Suicide Canyon
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| | Difficulty:3A III (v3a1 III) Raps:8, max ↨190ft
Red Tape:No permit required Shuttle: Vehicle:Passenger | |||||||||||
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| Condition Reports: | 10 Apr 2025
"The big "special challenges" were crossing Big T Creek multiple times as the dam is releasing about 50CFS of waterflow (see pic). The approach trail |
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34.2750, -118.2245
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Waterflow
Introduction
Suicide is a nice loop canyon with a fairly large amount of rappelling distance, including an excellent first rappel of almost 200 feet. The Maxon route is much more common and described here; the Mount Lukens route originally described by Chris Brennen is appreciably longer.
- As with all the Big T canyons your help is needed to keep access open. This entire area is still seeing a slow recovery from the old station fire which means lots of invasive plants and overgrowth in general can quickly close off access to these areas and/or make your time in them miserable. Consider adding a pair of hand shears and/or small bypass loppers to your gear list when descending these places.
Educate yourself on how and why [1] BIG TUJUNGA CANYON RESTORATION
Approach
Note: as of APR 2025 the KML file for the approach has updated with a blue line for the approach use trail. The green line is only useful to follow along Big T Creek.
Park at Vogel Flat and head southeast on Grizzly Flat trail. Cross Big Tujunga about 300 feet from the parking, and cross back over Big Tujunga within another 300 feet at 34.283579, -118.221984 . Continue another 2000 feet on Grizzly Flat Trail where it crosses Big Tujunga again at 34.279622, -118.219445 ; Big Tujunga makes a sharp left bend (facing upstream) here. Cross the creek and proceed 250 feet more to 34.279415, -118.218704 , then head off trail, straight south past 4" rusty steel pole and a large downed tree to the ridge about 150 feet away. Climb an animal run that angles up right onto the ridge, and follow the obvious trail is occasionally marked with white (faded from orange) flagging tape. Climb the ridge using this trail past three sets of power poles about 800 vertical feet up to a much flatter area at 34.27435, -188.22166 . Note that the trail does make some "switchback" turns on steepest parts of the ridge, so look for flagging tape and or obvious cut to plants. Follow the tunnel in the insanely thick brush toward Suicide Canyon drop-in above the first rappel. You may want to rappel down the super steep slope into the canyon.
Descent
From the end of the cut trail, drop down the very steep earthen and rocky slope under thick brush to the canyon bottom between R0 and R1. If you want to do R0, you will need to climb up from the end of the trail on the animal run and bushwhack 250 feet further up the canyon before dropping into it. While some of the rappels in this canyon are bolted, other anchors may be destroyed in a rainstorm so the ability to construct cairn and dead man anchors is recommended for this canyon. Use of a toggle for ghosting can come in handy too as there are many small trees, bushes and even logs that can be used.
R0: ???' unexplored, but looks good from a distance
R1: 195' from a pair of Glue-In bolts slightly LDC (new black webbing DEC2020).
R2: 57' from tree roughly in the canyon center (webbing moved higher on tree DEC2020) UPDATE: February 2020, the log in the watercourse has migrated permanently to the bottom of the rappel and is no longer available as an anchor. Alternatively, there are bolts RDC according to a condition report from October 25, 2014 (unverified).
R3: 53' from bolts RDC (new black webbing NOV2020) R4 immediately follows.
R4: 108' from group of small trees middle canyon with one sizeable tree in the mix (Long black webbing DEC2020 makes drop ~100 feet)
After R4 there is a short down climb that could also be rappelled using an tree anchor canyon center (black webbing, no link DEC2020)
R5: 70?' from a fallen tree that may look precarious, but seems to be stronger than it looks (blue webbing buried in canyon kelp NOV2020) or a tree high LDC (super old webbing NOV2020); anchoring from this high tree will drag the rope through poison oak.
R6: 50?' from newly placed bolts on the wall LDC (New black webbing DEC2020)
R7: 37' from a tree LDC (blue webbing NOV2020); there are also bolts DCL back from the tree that were buried in gravel (super old webbing removed DEC2020).
R8a 40' from small tree RDC that seems to grow straight out of the granite face itself (blue webbing NOV2020), This is a first part of a two-stage rappel.
R8b 87' from a cluster of small fig trees canyon center (tan webbing NOV2020). This is the second stage to the ground.
R8a and R8b can be combined into one 140' rappel from the small tree with a descent pull-line. Supposedly there are glue-in bolts LDC near the ground near the R8a tree, but have not been found (NOV2020)
R9 30' handline downclimb DCR from a tree (fixed black 3-strand polypropylene rope NOV2020)
Exit
Head out the canyon mouth staying left until you reach a point where Big Tujunga creek nearly touches the cliff wall DCL. Make a right turn, cross the braided creek bed here through some sticker vines, climb a small hill (watch out for a few poison oak bushes) and find Grizzly Flat trail. Turn left and follow Grizzly Flat trail back to your car along the same route you entered.
Red tape
An Adventure Pass must be displayed when parking at Vogel Flat.
Beta sites
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Chris Brennen's Adventure Hikes (St Gabriels) : Suicide Canyon - Super Amazing Map : Suicide Canyon
Trip reports and media
Background
First canyoneering descent on Sep.1, 2003, by Randi Poer and Chris Brennen.
![[1]](http://ep.yimg.com/ay/yhst-136001134851880/forester-8-1-4-by-pass-pro-forged-pruner-pr7240-3.jpg){kind=link}