After filling our pockets with the tasty pinyon nuts, we started down canyon beyond the point which Gerry had previously reached and quickly left the broad, open floor for a narrowing, confined canyon. At 5,820', we reached our first waterfall and rappel. It was 35' high and could be climbed around but we decided to rappel it for the practice. At 5,400' was a 150' high waterfall which it was possible to climb around so to save time, we climbed around it on the north side. At 4,880', we encountered a 155' high waterfall which had to be rappelled. It was late afternoon by the time everyone was of f our second rappel. Shortly, we reached our first surface water in the canyon at 4,200' where the north and south forks join. With our water replenished, we camped a short time later at the first spring shown on the map at 3,700' where there was enough surface flow to collect water.
Saturday morning, we reached our third rappel at 2,940' which was at the first of the two falls shown on the map. It was 70' high with lots of water and beautiful aquatic vegetation covering the cliff face in the spraying water. By midday, we had descended to 2,400' and reached the second falls shown on the map. It was 110' high and also had plenty of surface water cascading over it and more aquatic vegetation. The approach to the second falls was interesting.. A long, narrow 200' steep ramp lead down to a U-notch where Tom and Gerry placed our anchors for the rappel one around a tree truck and the other off pitons.
This was the final canyon obstacle and a use trail lead from the bottom of the falls for .5 miles out to the canyon mouth. Unlike all the other eastside canyons, there is no vehicle access to the mouth of Cougar. It was about a 2 mile walk across the alluvial fan to where we had parked our shuttle vehicles along the Saline County Road to end another memorable exploration, surface condition monitoring and resource inventory of another portion of the Inyo Range. -Steve-
