: Cool little canyon with easy access, although the approach is pretty exposed as you get closer to the drop-in. There was a Spanish-speaking guide company ahead of us with some questionable safety practices and a group of probably 15 people, which slowed us down a lot. For better or worse, there are anchors all over the place, which allowed us to move along in some spots when needed. Water was low, but still fun. Anchors seemed to be in good shape, getting a lot of usage.
18 May 2025	Amazing	Very High	Full wetsuit	Advanced			Ryan Mallon Guide (1 reports)
Comment: Near flood stage water levels made this run extremely challenging. Had to improvise several additional rappels, retrievable handlines, and partner assists to get through. On S1, before reaching The Notch, we broke up the slide to two retrievable handline sections using equivocation hitches. Because the notch was a hydraulic, we intermediately anchored off a log jam in the pothole above Notch Falls to reduce the chance of sticking our rope on the pull. After the Notch, we meat anchored handlines through the initial scramble sections, then some more intermittent short raps throughout the remainder of the creekwhack where scrambling/downclimbing wasn't realistic with the conditions we had.
18 May 2025	Great	Dry	None	Easy	4 hours	5 people Intermediate to Beginner	Quanticfx (1 reports)
Comment: Took my family of 5 (7, 10, 13) through the canyon starting at 11 am. Even though it was super nice out (maybe a little windy, which was actually nice) the kids all complained on the hike up so we stopped more than a few times which added a bunch of time. We also hung out for a while above the last rap. Zero water in the canyon. All the webbing was in decent shape and all quick links were present.
18 May 2025	Good	Deep pools	Thin wetsuit	Advanced		3 people Intermediate to Advanced	Baxter (1 reports)
Comment: Water was very low and in keeper mode (our group decided to backtrack and hit it another day with non-keeper conditions)
18 May 2025	Amazing					5 people Intermediate to Advanced	RFontaine (270 reports)
Comment: A top notch big rappel to start and incredible dissolution pockets/unique rock features make this route huge bang for the buck! Especially when combined with Wife 5! Total time is for Wives 3 & 5. After we ran 5, we climbed up the fin directly DCL of 5. This is a perfect sneak route to easily get up to 3. First rappel has no anchor present. There is a large pine that seems to be in a poor position for pull so we fiddled off a large natural arch in wall DCL. This rappel was every bit of my 225’ rope and mostly free hanging… GLORIOUS! Rest of the canyon was quick but very beautiful, super fun! Back down in less than 2 hours. Highly recommend!

...additional reports

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