
Starting from suburbia, heading through open desert toward the mouth of Hidden Canyon.


Approaching the mouth of Hidden Canyon.

At the junction where the technical section of Hidden Canyon opens. Keep right and head up some short scrambling to ascend.

Looking down into the head of Hidden Canyon. We'll be going that way later. First, we headed up the wash rather than down.

Continuing up the wash to a saddle ahead.

Looking back down our wash, Hidden Canyon visible in the center.

Traverse open desert, lots of gully obstacles along the way. You'll likely pull at least one Class 3 move to navigate this section.

Heading down toward the mouth of Box Canyon.

Entering Box Canyon.

An old dam, with a nice trail laid out marking the route into Box Canyon.

Very pretty sections of narrows.

The last rappel of Box Canyon on the left. We kept right to work around it to the north.

Some fun scramble sections to ascend the northern canyon.

There were sport climbing bolts around here, surprisingly.



The narrows eventually end and we headed up the saddle separating the north and south canyons of Box Canyon.This is looking back the way we came up.

Looking down into the head of Box Canyon.

Starting down some Class 3 moves.

Lots of fun obstacles within Box Canyon, most too small to set up rappel stations.




Optional rappel, which we instead hand-lined. You go through a long chute and emerge on the side of this boulder.



Our first rappel of the day! There were a couple of old bolts in the wall, so I put in a piece of webbing for redundancy, complete with some desert flora to protect the webbing from sharp edges. Whatever, it was only 15 feet or so.

Second rappel off a really nice chain anchor.

We headed all the way back the way we came and got to the head of Hidden Canyon, finally. What a long detour.


First rappel in Hidden Canyon, lots of pretty limestone.



A bunch of short, fun obstacles and rappels.


Tara being a goof on one of the obstacles.



In my opinion, the prettiest section of the day. There was flat, smooth limestone on a slant, leading to a short rappel in a nice chute.




Eventually, Hidden Canyon ends within a somewhat narrow section at the junction where we left it earlier in the day.
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