Boy Scout Canyon - 1/4/12

Only nine hikers came out for a brand new hike for the club called Boy Scout Canyon. It is located south of Hoover Dam and north of Arizona Hot Springs on the Nevada side of the Lake Mead NRA. There are two approach roads coming from Boulder City. One road follows along the power lines to the top of the canyon. This road is very rough. The road we took leads down a canyon wash in sand to Boy Scout Canyon at midpoint.

We stepped out into the chilly morning and began our hike by going down first. The wide wash became more and more narrow as we negotiated easy to moderate dry waterfalls laid out in our path. The closer we got to the river, the more colorful the walls of the canyon became.

Our stopping point was the top of the first rope. It was a thick rope about 1.5 inches in diameter that the Lake Mead NRA people had attached to the rock. We could not see the river from where we were and the rope fell about twenty-five feet down. One hiker decided to go down the rope.

Down was easy, he said. Then it was time to go back up. Uh, Oh! Well, it took almost all of us to pull him back up to safety. I guess it wasn't as easy as it looked. Regardless of the scare, an adventure was experienced.

We hiked the 1.75 miles back up the canyon and had our snack break back at the cars. The sun was warming things up and some of us preferred the shade. Next, it was time to go up canyon. Our quest was to find the pictographs that were supposed to be on the rocks above the uppermost dry waterfall.

We did some more trudging up the wash through sand and small gravel. Staying to the side of the wash seemed to help. Taking a short side trip up another canyon, we found an interesting dry waterfall that we could only climb half way up.

We came back down to the main canyon and found several more waterfalls that we were, indeed, able to climb up. As we hiked, we looked and looked for the advertised pictographs. At the uppermost waterfall, several hikers continued up wash a little. The ancient rock paintings must be there somewhere!

We never found the pictographs so we returned down the sandy gravelly wash to our cars. Boy Scout Canyon is a pretty canyon, however, it is assumed that the real attraction of this canyon is the rope climbing and repelling that is necessary to go all the way to the river. Perhaps the answer is a kayak put out from Willow Beach!