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.
Approach
Learning from mistakes getting drawn into the wrong wash descending Goblin Canyon the day before. I picked a decent idea of the canyon mouth as my hiking destination but checked 1/3 of the way up the alluvial fan to more deliberately to stay on the GPX line out to Red Wall Canyon. The ascent gulley was a little hidden until we got on it, to the left of the slot up pretty loose hardback conglomerate.
Everything would funnel into the ascent gulley so I spread out a little to avoid kicking rocks down. The true-gulley seemed to be the better and preferred way through this not so great, but short section which lasted a few hundred feet.
Once on the ridge things were a lot more solid with the huge Red Wall Canyon wash peeking out as we got the drop in point.
Descent
After descending into our wash and a short walk, our first rappel was off a nicely set rock chock (50ft).
A little while down canyon the second rappel was off a large rock kinda chocked in a crack, but also with other rocks on top as a sorta mixed chock-cairn anchor. It took us some time to inspect and rebuild since things were pretty well wedged. The rappel looked intimidating at the lip but was actually a slightly less than vertical 160 ft descent.
We walked down canyon a ways through a 15 ft walk around, 10 ft spicy downclimb and 20 ft downclimb. Passing a cool fin mid-descent.
Then we hit the 200ft large rappel off a rock chock through a boulder pinch.
The final two rappels were off a ‘good’ sized bush and then a much larger bush/tree. The last rappel had some weird rope as the anchor which I’m always surprised when I see and wonder the story. Rope is heavy, so did this party sacrifice some of their rope because they didn’t have enough webbing?
Exit
Finally we dropped into Red Wall Canyon which was a wide (30ft) wash with high walls. The canyon eventually tightened up into a cool little narrows and it was a great walk out before hiking across the desert back to the car.
Technical Details
- R1 – 55 ft off rock chock
- R2 – 160 ft off cairn/ chock
- O – 15 ft walk around
- O – 10 ft downclimb (spicy)
- O – 20 ft downclimb
- R3 – 200 ft off rock chock through Boulder pinch
- R4 – 50 ft off fiddle stick on good bush
- R5 – 100 ft-ish mostly free hang off big bush. Bring rope LDC to avoid a rope pinch.
- O – 15 ft downclimb / handline on exit
Summary
- Approach: 2.5 hrs (3.5mi, 2800ft)
- Descent: 4 hrs (got hung up a bit on R2)
- Exit: 1.5 hrs
- Total: 8 hrs
