Death Valley 2022/23

[Beardilocks]

So with North Rd now open, I set about checking out a few things that had been on my list for a few months now, starting with the closest ones first.

First I hit up a canyon that Kauri had recommended in another thread on here as being a cool hike.  On the map on Kauri's site it's labeled as "Canyon between Alluvial Canyon and Close Call Canyon".  Ropewiki calls it Dead Ram Canyon.  It sits about 4mi South of the mouth of Titus Canyon.  It is a deep, chaotic canyon that emanated violence at every turn.  One of those canyons where you feel like an interloper into a realm where humans don't belong and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up from time to time, as if the rocks are watching you and whispering behind your back.  Frequent evidence of fresh rock falls definitely keeps your senses alert.

It is a STEEP fan approach and the surface is garbage.  Lol.  I wish I had looked more closely at the satellite view before I started: it's MUCH easier to hike up the drainage all the way on the south end (as I did on the way out) rather than up the middle.  Live and learn...





The canyon deepens and gets interesting immediately. Twisting and snaking around, climbing steeply in still somewhat still damp gravel.  Scour marks on the canyon walls from gravel heavy water flowing through are pushing 9ft high in the corners and in some places much higher.  


The canyon is absolutely choked with huge rock falls.  Some of which obviously happen after the wet summer and some very much older.  




A few dryfalls here and there aren't much of a challenge.  


The rock falls block in the canyon at almost every turn and require quite a bit of scrambling.




This rock fall (gravel slide?) was very recent.  No sign that water coming down canyon has reached the top of it yet, so definitely after the summer storms.  This canyon, with so many recent rock falls, definitely had my senses on high alert the whole time.  


It also had a few sections of tight narrows here and there.




Finally, only about 2mi from truck but considerably higher in elevation, I could see the end.  A massive striped room.  But first, the most difficult climbing problem of the hike: Getting out of this secondary splash pool at the base of this boulder jam and up into the Room.



Into the stripped room.  According to Ropewiki (since I forgot my laser surveying equipment) this fall is 160ft.  There's 5 rappels in the whole canyon with the 2 largest being 270ft each.  But the ridgeline approach to get up there looks insanely tough.  




Looking back down canyon as I head back down.  


Gorgeous day for scrambling.












Looking back out at what I believe is the fan of Dry Bone Canyon and Leaning Benchmark.


View of how steep the fan really is.


A very cool canyon that attracts, I would imagine, virtually no one.  Certainly no prints.  I did pull out several pieces of webbing and a few carabiners.  Which was a major bummer.  Maybe they had been in place as anchors on rocks before the floods.  But "leave no trace", they are not.  I had to leave one piece of webbing behind because it was so deeply buried in the wash I couldn't pull it out.  Or it's still attached to someone under there...