A trip to De Luz Canyon

Yesterday we went on a trip to De Luz Canyon. It is located between Murrieta and De Luz and is part of the Santa Ana mountain range. It is a canyon but also a gorge, with according to dictionary.com is "a narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it." It was about a 90-minute drive.

Pictures were taken with my iPhone4. I e-mailed them to myself (cause I was too lazy to plug my phone in???) and only sent them as large sizes. Therefore, although pictures are clickable for bigger version, they are not full version unfortunately (~600kb, as opposed to 2+mb).

I'm going to try to put these pictures in some sort of succession. Here is a picture facing backwards:

The road was so windy and bumpy! It's like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, but more spine-rattling and less fun! Kidding... but I will admit it takes some skill to meander dirt roads. I'd more than likely try to floor the whole way which would probably end up badly. GB is a great driver.

We stopped on a turn-around point on the side of the mountain. We were on our way to see some waterfalls, but first, here are some pictures overlooking the valley.

Nice shotgun shells! It doesn't take long for me to remember why people need to be banned from places like this. Look what they do to it. /endrant Of course it would not be fair to punish all due to the actions of a few.

Another view! I think someone took apart a car down there, ANYWHO, aside from that, it's pretty nice!

I wish I knew what body of water that was. It was too square shaped to be anything natural. Here is another view off the edge.

The valley below this area had a lot of fence boards down there. I read that this is a known dumping grounds due to its proximity to a busy road. GB was telling me about how people will take stolen cars there, gut them, take what they want, and leave them. 

Brush. I really need to learn how to landscape like this - lots of color with little water!

Now, drumroll please. Here is the waterfall!

As you can see, besides the sun almost completely washing out my picture, the waterfall is looking pretty dry. Actually it just was dry. If you zoom in you can see the water marks (black) so at least you know I'm not fibbing. Luckily, late last night it started raining pretty hard so I'm hoping the waterfall and pond will fill up again soon.

Greenery and rocks.

Here's a shot to the side of the waterfall. Notice the tagging.

I tried to keep that garbage off to the side. Here is one last picture of the mountain. It's been long carved by wind, sand, water, birds, and whatever else. We continued on that way to head off of the mountain. No avalanches either!

I wish I had more commentary. Basically, it was a warm day, and there were a lot of lovely rock formations, greenery, and garbage. Because the waterfall wasn't... there... I'd say the journey was more fun than the destination, but isn't that usually the case? It was really stunning to see how green the mountains were even though it has been so dry. I hope to return in a few months once the rain has filled everything back up.