Callville Narrows - 2/6/25

Inside Callville Narrows

West End Wash Road South

Rugged West End Wash before road merges In

Rugged side Wash

When we go exploring here in the wild wild West, we are almost never disappointed. Once, many years ago, someone intimated to me that the wash deep below Peak 653 where the Callville Ridge Plane Crash is located, is too difficult to hike. All these years, that mysterious line has troubled me. With a little more experience under my hiking belt, I wondered if I and my musketeers were ready for what promised to be very interesting. Three of us parked on Northshore Road MM 12.5 and dropped down through a smaller wash to the very wide West End Wash going south toward Lake Mead. This was new territory for us. Easily impressed, we oohed and awed as we joined the big wash at a "scrambling jump down."

(Illusion) Not for tall Vehicles

Entrance to Callville Narrows

Hey guys! Look at this!

Hiking into Callville Narrows

Our target for the day's hike was the mouth of a canyon we had hiked on its other end just a few days ago. From the top of this canyon, we could see that the dark deep crevice held huge mystery and we wanted to see what secrets the deep hole would open up to us. A decision was made to try the unknown portion of the canyon from the bottom up to start its exploration. We decried that we would not climb up anything that we could not climb down! (Oops.) So, two miles down West End Wash, we came to a narrow canyon entrance on the right side. It was disguised with plants but easy to enter. Immediately, we were struck by its dark, deep rising walls. I guess we were lucky there were no large animals taking refuge here. We wound our way between the walls making a couple of significant step-ups passing what we called an escape route on the right; a steep scree covered climb up the right side embankment. After passing one more sharp curve between the walls, about 800' in, we were faced with what I suspected to be our ending obstacle; a wall smoothed by falling water over the years. The wall was about 10' high from the bottom of a 3' well in front of it. There were no hand or foot holds wide enough to support our climbing efforts and when we did test the rock, it turned out to be crumbly.

A step up inside Narrows

A corner to the left inside Narrows

A wall obstacle 800' up canyon Narrows

Specs - A challenge above our pay Grade

We did see a few chalk marks on the wall, so rock climbers may have already conquered it. The wall was simply above our skill level. We stopped, took our photos, and turned to leave. Our loop hike had just turned into an out and back. As we passed the "escape route," I off-handedly suggested that we see what was above. I thought I knew but it turned out that I was wrong ...! Anyway, the climb up the steep scree was difficult at best. Reaching the top, we found ourselves at the bottom of another steep rocky slope and right next to a high cliff falling back to the narrows. Okay. There was only one way now. We decided to keep climbing and see what was at the top of the next peaky thing we saw. Tah-dah. We did that and guess what, yep, another peaky thing above that and nowhere else to go except to our right. To the right, there was a large funnel of rocky terrain that dropped back down to the canyon floor. It was also a very steep endeavor but not quite as bad as the first two climbs. Ever so slowly, we made our way back down into the canyon and turned left to make our exit. (But not before counting our body parts to make sure we had them all! Probably shouldn't have done that! "Too difficult to hike," I guess!)

We hit a wall.

Trying an escape Route

Aborted escape leads to a funnel descent Return

Happy to be back on terra firma.

Regardless of our choice to escape the narrows for a short look-see, we were very impressed with our find that we decided to call the Callville Narrows. We took a break on a big flat rock in West End Wash just outside the narrows' entrance. Soon enough, we began our hike back up the big sandy wash during a beautiful day. At this point, we knew that West End Wash Road is travel-able in an off-road vehicle that will deal well with deep sand occasionally. Most of the road lies on hard ground but the sandy gravel does get kind of deep in some passages. On our return, we veered to the left when we reached the junction of the entrance road and the wash proper. Taking the road, we found that there is probably more deep sand here than in the big wash. When the road turned to the right and began climbing the hill back up to Northshore Road, the road's surface was very good. We chose to climb the wash to the east of the road but joined the road at the top. Our car was only about 0.1 mile away. So much fun finding new stuff!

Stats: 4.5 miles; 500' gain; 2.75 hours

Hiking the return in West End Wash

Turning left onto the West End Wash Road Spur

Sign at junction of Northshore Road