Latest:	16 Jul 2022 (2 yrs, 10 mos ago)

Reported by:	Willie92708 (997 reports)
Quality:	Amazing
Waterflow:	Moderate Low
Wetsuit:	Thin wetsuit
Water temperature:	22C deg C
Difficulty:	Special challenges
Time:	8 hours

Team: 5 people

Trip report URL:

Comments: Awesome day with no smoke from the wildfire, but the exit hiking heat was intense (over 100F air temp)(special challenges). We went into one of the hydropower service tunnels to cool off about halfway through the exit hike. Waterflow was at 4.4 CFS for easy class C, and easy stemming over the V-trough. Be careful dropping into the silo as one member jammed a finger there. Water temp at the bottom was 70F, requiring only but the thinnest wetsuit to stay totally warm. We did the R6alt (first time for me, see pic) and the large trees at the top of the waterfall make a nice place to take a break in shade, get on your wetsuit, and dip into the water as needed to stay cool before rappelling R6alt. This canyon run gets better and better every time I run it!

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
14 Sep 2022		Extreme					Johnbcaves (158 reports)
Comment: From SCE: SCE will be making releases to Stevenson Creek again starting tomorrow, 9/14. These releases may continue to the end of September but should cease come October 1.
16 Jul 2022	Amazing	Moderate Low	Thin wetsuit	Special challenges	8 hours	5 people	Willie92708 (997 reports)
Comment: Awesome day with no smoke from the wildfire, but the exit hiking heat was intense (over 100F air temp)(special challenges). We went into one of the hydropower service tunnels to cool off about halfway through the exit hike. Waterflow was at 4.4 CFS for easy class C, and easy stemming over the V-trough. Be careful dropping into the silo as one member jammed a finger there. Water temp at the bottom was 70F, requiring only but the thinnest wetsuit to stay totally warm. We did the R6alt (first time for me, see pic) and the large trees at the top of the waterfall make a nice place to take a break in shade, get on your wetsuit, and dip into the water as needed to stay cool before rappelling R6alt. This canyon run gets better and better every time I run it!
5 Jul 2022	Amazing	Moderate Low	Thin wetsuit	Special challenges	9 hours	4 people	Willie92708 (997 reports)
Comment: We had to hike from close to our campsite over 3 miles to the normal shuttle point, because the approach road was "closed to thru traffic" for culvert repairs and a Forest Service guy blocking the road would not let us drive into the area. This added at least 1.5 hours to the approach. (see pic) Water flow was low at 4.4 CFS, which made all the water hazards easy enough. Most all the anchors with all metal hardware (rings / chains / quick links for extension) have had all the webbing removed, and this seems to work fine for rappelling with the rope directly through the hardware. The wind was strong and blowing a lot of waterfall spray all over us for the last rappel on the headwall. The short fixed line for R5 is dirty, but still totally functional and safe. Pool at the bottom of R6 is totally full of slit; you can walk in a few inches of water to R7. Both R8 bolted anchors are still there (beta says R8 was removed). We did partner assists dropping into the silo before the stem. The stemming section was a breeze with the flow being so low. After which is the first swim now. The rest of the canyon was straightforward. Our "in canyon" time was 5 hours at a relaxed pace.
3 Jul 2022	Good	Moderate Low	Thin wetsuit	Advanced	6 hours	4 people Intermediate to Expert	Canyoneer X (2 reports)
Comment: Most notable change in the canyon after the 2020 fires is all the silt. The upper potholes before the first rap down the headwall are all filled in to the top with silt. Same thing with the boulder field at the bottom of the head wall. Huge areas were filled with silt making it a little easier to climb out. The big pool after the fixed line after the head wall is completely filled in. The bottom of rap 5 for us, 6 for others, is a huge pool that is usually a swimmer that we normally get off rappel and jump into... completely filled with silt and little flowers directly under the rap, haha. After that the silt goes away and the water gets murky and kinda gross. No new obstacles. Still the shit.
25 Jun 2022	Great	Moderate	Thin wetsuit	Special challenges	9 hours	3 people Advanced to Expert	Xenonrocket (102 reports),Rodtel314 (36 reports),Epeairs (70 reports)
Comment: Great day in the canyon! 4.4 CFS. We replaced the webbing on most of the anchors. Our group was all new to the canyon, spent 1.5 hr unsticking ropes, and it was really hot out so we took breaks, so a faster time is definitely possible. We stuck a rope on the R2 pull - our mistake was probably to rappel RDC of the flake then swing over to the ledge, which routed the pull strand over an obstruction. Quicksand at the bottom of R6, first party member buried a leg up to mid thigh, but was able to self extract. No other challenges presented themselves due to the great beta and trip reports.
30 Jul 2021	Great	Moderate Low	Thin wetsuit	Special challenges	7 hours	4 people Intermediate to Expert	Sqshemet (75 reports)
Comment: At 4.4 cfs, posted beta suggests the flow was moderate, but I have a hard time calling it anything more than moderate-low. Not at all pushy, even falling in the cracks would have been unlikely to have significant consequences (WRT water, at least). First time down for our whole group. Some silliness on the shuttle lead to a noon start, but even with some time spent playing at the bridge, an hour burned ascending R3 due to the last person forgetting to unclip the rope bag, and another 45 minutes or so spent looking for the R6 anchor (don't drop down into the pool! Scramble across to the saddle of the fin fairly directly from R5), we reached our exit car before dark. Wore rain jackets for R4 and suited up for R6. If making my decisions again I probably would have skipped the wetsuit, but I run warm. Canyon seems escapable after R5 via the gully upcanyon of the rR6 fin. Nothing else notably challenging. Great day, majestic canyon.
18 Jul 2021	Great	Moderate Low	Thin wetsuit	Advanced	10 hours	4 people Beginner to Advanced	Americanidle (7 reports)
Comment: Excellent, if not particularly challenging, day in the canyon. Flow was on the lower end. All the anchors are intact with functional webbing and the distance figures listed in the beta are generally correct. The rope installed at R6 is appallingly degraded and should be removed. The low section after the first stem and pool can be slid in the low flow as long as you work to keep your pelvis high. The R10 station has a comical number of bolts installed in different locations, curious what the story is there. I would absolutely add middle Stevenson to any future run in this canyon, as just the 400ft of watercourse leading up to the first headwall looks much like 7 Teacups and is likely just as fun. Incredible views and in all possibly the grandest canyon to run in all California.
17 Jul 2021	Great	Moderate	Thin wetsuit	Normal	8 hours	4 people Intermediate to Advanced	Blueshade (55 reports)
Comment: Note that the anchors to not line up vertically on the initial headwall. Stop at obvious large ledges- don't overthink it. Rocks at the bottom are very slippery. Rope in place on 25' R5 is old and has a few bad coreshots but held for us. We did R6 off of a tree to the R. Much better in the flow. There are some rocks below the stemming section so avoid dropping into the water at the end. I thought the beta was very confusing at times and I'll try to fix it when I can. Note that if you start at about 11:30am you can finish by 7pm and have shade for the entire exit hike. Stemming is somewhat unique but definitely not a 5 star canyon.
29 May 2021 Trip report		Moderate					Johnbcaves (158 reports)
Comment: Burned! Lower not likely affected, but the hillside above and approach are toast.
11 Jul 2020	Amazing	High	Thin wetsuit	Special challenges	12 hours	3 people	Willie92708 (997 reports)
Comment: This was a filming trip with GoPro's, DLSR and Drone, which added considerably to the overall time. Also, the photographer was really slow moving through the canyon too. Still, we were at the bridge by Sunset, and hiked out in the dark. Waterflow by the SCE gauge was 7.1 CFS, and it definitely was "sporty", especially stemming over the flow. Spray from the headwall was significant (see pic). One member fell from the wide stem over the silo (before the V trough) and bashed his shin on a jagged rock in the pool. Another member bruise the side of his left thigh sliding the last 10 feet into the pool on R10, as there is jagged roof on that side. Overall amazing as always, with plenty of technical fun to keep everyone on their toes.
13 Jun 2020	Amazing	High	Thin wetsuit	Advanced	7 hours	8 people Advanced	Morgan (103 reports),Reeves (37 reports)
Comment: Flow was ~8 CFS, and quite high. We removed the R8alt anchor and observed substantial corrosion on the placed hardware. There is a recirculating hydraulic at the bottom of the stem, but it is negotiable by staying in the step a little longer. With the wind blowing, everyone will want a rain shell for the initial headwall. Parts of the canyon are very slippery and should be accessed with care. Anchors are in good shape, but R8 could use some upkeep due to corrosion.
24 May 2020	Amazing	Very High	Full wetsuit	Special challenges	6 hours	6 people Intermediate to Expert	DMonroy (188 reports)
Comment: We left at 11am to avoid the shade, and caught perfect weather. Sunny and warm inside the canyon, and cloud cover rolled in for the quick hike out. We took our time, even drying our ropes at the bridge, and still got back to the cars before 5pm. There are HUGE crowds now since social media and all-trails have listed this place as a top destination. So if you want to park near the gate, better leave your car before 7am. There are some weird anchors in there we didn't need. One has several cams, in the dogleg section. Several others we also saw and ignored. Not sure who left them or why, I had a little trouble starting the stem section too low and was too wedged in to get higher where I needed to be to find dry rock. At 8 cfs a higher, wider stem was required than when I sent in at a lower flow last year. Definitely start in the dry zone, because there is more algae and thus slippery than before.
14 Sep 2019	Amazing	High	Thin wetsuit	Special challenges	10 hours	5 people	Willie92708 (997 reports)
Comment: We spent 7 hours in the canyon and about 1 hour at the bridge drying stuff out and waiting for the Sun to drop low before hiking out. We replaced all webbing at ALL anchors except for R1 and R5 (which has a fixed piece of old climbing rope); as all these piece were there last year and they were Sun bleached then. For R12 newer webbing was installed in addition to the old webbing, since my knife was jammed and I was the last person there fixing the anchor. We built a new anchor above R8 (below). Water temp was much colder than last year. I was glad I bought a full suit with hood, neoprene socks and neoprene gloves. Also being later in the year we had no direct Sun after dropping from the huge fin, until we reached the drill bit rappel. After much discussion about staging people through the crux and the lack of communication if we used the bolted chain anchor for R8 (hanging position in the wet spray, cannot see the crux moves, and station not good for more than 2), we decided to build a new anchor on the slab ledge 50 feet (vertically) above the R8 anchor. This location was dry, holds the whole party easily and it has a great sight line on the crux, so hand signals can be used. We constructed the new anchor with an existing "welded" rock chock, a climbing nut and a climbing active cam; it's overkill, but made everyone feel good about it. From that slab ledge party members rappelled into the main waterfall pool (pool below big waterfall in picture), then traversed (on rope) down into the next pool, then stemmed above the silo (pothole) before the final 30 foot hallway stemming exercise. Rope was useful getting into the pool after the waterfall pool, as that drop is pretty far to just jump down (too wide to stem), but not helpful crossing the silo. It took well over 100 feet of rope to reach past the silo. Since some members used more than 100 feet of rope from this anchor, 2x 200 foot ropes were used here for rappelling and pull. And since the pull side rope (and bag) got sucked past the stemming hallway to the long pool, the last person had to stay in the stem past the silo and pull the 2 ropes while another bagged the ropes on the exit slab after the long pool. The rope pulled easily enough through all the pools, silo and stemming hallway, but 400 feet of rope is a lot of rope and could easily get tangled up. Overall, totally awesome run even with more flow (6.5 CFS) than last year!
28 Jul 2018	Amazing	Moderate	Thin wetsuit	Special challenges	10 hours	7 people	Willie92708 (997 reports)
Comment: Water flow was at the "normal" dam controlled 5 to 6 CFS, making conditions ideal. The water temp was surprisingly warm and we all we overheating in full body wetsuits while not in the water. Air temp must have reach 100F that day. Spring suits would have been fine. Some of the anchor webbing is getting highly Sun bleached and should be replaced soon. We had one party member fall in the stemming section, but the water force pushed the member out without incident. Scary to watch though! On rap #10, we got a rope stuck in the crack only about 30 feet below the rap #10 anchor. This rope was left pulled tight, out of the water course to the one bolt on rap #11. Overall, it's truly mind blowing the vertical size of Stevenson, and the amazing beauty of the giant waterfalls!
15 Jul 2018	Amazing	Moderate High	Full wetsuit	Special challenges	6 hours	5 people Beginner to Advanced	AmandaC (40 reports),Johnbcaves (158 reports)
Comment: Great conditions at ~5.8 cfs according to Edison gauge. Water pretty chilly in middle of canyon as usual, but the hike out was hot. Air temps >80°F by the time we started hiking.