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| View to South Bowl from Raven's Balcony |
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| Morning Sun lights up Redstone |
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| View to Bitter Springs Valley from Raven's Balcony |
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| Hiking the South Wash of the North Bowl |
The Fearsome Foursome arrived at the Northshore Road mile marker 18 turnout at the Lake Mead NRA for a fast paced hike out and back to Raven's Balcony in the North Bowl of Fire. Starting this hike from the paved road adds 1.5 miles to the hike whereas, if you have a high clearance vehicle, the hike is reduced to 6 miles by parking on Callville Wash Road. This road is accessed at mile marker 16. The desert terrain between the paved road and the south wash junction at Callville Wash Road is very easy to hike and we started out at a 3 mph fast walk. At the wash junction, we paused then started again but slower since the deep sand of the wash had to be negotiated. Whenever possible, we took a shortcut across the sides of the wash to clip a curve.
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| Atop the Wash Pourover |
On this day, I took a "shortcut" that led us up onto the terrain above the wash. The easier footing was a welcome relief but, soon, we had to re-enter the main wash. This put us above the wash fork where we would have had to turn left.
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| Nearing the Redstone of the North Bowl of Fire |
Another mile in the sand led us up past the only dry fall pourover in the south wash and on to the big fork area seen in the photo below. To the right of the center rock is a small corridor that leads to the south side of the North Bowl of Fire.
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| North Bowl's entrance Corridor (center right) |
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| Navigating the Entrance Corridor |
We half expected the corridor to be flooded with a small amount of rain water. But, the downpour this area received two days prior has already been slurped up by the drought stricken desert ground. The corridor was dry of pools except for a few very small potholes in the sandstone. We made our way up the corridor until the small wash opened out. There is a monstrous redstone wall that the wash continues up beside. We climbed the wash along the wall until we came to a high dry fall. The best up and over route is found at the top of this climb past the dry fall. Look for cairns. After topping off on the other side of the wall and hill, the route continues along another wall over a small hill and up another wide alley. This alley introduces a trail on its right side.
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| Rounding the Red Walled Curve |
When the walls on the right open up, the trail turns right at a right angle to climb the hill. There are usually cairns here as well. The trail climbs up through a squeeze of sorts and the route continues at a 10 o'clock direction on top of a rock strewn plateau.
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| Climbing below the High Dry Fall |
Here, be careful to hike past the first opening to the right. We turned in and found a couple more scrambles than necessary! The correct right turn is the last and the widest before the terrain starts downhill. This alley leads up and around a corner to the left to see the final wall and slot scramble to Raven's Balcony.
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| Climbing past the Dry Fall to Top |
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| Plateau |
The eighth photo below shows the wall scramble that is the start of this final section. Up the wall, turn right, up to an easy slot entrance to the right and, finally, left up the slot. This spits you out on the balcony where ravens fly by looking for crumbs. The balcony is 500' above the red arroyos below so be careful at the edges! We took our break here while taking in all the views. Many photos were also taken, including our group photo. We saw a couple of ravens. Usually, there is a stiff breeze here, but not this time. The weather was perfect! And, after a generous break, we funneled back into the slot and began our descent. Down to the plateau and across. Following cairns, we found the trail down the hill and into the wide alley.
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| Scramble up from Plateau |
We crossed over the "wall" at the same place. (It really isn't a wall anymore at the top of the hill.) Next, we descended alongside the wall until we were at the bottom of the large dry fall area.
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| The Slot entrance to Raven's Balcony |
There is a narrow canyon that begins with an interesting column in the redstone to start down from there. Then, at the bottom of this rock-filled slot, we entered the wash flowing at the base of the monstrous redstone wall.
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| 500' above Desert Floor |
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| Raven's Balcony |
The wash curved around to the left and funneled us into the corridor. We looked for the formations we missed on the way up (i.e. Elephant Arch and the Goblin). At the large fork area outside the corridor, we stopped for some water and talked about how Chuck H. always takes the high desert terrain trail at a very fast pace on the return trip! So, ...one, two, three, GO! We climbed up to the trail and tried to match Chuck's speed ... probably didn't! When the trail came to the descent that we usually take back into the main wash, we saw that the trail continues. Curious, we followed the trail on down the higher terrain. It dropped into a large feeder wash on a steep trail then climbed back up on the other side. Next, the trail dropped again. This time, there was not an obvious trail on the other side so we turned left and found the main south wash.
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| View south along North Bowl of Fire Cliffs |
We had about a mile remaining in the deep sand with shortcuts before we reached the junction with Callville Road. Going as fast as we could ... which isn't as fast as Chuck ... we had completed the section between the corridor and the road junction in only 45 minutes!
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| Fearsome Foursome strikes again! |
Another small pause and we were off again. This time it was the 3/4 mile of easy desert terrain back to the cars. I think we hit 3.3 mph on this stretch!
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| Scrambling down the Slot |
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| Mike walks Down the Wall Scramble |
While we were on our way back on the higher desert terrain, we looked across and saw a large group of hikers as they approached an arch on the North Bowl / South Bowl Connector hike. We tried to say "Hi, y'all!" but they were too far away to hear. I don't think we knew any of them unless it was the hiker in the orange knit hat! It was a great day to be out.
Stats: 7.6 miles; 900' gain; 4.25 hours
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