This page gives notes on individual waterfalls listed in SGM: The Waterfalls that do not have individual pages devoted to them. These notes are alphabetical by name of falls, ignoring the words upper and lower. See Abbreviations and Sources for the references listed.
- Upper and Lower Buckhorn Falls are in the tributary canyon to Cooper Canyon, down from Buckhorn Campground. The uppermost one is 10', and is reached via a side trail from the Burkhart Trail. The lower one is 30' and is only reached by going back up the side canyon after reaching Cooper Canyon proper. Schaffer gives 100' as the height of the set of both falls.
- Chapman Falls is about 1 mile below Mt. Lowe Camp in a canyon entering Grand Canyon from the north. It is also known as Alpine Falls, but Chapman Falls is the more accepted name, used by the Railway, Pacific Electric trail signs, etc. There is a trail to the top of falls.
- Cooper Canyon Falls also has an additional 15-20' of cascades above it.
- Devils Canyon has at least four waterfalls, three in the lower Canyon and one in the upper Canyon. Lower Devils Canyon: Two closely-spaced waterfalls are nearly due east of the Devils Canyon Overlook from SR2. Because it is difficult to get past either waterfall, the upper one is reached from the Devils Canyon Trail, and the lower one is reached from Cogswell Reservoir. To add to the confusion, Schad calls the trip to this upper one in the lower Canyon Upper Devils Canyon. Just north of those waterfalls is another waterfall from the canyon to the east, which can easily be seen from Devils Canyon, called Side Canyon to Lower Devils Canyon in the table.
Upper Devils Canyon: There is also a waterfall just southwest of Waterman Mountain in the uppermost part of Devils Canyon.
- Eaton Canyon Falls: Picnic Party at Falls in 1898.
- Falls Canyon is on this list simply because of its name. Its name may derive from falls that existed at Valley Forge Campground, at the mouth of Falls Canyon, which were buried under tons of debris from the construction of SR2 during a heavy downpour on March 1-2, 1938. (San Gabriels, p. 183.)
- Fish Fork is just north of Iron Mountain, whereas Fish Canyon is at the mouth of the San Gabriel River. Upper Fish Fork Falls is a "bigger waterfall" 0.2 mile upstream from Fish Fork Falls (AALAC, p. 263.)
- Robinson says: In times of high water, [the falls of Glenn Canyon] are the most spectacular falls in the range. He spells it Glenn whereas the topo map spells it Glen.
- Grand Canyon Falls is 0.5-0.8 mile below Mt. Lowe Camp. Grand Canyon Falls is a "falls that used to be", with a formerly-estimated height of 92' by Reid. The Gabriels are on the move and earth and rock movement have significantly changed these falls. The rear of the falls is intact with a 17.5' fall into a 50' horizontal trench in the soft red rock described by Reid. The front end of the falls, however, have collapsed into a pile of debris, so there really aren't any falls at all, nor any apparent watercourse; the water is just going underneath the debris pile at this early stage in the life of the pile.
- Upper Leontine Falls, the Falls above Leontine Falls, consists of two smaller, single tier falls above, and a single tier 120' fall at bottom. The first tier above goes directly into a small table above the large falls. Ayers' height estimate is 40'; appears to be a slide 10-20° from vertical. The other upper tier is 30-40 yards upstream from the first tier on fairly flat ground. It appears to be 50-60' and fairly vertical. Upper Leontine is easily visible from beginning of Castle Canyon trail.
"Leontine" was the original name used by Reid in 1895. John Robinson calls the combination of the combination of Ribbon Rock Falls (the lower half) and Moss Grotto Falls (the upper half) as "Leontine" in TOTA. See Rubio Canyon: The Waterfalls for Reid's terminology, which we use.
- Hermit Falls is in Big Santa Anita Canyon near the end of the First Water Trail, 2.0 hiking miles south of Chantry Flat.
- Maple Canyon Falls: These unnamed waterfalls are in Maple Canyon, aka upper Rubio Canyon, above the Castle Canyon crossing. On 9/11/99 there was some moisture on the face of both falls, but both are essentially seasonal. Both can be reached by easy cross-country from the Middle Merrill Trail, or by a degenerated 19th century trail that leaves the Castle Canyon Trail near Sphinx Rock, approximately 100 yards below [towards Echo Mtn] the Rubio Creek Crossing.
The name Maple Canyon is from the maps of the Rubio Canyon Land and Water Association, but is not found on the topo maps.- Monrovia Falls: see Monrovia Canyon Park. It may have another falls connected with it.
- Mt. Lewis Falls: This falls is in the unnamed canyon immediately north of Mt. Lewis. We don't know if this falls already has a name, but will call it Mt. Lewis Falls until we learn of a previous name for it. The Falls is about 500' above the Manzanita Trail.
- Pasadena Glen Falls is reached by taking Sierra Madre Villa Ave. north from I-210 to Vosburg St. Turn right and go to Pasadena Glen Road and follow it north to its end. The only difficult part of the trail is at the beginning where there are some large boulders. Children will have no problem here, only people with impaired mobility like arthritics. It's about one-quarter level mile on dirt to the falls.
- Punchbowl Falls is 1/2 mile above Millard Falls to the northeast in Saucer Branch. Punchbowl is approximately 70' in a single cascade down a face of white rock. The "punchbowl" is 12' x 6' by 4' deep. The water is still and mossy.
Paul Ayers took a plunge in the pool on 8/29/99, and found that he was not alone in the pool! The pond is inhabited by what appear to be a pair of Two-striped Garter Snakes (Thamnophis hammondii), which seemed somewhat put off by the intrusion. These snakes are extremely aquatic and when frightened dove to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.
From the Punchbowl, the stream cascades about 15' to an unnamed pool then down an 18' flat cascade/fall into the Saucer. Saucer Falls is the combination of the 15' drop and the 18' drop. The Saucer appeared to be 7' wide by 12' long by about 3' at its deepest. From the Saucer and 18' cascade enters yet another unnamed pool from which a long "fan" (narrow at the top and opening at the bottom) cascade travels another 20' to the canyon floor.
There is a degenerated but obvious trail that takes you to Punchbowl on the west side of Millard Canyon. A fragment of a rock wall and notches for footholds in the rock indicate history of earlier, more frequent use. Apparently the original name for the canyon was Punchbowl, however, the USGS now lists it as the "Saucer Branch".
Saucer Branch is 1/2-3/4 mile upstream from where the trail down from the Sunset Ridge Trail enters Millard Canyon. The branch enters from the north. Punchbowl is easily seen and actually hard to miss from either the Sunset Ridge Trail or the Sunset Ridge Fire Road. The view from either is quite good seeing the fall from above and in its entirety.- San Antonio Falls:
- Mt. Baldy's San Antonio Falls From Manker Flats Campground
- E. Steve McNiel's Falls Photo
- Mt. Baldy Photo Gallery picture
- Amanda K. Erickson's Falls Photo
- Text about rescues of people climbing the falls by the West Valley Search and Rescue Team.
- Saucer Falls: See Punchbowl Falls.
- Sturtevant Falls: Ed Johnson's Photo and Total Escape's Sturtevant Falls.
- Lower Switzer Falls is nearly directly below Switzer Falls, and has an additional 20' of cascades above it.
- Thalehaha Falls is now 54' high, with at least 20-30' of debris covering the lower part of it. See Rubio Falls Information.
- Wolfskill Falls is 1/2 mile up Wolfskill Canyon from San Dimas Canyon, and is now part of the San Dimas Experimental Forest, with no public access.
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Copyright © 1999-2000 by Tom Chester, Jane Strong and Paul Ayers.
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Updated 21 May 2000.