Easy Death Valley Canyons

[boryaa]

I live in Sacramento, Ca. Its winter break for me and I'm curious about any short and easy canyons in Death Valley that could be a cool check. I'm interested about Darwin Falls canyon but am a little concerned about the water temp. Although we do have wetsuits. But other than Darwin does anybody know of any good and quick canyons?


Thanks,
B

[deathtointernet]

Can't really speak for any other canyons, but I will say that I descended Darwin Falls last February 2nd and found it was perfectly fine with a 4:3 wetsuit, and it was a cloudy day that was cooler than the other days of the trip. Would point that out that in the time since most of the beta sources were written the canyon suffered a serious flood event that rearranged much of it, for instance the tree anchor for the long waterfall rappel simply doesn't exist anymore (a boulder has taken its place) and some of the smaller pools that Luke (bluugnome) used to identify the bypass route around a couple of big deep pools got filled in. Still a fairly quick, easy descent.

[Mountaineer]

Completed Darwin today without wetsuits. Doable in 70 F temps.

[Mountaineer]

Curious, has anyone done any Black Mountain canyons recently?

We made the approach to Helios today, however it is sketchy. Steep and loose rock. Not much to secure to. We heard some others trying to climb but didn't see them. Wow, take care...

We then ventured over to Coffin, and the bluugnome "preferred" route is washed out. Not much more than a steep mud bank. May be doable for some... Yikes.

Kakos/Hades look a little better.

And as mentioned, Darwin was flooded and has changed significantly.

Each of the approaches, we explored, have significant wash outs.

Anyone done these as a loop lately? I'm thinking the shuttle option is the way to go...

[LVRAY]

Did Coffin on 12/6. Had no problem with the approach. Climbed straight up just to the right of the canyon. Losoe rock is mostly in the beginning.

[Mountaineer]

Good to know, thanks.

[ratagonia]

Hmmmmm. Easy - Death Valley Canyons... I guess, in a sense. But all canyons there are on the serious side.

Here is a story to go with that statement:

http://canyoncollective.com/threads/the-wrong-canyon-death-valley.17984/

Tom