In The Shadow of Longs Peak
Pine Canyon
10 May 2004
The start to Pine Canyon is approximately 2 miles north of the San Rafael River along the Buckhorn Walsh Road. There is a dip in the road at the entrance to the canyon which is also the entrance to Calf Canyon. The best place to park is an area just before the dip as personally I shy away from parking in dips and washes. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered a flash flood but they do happen.
Head into the canyon along an old 2-track. The canyon abounds in flora and today there are large clumps of a yellow, daisy-like flower as well as barrel cactus topped with brilliant red flowers in full bloom. Continue up the road. Before long there is an old corral on the left, making use of a large free standing column of rock as part of the fence. Then there is a fence to pass thru…be sure to close the gate behind you. There does not seem to be any recent use of this canyon as a grazing pasture, so no worries about running into irate bulls.
Before long, the canyon splits. To the left is Calf Canyon. We take a right into Pine Canyon. At this point we leave the road and wander up a wash. We notice a large, concrete slab whose purpose is a mystery though perhaps it was used to dam the water which is flowing into a pool.
Continue up the canyon in the wash. This canyon is stunning with it’s many samples of swell geology: layers of Navajo Sandstone thru wingate and on down. Pinnacles abound. In general, the formation tops are guarded by high steep walls with no breaks to easily pass through.
We continue upward and at the next canyon juncture, we chose to go right. Now the hiking gets more interesting, moving from a wash to a rocky bottom with plenty of pools to negotiate. Most are easy. Eventually we reach a set of rocks that require a rock climbing move or two to overcome. Off came the packs. After much fiddling and looking and trying I ducking thru a crevice – limbo skill required – climbed up some broken rock then scooted thru another crevice to the bottom of a fall. There, I am at my limit. You can do a short traverse with moderate hand holds to a spot where the angle lessens and then work your way to the top of the fall. At the top of the fall is another set of rocks to negotiate and another fall. We were able to scramble up a scree slope to the side, then moved diagonally to the right and ended up over another exposed area. It would have been better to scramble left which was a bit steeper but less exposed. One line in particular looked comfortably doable. But here we turned around and retraced our steps. At the one fall, we rappelled down but otherwise scrambled back down the way we came.
In all, this took about 5 hours and it is unclear to me if we were in the branch of Pine Canyon that Steve Allen proposes in his Calf-Cow-Pine Canyon Loop.