Mary Jane Canyon

There are two approaches to this canyon. The simplest and easiest is to park your car next to the bridge and just do the lowest four rappels, exiting where you started. The other, described on Brennen's page, is the longer with considerably more bushwhacking and route-finding for one or two more rappels, and requires a car shuttle. From the top, there is a pretty intense bushwhack as you drop-in, down a steep slope with poison oak and thorny vines, a really bad combo. It is perhaps one of the worst sections of poison oak in the area. This is only in the upper, non-technical section and once through this is a pleasant canyon relatively brush-free with nice rappels. If you do the lower section only, you can hike up-canyon to a gorgeous waterfall, and what we used to call the "King Kong tree", which may not still be there. For the upper, I would HIGHLY recommend NOT dropping in straight down the steep slope and into the canyon, but instead taking the ridge DCR (34.2761, -118.1927) and then drop into the canyon after this thorny, poison web of evil. I haven't done the ridge approach, but from in the canyon this looks like the way to go. It will require some navigation skill. After doing the canyon several times, I feel the lower is the better option. It may be possible to bushwack up above the first rappel from the bottom too, but it hasn't been done yet.