Echo Cliffs after the fire

With the Woolsey fire burning through the Santa Monica Mtns recently, does anyone know the condition of Echo cliffs? My understanding is a lot of the bolts are glued out there, and I would think the fire would melt or make the glue brittle. Any info is appreciated.

I can verify that Echo Cliffs is completely burned. How this will affect the rock, glue or bolt integrity is not really a question that can be answered yet. All entrances to The Decker Canyon area are still restricted to residents only. The road is extremely unsafe with burned power poles being replaced by work crews. Landslide danger will be an issue for a long time until some vegetation grows back.- (they already had to clear a mudslide on Yerba Buena just from the recent rain ).   The Park Service currently has all entrances to the Backbone trail blocked off with closure/ dangerous condition signs. It might be a while before they reopen it . 

Thanks for the info. 

Some pictures from this week - Torched!

thanks for the photos, looking rough out there....

Thanks for the pics, Erik 

Thanks for the pics. Looks like recovery is gonna be a long haul.

Todd Narkawicz wrote: Thanks for the pics. Looks like recovery is gonna be a long haul.

Not that long. This Forest Fire as the news calls it is really a natural condition of The Costal Chaparral. A good burn is needed every 50 years or so to keep it healthy. 

Thanks for the photos. I wish the 3rd photo were higher res. Because it almost looks to me like the foliage along the bottom of the crag over by Easy Street and the cave is all still there.

Those shots of the trailhead are brutal. I can't believe those wooden steps right at the beginning survived while the entire chaparral community torched around it.

Dave.... THX for video.

I know of two climbing spots were you can’t climb anymore... K&L wonder Bluff and Jackass rock... both close to the Needles. Those had giant dead trees standing next to the stone. Trees are ashes now- nothing left at all. The bolts may be found in all the sandy rock at the base! The stone came off in sheets!
Give it 10,000 years to recover!

ECHO should heal up quicker but will the Grotto now be opened up? No more quasi endangered plants around. 

Guy Keesee wrote: Dave.... THX for video.

I know of two climbing spots were you can’t climb anymore... K&L wonder Bluff and Jackass rock... both close to the Needles. Those had giant dead trees standing next to the stone. Trees are ashes now- nothing left at all. The bolts may be found in all the sandy rock at the base! The stone came off in sheets!
Give it 10,000 years to recover!

What was the stone like UNDER the stone that came off in sheets?

Señor Arroz wrote:

What was the stone like UNDER the stone that came off in sheets?

Totally F up.  I believe the geological people call it GRUS.... a decomposing form of granite. You can almost dig it away with your fingers. It gets washed away by water.... over 10,000 years. 

Guy Keesee wrote:

Totally F up.  I believe the geological people call it GRUS.... a decomposing form of granite. You can almost dig it away with your fingers. It gets washed away by water.... over 10,000 years. 

It’s impossible to climb think of the worst stone at JT x10

So basically wait for the next ice age to scrape it away...

Señor Arroz wrote:

So basically wait for the next ice age to scrape it away...

Bingo 

As people check out Echo and the routes therein, please pass along all info in regards to bolt integrity and general route safety.

Boulderdash Indoor Rock Climbing has donated a considerable amount of hardware for anchor replacement, earmarked specifically for Echo.

You can report damaged and compromised anchors to the staff at any Boulderdash (San Fernando Valley, Thousand Oaks, or the new Ventura gym). You can also report directly to me via email: info@ojaialex.com.

Señor Arroz wrote:

So basically wait for the next ice age to scrape it away...

Damn! This got a solid chuckle out of me

Thanks for the good work, Alex!

Here is another shot of the cliffs - I kept it full sized, so maybe you can zoom in for a better look.

I went out there yesterday, it was super charred everywhere on the hike. Did a route over on the wall to the left of white wall and found some sort of disturbing flakiness at the base (first three bolts, and one flaky loose chunk very close next to a bolt..) then kept climbing/ seemed ok... lowered off the anchors. Went onto State of Grace on white wall and found the plastic on the permadraws melted a bit... I was freaked out. But then added my own draws, and the rock seemed mostly a reasonable regular chossiness for the area, no holds broke anywhere... and the bolts and permadraws seemed fine after climbing for a bit. Got really cold, and windy smoke dust- and lowered off around 3/4 up. I plan to go back in a week. 

Chase Wilson wrote: I went out there yesterday, it was super charred everywhere on the hike. Did a route over on the wall to the left of white wall and found some sort of disturbing flakiness at the base (first three bolts, and one flaky loose chunk very close next to a bolt..) then kept climbing/ seemed ok... lowered off the anchors. Went onto State of Grace on white wall and found the plastic on the permadraws melted a bit... I was freaked out. But then added my own draws, and the rock seemed mostly a reasonable regular chossiness for the area, no holds broke anywhere... and the bolts and permadraws seemed fine after climbing for a bit. Got really cold, and windy smoke dust- and lowered off around 3/4 up. I plan to go back in a week. 

So the trail has been reopened?

I'm as excited as the next climber to get back out there but I think we should all be mindful about the increased impact climbers will have on erosion out there even after the trail is opened. This thread has mainly focused on bolt and rock integrity but I think we also need to be mindful of the LNT impacts as well.