Lincoln National Forest - South San Andres Canyon

 Two years ago I was looking up at the dry waterfall, a sheer cliff of massive limestone (at least 200 but maybe closer to 300 feet high), that separates lower South San Andres Canyon from its upper reaches. Last year I went on the fantastic hike down the main stem of San Andres Canyon and decided to put its tributary on the south on my to do list.
 I got friends David and Nancy (and their dog Hank) to come with me. It was a long drive on the Westside Road ( FR 90) with deep ruts, even deeper potholes, newly graveled surfaces (which felt like driving on a gigantic washboard) and several downed trees in the road way thrown in for good measure. We then got on the truly primitive FR 90 B on top of Joplin Ridge. After about a half mile, I  had had enough and just decided to park. We began by drifting to the north and soon hit one of the uppermost branches of the canyon and began to descend. It was thick going through the live brush and the dead downfall, scrambling ever so steeply over boulders and bedrock without even the benefit of some kind of wildlife trail. We did see numerous bear droppings, some quite fresh, and once we were in the main canyon, a long trail of Barbary( and maybe Desert Bighorn) sheep droppings as well. They all must be pretty light on their feet because there was never anything like a continuous  trail as we went down the canyon.

 I was wondering if my friends were regretting coming on this adventure with me, as I was wondering if this canyon was ever going to level out just a little bit. It did, and widened some too. There were deciduous oaks, douglas firs, ash trees and the locust was blooming with beautiful purple flowers.


We did see a well traveled elk path coming to canyon through this gentler section as well. I guess they have sense enough not to come down here the way we did. The easier walking didn't last long and soon we were climbing down one small dry ( there was no water at all in the canyon) falls in the blocky limestone after another. I knew the " opening" of the canyon, and the precipice of the high dry falls was coming soon, because we now were entering into the warmer, drier zone of piñons, juniper and a variety of desert shrubs (apache plume, little leaf sumac, wrights silk tassel and sotol).
Finally, after a few easy sections of walking on pure bedrock, we began to catch glimpses of the expanse of greened over( from our very wet late winter and early spring this year) cliffs and slopes of the desert below. I continued climbing down and down. David went up on the steep north side, and Nancy stayed back aways with the short legged Hank.





 I  finally stopped. Below me were at least three more falls to negotiate to get down to a short stretch of bleached looking stream bed a hundred or so feet down that lead to the very edge of highest of the dry falls. The first one looked easy enough. The next two, it was hard to see what exactly was involved. I followed the Barbary sheep droppings up onto the north hillside for a better view. There was a bit of  trail that lead to an alcove in the cliffs. Maybe they(the sheep) like to hang out there sometimes. There may have been a way down the slope from there (bypassing those intervening falls) but once again it was hard to see exactly what it would entail.



 My friends were wanting to go back. The whole thing had taken a lot longer than I had anticipated so it was perfectly understandable. I wasn't going any further without them waiting for me. So I left it for another trip (although throughout I had had the feeling this wouldn't be a hike I would be repeating).
We certainly found an easier way back up (which made me think a return trip could be a possibility), using elk trails, weaving through openings in the low growing oak and eventually finding a livestock path through the open (heavily logged) terrain up on the ridge until we were  walking on the road for a short stretch back to the trucks. Along the way was  a turkey carcass for Hank to take a nibble at, cactus for Hank to step on and truly gigantic juniper tree.