Black Canyon, Nevada/Arizona (Pt 1 of 3)

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Itching to get back to the mainland for some adventures, I decided to meet up with my buddy Luke and his girlfriend Meri in Las Vegas. They’d moved there from Hawaii a little over a year ago, and hike regularly in the area. Although Meri was not able to get off of work for any of our extended trips, Luke and I were able to do some backpacking and camping in Utah, Nevada and Arizona. First on the list was an over-nighter in Black Canyon, which is located just outside of Las Vegas, in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area of the Colorado River.

The Launch

Launching our canoe just below Hoover Dam (transportation/permits courtesy of Jerkwater Canoe Company), we slowly paddled down the lower section of the Colorado River.

We studied Jerkwater’s hand-drawn map and did some preliminary research ahead of time, so we were able to navigate down river fairly easily. In addition, a 4 mph down current made the ride more of a leisure paddle.

Goldstrike Canyon

We briefly stopped at the Sauna Cave and Rain Cave earlier, but I don’t think they are worth talking about or posting photos… The first actual location for exploration for us was Goldstrike Canyon.

After tying up our canoe, we started exploring up a canyon filled with huge boulders.

Almost immediately we were welcomed with waterfalls and hot springs. Contradictory to the river water we were canoeing in (~50 degrees), the stream water was warm and the spring fed pools were ridiculously hot… Even more so since it was probably over 90 degrees at the time of our hike. Not so for us today, as we were headed downriver for more exploration. 😀

I was pretty surprised there weren’t any chalk marks on the huge boulders here. Some of them were big as bedrooms, and are probably ripe for bouldering, haha.

Anyhow, the climax of this hike is probably the hot springs, at least when coming up from the river. Some people (we ran into some) hike 6 miles from outside the canyon to access this place, which sounded insane in this heat!

Though unnaturally formed by stacked sand bags, I’m sure soaking in the deeper hot springs when the weather is cooler would be pretty rewarding after the long hike in.

Boyscout Canyon

Not far down river was Boyscout Canyon, which was another destination that seemed worthy of exploring from online photos, etc. The canyon seemed far more compact than Goldstrike, and the track was a little easier to follow… at least at the beginning.

We soon came to some small waterfalls,

…and several hot pools, which again were formed by stacked sandbags.

Like Goldstrike, the landscape here was amazing… although there weren’t any large boulders around.

Some of the waterfalls were tricky to climb, especially since they were really slick and I had my exposed camera in hand. I wish I had my tabis on me, they would have done wonders in both of these obstacles!

About 45 minutes in, I climbed this 25 foot, vertical waterfall chute.

I’ve climbed a lot of waterfalls before, higher than 25 feet and without rope… but there was no pool at the bottom of this one. I’m glad there was a secure, bolted anchor and decent rope there. Had to do a lot of hand-foot matching since any decent holds were wide-set. Above the 25 footer, was another small set of trickling waterfalls. This is where I had to turn around. Luke had given up a long time ago because of the heat, and I felt I had already put my DSLR to the test by having it exposed while hiking all the waterfalls here. Moreover, there were still tons of stuff we had to do down river, like Whiterock Canyon and Arizona Hot Springs!!! Let me know if there is anything spectacular further, if anyone else came / comes here.

Much thanks to Jerkwater Canoe Company for the drop-off at Hoover Dam and pick-up at Willow Beach on this trip, and such great customer service too! Mahalo nui loa to Scott Bowling for suggesting this adventure, surely one of the best over-night camping adventures on the mainland I’ve had thus far!

Aloha and mahalo nui for visiting… Come back again soon!