The Sierra Canyons Story

Imagine yourself standing at the edge of a granite precipice. Below you, thousands of gallons of crystal clear water tumble down spectacular falls into a sparkling blue-green pool below. Above you the scene is repeated over and over in a sort of twisting watery staircase. To the side, rocky canyon walls tower high and are capped with the green of coniferous forest. Above that the azure sky, magnificent in its color and the sun shining bright and casting shadows on the canyon walls. The breeze is warm, the water cold. You throw your rope and begin your descent through the amazing falls. That is a typical scene in a technical Sierra canyon and it is magical!

The Sierra Canyons website has been started as a natural evolution of the Waterway Down Project. In the summer of 2007 the Waterway Down team traveled up and down the Sierra Nevada scouting and exploring new canyoneering routes while shooting a documentary film. At the end of the summer the team had scouted more then twenty potential canyons and made descents of nine.

On this site you will find route descriptions for eight of those routes (we are still working on the ninth route). Making these route descriptions available to the canyoneering community has been a goal of the Waterway Down Project since it’s beginning. We strongly believe that promoting safe, environmentally conscious access to these special, spectacularly beautiful places in the Sierra will aid in their long-term preservation. As canyoneers discover the magic of Sierra canyons for themselves we hope that they will add to the community of stewards of these lands and become invested in preserving and restoring Sierra waterways.

Sierra Canyons offers route introductions to all viewers of this site. Full route descriptions are only available to site members. Membership is by invitation only. This is not meant to exclude or create an elite community. Technical canyoneering requires knowledge of specific skills and progressive practice with those skills. Additionally, travel through sensitive canyon environments must be approached with a goal of minimizing impact. Site membership is an attempt to enlist the community in self-regulating on these two points. Each site member has the opportunity to invite others to join the site. In addition, from time to time the site administrators will solicit invitation requests from those who would like to join. In this way, the “degrees of separation” between members of the Sierra canyoneering community can be reduced and hopefully we can become more cohesive in how we mentor each other and promote a continued balance of canyon preservation and access.

We hope you enjoy the Sierra Canyons site and become an active participant in the Sierra canyoneering community here and at large. Our “Range of Light” is truly amazing and holds within it some wild canyoneering adventures. May your travels through the range be full of magic and discovery!

Sati Shah & Melody dos Santos
(Sierra Canyons Site Admins)