Latest from Backcountry Nomad

Canyoning La Chorrera – Inferior in Colombia

There is a lot of interesting story about finding this canyon, our guide, getting to San Carlos and about the area. However, if you are here just to know about the canyoneering descent, I’ll get right to that and talk about the rest later. We descended the La Chorrera – Inferior (lower) section of this canyon with many 100+ ft less-than-vertical rappels often involving (but not through) flowing water during what seemed like low-flow conditions (it hadn’t rained in a couple weeks). It was a great, non-touristy canyoneering experience guided by Manuel of Eco Guías Colombia who provided gear and wetsuits (one fit me at 6’6”!) and was exactly the authentic canyoneering experience I was looking for.

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Big Shit Canyon

Fantastic rock chock on final rappel

Trying to find a small-medium canyon in Death Valley with a mixed experience group is always difficult. However, we decided to give Big Shit Canyon (3A IV 11r 190ft) a go with a very early start so we could be back at camp before sunset to cook, setup and prep for our huge NYE celebration. Every Death Valley canyon truly has its own character. This one had a very solid approach on good rock (2.4 mi, 2900 ft) with a technical ridge scramble, a lot of down climbing and very accessible, solid anchors. The only questionable part was the canyon’s name…and maybe descending from the ridge.

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Mosaic Canyon – Hidden Fork

R3 – 80ft. Large foundational rocks, but very close to edge.

At 9am we started up the Mosaic Canyon ridge choosing the first descent option of Mosaic Canyon- Hidden Fork (3A III 11r 100ft) of the four off the ridge to try to beat the afternoon forecast of rain. It would be my first canyon breaking my 1-1 ratio of experienced Death Valley cannoneers to newcomers with just myself and Jaymie sandwiching our friends on either side throughout the canyon. After building well over 20 cairns from scratch last season, it was the first time I would be making all anchor decisions without a second pair of experienced eyes.

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Descending into Hades (Dante’s Variation)

One of the longer 180 ft drops

Dante’s canyons in Death Valley are some of the longest I’ve heard of at ~5,500 ft of descent and upwards of 20 rappels. They require no approach and almost no exit, but keep you moving in canyon for 10+ hours. I did my two big canyons from Dante’s last year with River Styx (3A IV 22r) and Typhoon (3A IV 24r). This time for NYE we were to do some people’s favorite canyon Hades (Dante’s Variation) (3A IV 27r 200 ft).

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Early Drop into Sentinel Canyon

Rappelling down the partially fluted pink rock

Death Valley approaches can feel more dangerous than the canyons themselves, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising given that is how climbing can work too. This trip down to Death Valley after an overnight wind/rain storm, we headed out a little after 8am to hike to the top of Feral Ass Canyon (3A III, 9r, 230ft). We would instead decide to drop into Sentinel Canyon (3A III, 13r, 130ft) which runs along the approach early but still hit 7 rappels, mostly small.

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Welcome to Death Valley Canyoneering

I don’t need to tell you that Death Valley is a desolate place, the name says it all. However, its worth emphasizing that while the main roads might be full of people, the canyoneering retains the Wild West attitude of its origins. As I share more about Death Valley canyoneering, there is a worry about more people coming into it with a different mindset than the place allows. This post is as much as an introduction as a warning to what canyoneering in the lowest place on Earth is like. My background is over a dozen Utah canyons and over a dozen Death Valley canyons with ~80 rappels off cairn anchors. For some this is nothing, for others this is everything. In summary, there are three things I think people should know about Death Valley canyoneering: self-sufficiency, cairns and Swaney.

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Fun Times in Funky Lizard Canyon

Start of Funky Lizard Canyon

As with most Death Valley canyon’s, we have limited, but essential, beta: number of raps, longest rap, some GPX lines and a photo album from the first descentionist: Scott Swanny. Given we were warming up for the season (and most park roads were still closed) I picked a canyon from a ‘canyon-cluster’ on the SW of Death Valley that had not-too-long rappels, not-too-many rappels and a short approach to optimize for success and mitigate risk as it was likely any canyon since the Fall 2022 rain event was scoured and we’d have to rebuild every anchor. Funky Lizard Canyon (3A III, 10r 110ft) turned out to be a fun, straightforward canyon that our team breezed through.

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Return to Rainbow Canyon

View of rainbow canyon from Rappel 2

Rainbow Canyon (3A I) first introduced me to cairn anchors back in 2019. This was back when I was still descending canyons in climber style: a two-person team with ATCs and dynamic ropes. I was so nervous I backed up the cairn anchor with a boulder 50 ft back for when I went down first. However, it was worth it for the beautiful rainbow coloration of the walls and wide views of this deep canyon.

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