The Hidden Swimming Holes of Colby Canyon - Angeles National Forest

Hopefully there's no tough downclimbs because my shoes are going to be slippery as hell. Or actually, they already are slippery as hell. Today we're just going to be doing a great beginner adventure hike up and then back down through Colby Canyon. Up there is Colby Canyon, so that's where I'll be coming down later, but the trail goes up and around into this other daisy canyon. It's about a two mile round trip and only about 500 foot elevation gain, so it's not too crazy. It looks like the canyon gets really narrow though, so that's pretty cool. There's water in the canyon. I've never done this one before, but I've read this is a great beginner adventure hike. Some of you may be new to my channel or may be new to hiking and you're probably not sure what I mean by adventure hike. When you talk about an adventure hike, you're talking about going off trail, doing something that has a certain element of risk to it. You know, you're in the canyon, you're boulder hopping, you're crossing streams, there's no established trail, so it's a little slippery, a little bit of risk. They say Colby Canyon is a good adventure hike for beginners, but we're going to find out if that's true. Another element that makes it an adventure hike is, I read there's a couple of down climb spots. That's something you want to be aware of too, and that basically just means free climbing. The biggest down climb is like 10 or 15 feet, so we'll see how hard that is. So it looks like the trail is crossing over Daisy Canyon, headed back towards Colby Canyon. So the next, I believe the next stream crossing is where we're going to head down, down Colby Canyon. So that's Daisy Canyon. And that actually looked pretty sweet, might have to come back and explore that one. This is the entrance to Colby Canyon. Continue along this trail, you can go to the Josephine Peak, you can go to Strawberry Peak. But we're going to head down in Colby Canyon here. Beginning here at least is like way more narrow and overgrown than I expected. Looks like it's starting to widen up. Definitely a machete would have been a good idea for this. I haven't seen any poison oak yet, but there are some pricker bushes and some other things that you got to be careful of. But just came through this back here, totally overgrown, but it's starting to widen up. I hope it stays wider than what I just came through. Okay, so came through that first down climb and it wasn't too bad, looks like it's widening up now. Definitely that beginning was a little, little overgrown. Still no sign of poison oak. If this is your first time on my channel, subscribe. Hit that button, hit the bell notification icon, find out when I put a new video out. I'll show you some awesome adventures that I go on. Some easier, some harder. You decide what's in your comfort zone. The most important thing is just get out there, put one foot in front of the other and try. This so far has been more rugged than I expected actually. I had no idea it was going to be that overgrown, so I'm glad it's widening up. Not sure that I would particularly call this a beginner's adventure hike. The amount that it's overgrown and the amount of down trees and stuff. Well, so far this has been the biggest down climb. It's more of like a butt scoot and jump, maybe 10, 12 feet. Not too bad. Nice and wide. This is what I like. This is what I was waiting for. Yes! Now we're talking. This is a down climb. This is some dangerous, hardcore stuff. Looks like you could probably shimmy around that way, but it doesn't look too bad. There's some handholds. There's really no water, so I'm going to go for it. So that was rugged. Probably 20, 25 feet down climb. Wasn't too bad. Some good handholds, some good spots to get friction, but just little pockets of mud and traces of water. And as soon as I hit those, I was really slick. I mean, I got almost halfway down and I just jumped. It looks like you could climb around though this way. You would definitely have to repel that if it was flowing, so not for beginners. You need some technical gear and knowledge for that. When that's flowing, awesome waterfall right there. I think that's the toughest climb down. Steepest drop. I think the rest is relatively easy, but we'll see. Colby Canyon has met up with Daisy Canyon here. A lot more water flowing in Daisy Canyon, so there should be more water the rest of the way. I think that this is the best part of the canyon down here after it meets up with Daisy. That upper part, not really a big fan. Too many down trees, too much bushwhacking, and some steep down climbs. Really one really steep down climb that is not good for beginners. You could climb around or hike around, but it's really loose and I still wouldn't recommend the walk around for any beginners going off trail for early on in their adventure hike career. I'm at the top of a pretty active waterfall. I mean, a good amount of flow. I definitely can't down climb this. There's too much vegetation. Actually, if that pool was deeper, I would just slide this thing, but maybe 25, 30 foot high, so I think I'm going to backtrack and try to climb around this and then come down because that looks like my only option. Okay, a little dirt slide there, a little Willie Price action there for you guys. Let's go check out this waterfall, rinse off, but man, I don't know why someone would say this is for beginners. Definitely not for beginners. You can see why I didn't want to down climb this. Beautiful, unnamed falls, to my knowledge it doesn't have a name, but call it Colby Canyon Falls, maybe, unless we come across a bigger one, but even coming down the side over there and if I came down this other side, really loose. Nice little waterfall though. This pool is pretty sweet. It's not that deep now, but I bet with higher flow, it gets pretty deep and nice to swim in. I'm not going to lie, I was starting to get disappointed. Then we came to that awesome waterfall. Now we're entering this beautiful granite bowl section of the canyon here, so Colby Canyon. It took a little while to get warmed up, but this part looks awesome. That waterfall is awesome. Some nice little pools down here. I'm psyched. Looks like about ankle, knee deep, all up in there. Hopefully there's no tough down climbs, because my shoes are going to be slippery as hell. Or actually, they already are slippery as hell. Well, I've reached the spot where I read it's the only spot you need assistance. There's some old webbing up here around this bush with some paracord attached. I'm not going to trust that. I mean, it may be dangerous, but you could down climb this. I'm probably not going to use that paracord. I may double back. That actually wasn't that bad. That wasn't as bad as some of the other ones I've done today. Obviously, with the addition of the water, it makes it a little more tricky, a little more dangerous. I didn't trust the paracord, but this log here, I did trust that. I kind of wedged my foot down there, shimmied my way down, compared to the steeper one I did earlier. This was nothing. This was a cake. So I was actually just looking at my GPS, and I realized that I actually dropped in further up in the canyon than you're supposed to. No wonder it was all overgrown and narrow. That's actually not part of the adventure hike. That first stream crossing I came to, that was where I was supposed to go down into the canyon. That makes a lot more sense in retrospect. So I basically doubled the length of this. I made it, instead of, I think, a two-mile round trip, it's going to end up being a four-mile round trip. But you could see the lower part, lower relative to where I dropped in in the wrong spot, is the awesome canyon. Don't go to that second spot where I dropped in. You want to go to that first stream crossing, and that's the canyon you want to drop in on. Colby Canyon Adventure Hike. Would I recommend it for beginners? You know, if it's your first adventure hike, I wouldn't recommend it. If it's your second or third, and then you're going with somebody experienced, then definitely, but not by yourself if you're a beginner, if it's your first off-trail hike, and not without somebody else who's more experienced. I hope you enjoyed this little journey. Some great pools here. Some really deep ones, actually. I was surprised how deep they were. Nice granite bowls. Beautiful canyon. Colby Canyon. San Gabriel Mountains. Angeles National Forest. Hope this motivates you to get out there, find your own adventure. Be safe. Pack out your garbage. And be infamous. Infamous.