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| View down Waterfall Canyon #3 from Iced Waterfall |
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| Iced Waterfall (Canyon #3) |
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| Rocky Gap Road |
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| Climbing Red Rock Wash |
Okay. Don't get too excited! Although I think these canyons have a lot to offer, they are only reminiscent of the great and famed Waterfall Canyon. In the future, we may explore further up the canyons and find a better name for these two wonderful washes to the cliffs of the La Madre Mountain Range. In the meantime, this blog may whet your appetite for your own exploratory. Today's split hike began at the Willow Springs Trailhead with the Six with Sticks plus one. The main hike for our AtBF pod was North Peak (Sandstone) via Red Rock Wash using Rocky Gap Road for the descent. Our guest, John W. and I planned to ascend the wash with the rest of the group, then break off to explore a canyon that had made me curious over the years.
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| Color in Red Rock Wash |
We dropped into the large wash via the Petroglyph Wall Trail and started up. There is a trail that leads up through the wash but no rules! Find your own path.
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| Well, that's one way to do it! |
The wash is very colorful and is mostly class 2. Stair-stepping over the rocks usually gets the job done.
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| Designer Rock |
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| Another Designer Rock |
The beginning of the wash is shady in the mornings. Eventually, the sun makes its appearance a little further up. We climbed over numerous sandstone rocks with excellent designs in them as seen above and to the right. At one point, the wash narrows down to go through a brushy spring area. We followed the use trail to the right of the water and returned to the rocky wash. When we found ourselves climbing up bedrock sandstone a couple of times, we knew we were close to the North Peak Trail junction which is located almost exactly 2 miles up from the trailhead. At this point, the fine five bade "adieu" to John W. and I and turned left to follow the steep trail up to North Peak (Sandstone). John and I turned to the right and went up to Rocky Gap Road.
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| Passing around the Spring Area |
Several times in years past, we have noted a few HCVs (usually 4WD) parked at the secondary trailhead known as the North Peak Trailhead on Rocky Gap Road. I always wondered if they could be hiking up the canyons beyond.
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| Dry Fall Climb |
We started climbing the graveled wash and, right away, saw jeep tracks and cairns. The jeep tracks didn't (couldn't) go very far but the cairns continued.
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| North Peak (Sandstone) Trail Junction Split - Saying "Good-bye" |
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| Waterfall Canyons 2&3 from North Peak Ridge |
Around a quarter mile from the dirt road, we junctioned with Canyon #2. We turned to the right and only climbed a short distance before we came to a waterfall about 10 feet tall. It would take a little bit of effort to climb it but, in the future, I think it would be worth it after studying Google Earth. We returned to the main wash (Canyon #3) and turned right to continue up. It was about a tenth of a mile before we came to another, nicer, waterfall. This one had small pools of water at the bottom with water sliding over the rock. There was thick ice on one side of the fall. After we scrambled up the left side, we saw that there were a couple more small pools of water at the top as well. I went a little further up the canyon but it was a little brushy with thistles.
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| Summit Photo of the Fine Five (Mike not pictured) |
The way through the wash could be made at a later date and the wash appeared that it might continue all the way up to the cliffs above.
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| Climbing Up Waterfall Canyon #3 |
We sat at the top of the large waterfall and had a break. Since we are both hobbyists at photography, we had fun taking a few photos of the views down canyon as seen in the first photo of this entry.
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| Nearing Junction with Canyon #2 |
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| Waterfall Canyon #2 |
Satisfied that we had seen what we came to see, we started down the canyon leaving the remaining exploration for another day. On the way down, we found better side trails along the wash. We wondered if a loop could be made with one of the canyons in the vicinity. Since these canyons are within the bounds of the La Madre Wilderness, it would be necessary to not mark any other trails outside of the wash. (Even marking the wash with cairns is questionable.) We reached Rocky Gap Road and turned to the left to start our 2.5 mile hike down. The light was very nice for photos and it brought out the many beautiful colors surrounding the difficult (for vehicles) dirt road.
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| Large Waterfall in Canyon #2 |
Usually, we are in a hurry to hike down this road at the end of a hike. But, today, John and I were able to stop once in a while to take in the scenery. We noted that, several times, we could see Red Rock Wash below and recognized where we were a couple of hours earlier.
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| Large Waterfall in Canyon #3 |
An all terrain vehicle passed us and the occupants offered us water. We said we were fine but it was nice of them to ask.
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| View down canyon from Large Waterfall in #3 |
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| John starts down to Rocky Gap Road |
Also, a bicyclist passed us going up the difficult climb. He was working very hard. Then, when we got closer to Willow Springs, we began passing recreational hikers. It is always weird for us to observe these types of hikers without a drop of water on their person in the middle of the desert. Just sayin'. (I guess they weren't going far.) We kept looking back to see if the fine five were behind us but, I think they were about an hour later in coming down. Fun day of exploration.
Stats for Waterfall Canyons 2&3: 5.8 miles; 1125' gain; 4 hours
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| Secondary Trailhead on Rocky Gap Road |
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| View down to Large Dry Fall in Wash from Road |
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| One Mile Up from Trailhead |
North Peak (Sandstone) Track
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| Archive Track of Hike to North Peak (Sandstone) |
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