Ifeni Canyon was my second technical canyon with Ahmed from Anti-Atlas Adventures after Ifelou Ihedan (V4 A3 II, 60m). It was a very natural canyon with a lot of deeper pools requiring swimming and it was close to a second aesthetic waterfall canyon we rappelled. I was again surprised by how much water can be hidden in these canyons when the rest of landscape looks so arid but I guess that is also kinda how Utah can look. Last canyoning of the trip!
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I wasn’t sure what to expect from my first technical canyon in the Tafraout area of Morocco’s Anti-Atlas Mountains. There is a short French canyoneering book here, a guide company, but it’s not something I’d heard of before about Morocco… The hand written topo from my guide looked cool though, with many obstacles so I said yes for Ifelou Ihedan (V4 A3 II, 60m). I was so pleasantly surprised by a real, natural, featured, novel canyoning experience that was full value despite it being short and communication challenges.
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It’s Death Valley Season! In early December ’25 I got back out to Death Valley for a small group trip with some besties and high value canyons. The day after Fossil Snail Canyon (EPIC), we descended 6,000 ft down Typhon (South Middle Fork). Typhon (South Fork) (3A IV 24r 185ft) was the first big Dante’s Death Valley canyon I did and remember it feeling kinda intimidating at the time three years ago. Now with my seasoned Death Valley crew, we had a great outing with amazing views of Badwater holding an abnormally large lake.
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Recently I spent a week out in the Zion area with some best buds canyoneering some classics. While Mystery and The Subway get all the hype, others such as Dothraki are diamonds outside the park without permits. I love a varied canyon and Dothraki (3A III 17r 150ft) delivered with a fun off trail scramble and ridgeline approach with stemming, steep walls and minimal water.
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There is a group of canyons that drop into Fall Canyon from a multi-descent day Scott Swaney did in 2014 descending several canyons. Crater of Doom (3A III 6r 120 ft) was the furthest in and provided an adventurous approach with some rock band traversing to end it out. The canyon itself was short like many in the Grapevine Mountains. The descent was straightforward with some fun down climbs, but I was kinda disappointed there was no scary looking crater given the name.
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There are three Red Wall Canyon descents: Main (1r 20ft) , West (5r 200ft), Northwest Fork (5r 150ft), We chose the option with the most rappels (it listed 10 at the time): Red Wall Canyon (West Fork) (3A III 5-9r 200ft). It had an approach with one short spicy, loose gulley in the beginning. A mostly straightforward decent with a couple longer drops. One of the best, most beautiful exits I’ve done in Death Valley hiking out Red Wall Canyon.
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This trip we decided to check out the Grapevine Mountain range which is a zone I haven’t spend time around in Death Valley because it’s in the North near the Scotty’s Castle section of the park. It feels like when storms hit, it also gets maintenance last since it no longer has a heavily visited roadside attraction like the Badwater area. One of the canyons I had always been interested in from its picture of smooth runnels was Goblin Canyon (3A III 5-9r 80ft). I found canyons in this zone to have a characteristic of mostly decent rock with some sections of chossy hardpack with longer approaches and relatively short technical sections. Goblin delivered both a fun medium sized canyon and a bunch of fun runnels to descend.
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This last week we drove out to Zion for a “Surprise, Rad Outdoor Girls Trip” for my partner Sadie. We joked about how she was like our dog Piton when he gets in the car, “No idea where they are going, but stoked for the adventure”. Things kicked off to a good start when ten minutes after we arrived at our basecamp in Virgin, her sisters unexpectedly (for her) walked through the door. I haven’t seen someone this surprised in a while where it hits multiple times. First confusion, then some realization, then back to disbelief. Very fun! After a couple days, the sisters left for home and our canyon friends showed up. Throughout the week we’ll have added two more canyon descents to our dog’s tick-list, descended four ourselves, gotten great views on a multi-pitch and had hundreds of laughs.
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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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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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