Death Valley 2022/23

[Beardilocks]

And then back into the unknown!  Our own Kauri piqued my interest with a description of side canyon to Hellfire Canyon in an area that I was already eyeing for potential exploration.  Hellfire is in a small group of brightly colored hills at the base of a nameless peak between Artists Palette and Natural Bridge Canyon.  The crux was a ~15ft dryfall in crumbly conglomerate that they were unable bypass.  Combined with the fact that there is no published exploration of this side canyon (even amongst the trip report happy rappelling community) I was in.  Brice agreed to help me tackle it.  

Somehow I took virtually no approach shots to the canyon.  Sorry.  I think Google street view can likely supply one if you’re curious. 

In red are all the Ropewiki rappelling routes.  The section we tackled is in blue.  



Here’s our route in more detail.  




Pretty quickly the canyon gets reasonably narrow and deep.  Not show stopping but very nice.  






Gatekeeper to this major North Side Canyon 


We tested about a dozen hand and footholds each, throwing each fist sized rock that came out of the wall down into the wash as tried to find a safe route up.  The only comfort we had for the climb was that the gravel at the base of the fall is what I like to call ballpit gravel.  It’s the kind of stuff that if you jump in it, you sink to your shins and fill your shoes with stones (if you’re not wearing fancy hiking spats anyways).  So any fall would be a pretty soft landing.  Relatively.  Not that’s much comfort 15ft up.  After a few attempts, we both made it up using an uncomfortable maneuver where you sort of full torso hug a big round bulb of crumbly rock while you get a leg up into the main channel.  Not so bad once you work it out.  

Immediately following were several shorter dryfalls in a narrow but shallow canyon.  


We almost immediately came to a rather interesting side-side canyon to the east. And like children with a new toy, we abandoned our main objective to scope it out.


It was the crumbliest sh*t I’ve ever tried to climb in.  Lol.  85% of everything you touched fell apart.  Trust nothing!  Really pretty strata though.  




Several dryfalls and a severely loose bypass scramble later we’d gotten most of the way up to the ridge line.  The side-side canyon looks doable as a loop to the next northern side canyon of the main Hellfire Canyon.  Everyone got that?  Me neither.  

Back to the main side canyon. 


Which just got deep, more colorful, and more characterful. 




Almost a 1/2mi from the 15ft fall could see the next impasse coming. 


An absolutely gorgeous white grotto with two dryfalls I estimate at about 60ft.  






We were definitely not getting further without a jetpack.  Looking at the satellite imagery there may be a bypass but it would involve walking the ridge up from the fan on 190 all the way up to and quite a bit beyond here before you could *maybe* drop back in.  

So we headed back down (main) (side) canyon. 


We were also investigating some potential bridges on satellite. One was just over the top of this fall.  It was solid with good holds but the exposure was too much to feel safe. 


We decided to go back to the side-side canyon and try for a bypass up the ridge line that way.  

But on the way there there were other side-side canyons to explore.  None of which went very far.  


After a really really REALLY loose scramble up about 400 vertical feet of rubble we found the side-side canyon with potential bridge impassable from that side as well.  Some looking with binoculars and we’re 95% sure it was a false bridge.  So after taking in this amazing view (and 10min for me to catch my breath) we headed back down.  


I fell often.  Frequently.  My backside was bruised and palms were bloodied.  It’s the first time on a hike I ever wished I’d packed gloves.  We staggered our decent so as not to brain each other with the rubble kicked loose.  

That done we continued back down to the main Hellfire canyon.  Some thought & careful maneuvering and we managed to get down the 15ft fall uninjured.  I’ll never get used to that point-of-no-return stepping out to start a downclimb…

And then continued down the main canyon, which is very very pretty.  

Fun shorter dryfall


Pretty narrows 


Ending eventually in large fall and a big beautiful grotto. 








Then we strolled out back to our waiting trucks.  Pretty cool main side canyon.  I’m curious what’s above the big white double dryfall.  Maybe we’ll have to go find out…