Keyhole Canyon, NV

[gingerproblems]

I suppose I should post this before the date gets too far away from when this trip actually happened. Over the course of my winter break from school I signed up to get WFR certified in Flagstaff and my friend from South Carolina decided to join me. Since I would be picking him up in Vegas on the way to Flag and I had been perusing the bluugnome site, we hatched the idea to fit a quick canyon into our travel day.

It turned out to our luck that the shortest, and possibly driest canyon on the site happened to be along our travel path in the Eldorado Mountains. It was a beautiful day as we travelled to Keyhole Canyon. Both of us were full of excitement as we geared up for what we thought would be a easy quicky. Then we started climbing the hill... And kept climbing the hill... And a bit more hill... And even a bit more. The beta mentioned us having to "cross two drainages" which looked best crossed higher up. So we kept going, eventually reaching a more level area where we could traverse south to our canyon. It being winter neither of us were in prime shape and were huffing and puffing the whole way. A rush of relief hit us as we could finally look into the watershed of our canyon. Our near asthmatic episode appeared worth it! Yet, as the sentence a couple back said, we had to now go down. We must have gone off course from the beta route. Much like our route up, but of course in reverse, we now had to traverse the steep, loose slope a good few hundred feet. More than once I found myself on my ass as a rock slipped from under me while Jake laughed at my forced resting positions. And then, after a good hour more than expected, we found ourselves actually able to go down our canyon. I'm sorry if I sound whiney, the real whine comes later.



Doot doo doo finally we are walking down the canyon. Quickly we hit our first drop, a reasonable DC to a platform to rap 40 ft off of. And quickly we met the bane of our canyon experience: the rock. Jake does not have the most rappelling experience and he found that the easiest way to go down the rappel was to start on his ass and essentially slide most the way down. It turns out Keyhole Canyon is made of a different rock type than anything we'd been in before (quartzite?) and had ZERO grip. Even me in my spiffy new Canyoneers felt like I was on ice. This turned out to be an issue the whole way. But after the first rap was a quick stroll to the second off of the jankest anchor I've ever seen. We figure the canyon was once descended by a couple hicks with some chain because the anchor was just that, a loop of chain in a pinch point held together by a couple nuts. Freaking creepy looking. Still used it though.


Jank!!


And so we continued. After rap two we encountered a couple DC's that posed a challenge in that they were essentially falls. Some may consider them "slides" but screw that. The first was fun, the second we set a hand line and then a rappel on, and the third I gave a hand to Jake who then let me sit on his head to get down. The slick rock made simple problems so freaky. The third rap was then pretty sweet down a nice flute. I gave a wimpy rope toss that landed the bottom of my rope in a wet pothole.



Now down through the "rap section" we continued on with wet rope in bag. The canyon was now a simple walk. Until we hit a big boulder. Either side had a way around, both pretty simple in sandstone conditions. But since the rock was not sandstone the possible drops were pretty intimidating. I'm still not sure how but Jake got around a bump I couldn't (I blame he's taller) and walked down to give me a spot. Yay teamwork! We then quickly hit the final 80 ft rap and had a blast doing it!



While I'm sure all of that sounds like we had a horrid grumble fest, it was one of the funnest canyons I've personally done. It gave my brain and skills a tease and was beautiful in a very different way from Utah's slots. I highly recommend it. Just don't expect as easy a time as we did.

[Felicia]

Nice report!

[ratagonia]

Sweet... thanks for the report.

Tom

[nelsonccc]

I've been to the top of this canyon on my dirtbike like a dozen times. Hiked into the bottom to look at the petroglyphs a few times as well. Always wondered how much canyon there was between the two. Would hate to hike up there. Would have been easy to set up a pretty simple shuttle with the dirt roads in the area.

[LVRAY]

I've been to the top of this canyon on my dirtbike like a dozen times. Hiked into the bottom to look at the petroglyphs a few times as well. Always wondered how much canyon there was between the two. Would hate to hike up there. Would have been easy to set up a pretty simple shuttle with the dirt roads in the area.

A shuttle vehicle is not needed for this canyon as you park a hundred yards from the exit. There is also no legal road access to the top end (west side) of the canyon (there are no raods to the top at all - the closest 4x4 dirt rd is at least a mile away). It could be done with dirtbikes, but the time required to set up the exit vehicle and drive to the dirt roads that provide access close to the top would probably take 2 hours or more. And since the climb from the parking area to the top of the canyon takes about 30 minutes with approx. 800 feet of elevation gain, it is a fairly easy approach - at least by southern Nevada canyon standards. There is actually a fairly well worn use trail to the top (though hard to spot in parts), so I am assuming gingerproblems took the wrong route. The whole canyon can be run car to car in 2 to 3 hours, depending on group size and experience level.

However, it is a very nice beginner canyon that offers a good return for the amount of effort involved.

[accadacca]

Looks like a fun canyon!