Hiking Trail Canyon Falls with a Dog

Trail Canyon Falls is a random hike in Southern California I picked out from the All Trails app, and it turns out to be one of my favorites! The hike is a little over 4 miles out and back in Angeles National Forest. The trail is only about an hour from Orange County, making it pretty convenient for a half day outing. The draw of this trail is the stunning 40ft waterfall at the end of the trail! My dog LOVED the waterfall.

Overall, it is a relatively easy hike that will take about 2-3 hours, depending on how long you hang out at the waterfall. For directions please go to this address: Trailhead address: 19600 North Trail Canyon Road, Angeles National Forest, Tujunga, CA 91042; and you can follow directions when you get close on here. Just park on the main road though, don’t turn off at all. You will see other cars parked on the side of the road to know you are there. The first part of the hike is just getting from the parking on the main road to the start of the trail by residential homes. From there, for about half the hike is on flat ground through stream crossings and it is in a forest setting. I went in January, and the streams were fine to cross. I had my dog off leash in this part, although it was relatively busy so I had to keep a pretty close eye on him for when we came across others. I have a feeling in summer that I wouldn’t be able to have him off leash.

My dog was only ankle deep in the streams, it wasn’t fast flowing, unlike some other hikes I have done in the area. I was a little worried about this going in January, but we had no issues. For the humans, we were able to walk across logs to not get our feet wet. There was only one log where I really had to focus on balancing, but the worst that would happen is getting my feet wet, as I mentioned, the stream wasn’t moving fast. I would be curious in the summer how dried up the streams / waterfall is. You can check recent reviews on the All Trail website and it will give the most up to date feedback on how the hike is.

After all the stream crossings, you get into the canyon part. I put my dog back on leash for this part as the pathway is narrow with a steep cliff on one side of you. If I crossed paths with others on this part of the trail, I would wait on a larger section of the path for people to cross, then continue on. Once you reach a certain point in the trail, you can go down to the waterfall, or you can go up and around to the top of the waterfall.

We went to the top of the waterfall first, just to check it out. There wasn’t too much to see. We ate our food on a rock over here, but I would have skipped this and ate at the bottom of the falls if I did it again. You can only see the waterfall from the top if you stand on this rock and get close to the edge. I am a wuss about heights, so I didn’t do this.

Going to the bottom to see the waterfall, you will read many reviews about there being a steep decline with a rope to hold onto to get to the bottom. Given I was with a dog, I was worried he would be able to do this part of the hike. So how bad is it actually? Will I be able to make it down with a dog? Should I even bother going? These are the questions I was trying to figure out before going, and I wasn’t really able to get a feel for it.

It is honestly not that bad! If you have a small dog, you could probably hold onto them with one hand and hold onto the rope with the other as you watch your step down. It is NOT ‘rock climbing’. It is just a slopped rocked down, that is steep enough to need a rope. The rope, I could hold onto with my full body weight if I needed, but I more just held it as a safety net in case I lost my footing. It wasn’t vertical though which was a concern before going. My dog had no problem going down this part, in fact he was much better at it than me! I just let him off leash so he could do it himself and he just ran right down no problem! For me, I just took it really slow and made sure to watch my step and hold onto the rope. I have a fear of heights, but this didn’t freak me out whatsoever because there was no cliff, no vertical climb, just a very steep way down and with the rope, it eased any concern I would have had of slipping. I did most of it crouched instead of standing tall, but that was just personal preference, because I felt safer with my footing closer to the ground. So to answer my questions I was asking before the hike, it is not that bad, you can do it with a dog, and YES you should go!

Once you set through the slow part of climbing down, the best part – the waterfall!!! The waterfall is such a hidden gem and truly makes this hike spectacular. The waterfall is a great spot to let your dog off leash to swim in the small pool of water under the waterfall, take those awesome waterfall pictures for insta, and just stop and enjoy the beauty as you rest your legs and eat a snack / lunch before hiking back.

The pictures really do this one justice, so enjoy below! The only downside, is a few groups arrived right behind us, saw us taking pictures and got inspired, so we had to stand to the side and get our dog out of the way so they could get their pictures too. It is just an out and back, so you go back up the slope with the rope to get back up. This presented no more challenge then it did going down. The dog did it just fine, and I went slow. Then back through the canyon to the part with trees and the stream until you reach the residential area and walk back down to your car! Decent couple hour, fun hike that I really enjoyed and would highly recommend! 🙂