Grotto Canyon and Arch

Death Valley National Park, CA Southern Death Valley + Amargosa Desert

Trip stats

Distance
4.2 mi
Net Gain
1,500 ft
Time
4-6 hrs
YDS Rating
Class 4
Route
Out/Back

Ratings out of 10

Effort
3/10
Personality
7/10
Beauty
5/10
Solitude
4.7/10
What do these mean? →

Route map + Trailhead

Trailhead Coordinates

36.581774, -117.103604

The directions link below drops a pin on the trailhead coordinates and lets Google Maps pick the route. If the drive has rough roads or access issues that GPS nav might get wrong, I cover that in my trip report.

Get directions (opens Google Maps in a new tab)

Trip report

Feb 15, 2017 — It's hard to rate the difficulty of this guy because the hike is really just a series of easy Class 5 moves on obstacles with Class 3 consequence. It's not particularly strenous, but does use lots of upper body to get over dryfalls. To give an example, there were at least two obstacles we climbed that had anchors for rappelling at the top.

The higlight of this hike was when we wandered up a side canyon that had no footprints leading to a particularly difficult dryfall. After continuing up this canyon that had absolutely no signs of human activity, we got to an unpassable dryfall. As if by luck, we looked to our right and were greeted by a beautiful natural arch that beckoned for a Class 2 scramble to get up to it. We went through it and continued down a gully to make a mini loop back into the main Grotto Canyon.

On the way back, we located another side canyon on the east side of Grotto Canyon that led to an impassable dryfall, but had more fun obstacles and rock features.

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Photos

56 photos

  1. A short walk leads to the entrance to the narrows.
  3. The first obstacle.
  5. The second obstacle.
  6. Grotto Canyon opens into washes, and narrows into slots many times.
  9. Shawn on an obstacle.
  15. Bypassing an unclimbable dry fall by following a worn side trail.
  23. A pretty technical section. There are hand holds, but it's not easy. This may be the turnaround point for many.
  26. A cool hairpin turn to enter this section of narrows.
  30. Shawn looking up at the most dangerous obstacle, in my opinion. Climbing up the dry fall would have been too difficult, so we did a Class 4 scramble just to the left.
  31. Shawn coming up the technical section.
  32. Shawn looking down the dryfall we just came up. The way we ascended this obstacle is on the left of the dryfall in this photo.
  33. Entering the side canyon on the left.
  37. The last technical dry fall in the slot canyon. Definitely not an easy one to work through.
  40. The water had flowed on the right, creating a three-foot wall on the left, and then made an 'S' shape. Really interesting formation.
  41. The narrows continue to be really interesting, but not as smooth as earlier.
  43. Looking up at the arch before the really big dry fall. The arch is our point to complete the loop.
  44. The arch.
  45. The arch in the bottom right from above.
  46. Go down the gully to get back into the main Grotto Canyon.
  47. Enter the main fork of Grotto Canyon, wide and beautiful.
  48. Me coming down the chute.
  50. Headed up the second side canyon, a pretty obvious fork.
  52. We got to a dry fall and took a Class 3/4 scramble to the right of it to bypass.
  53. Shawn coming up the side of the dryfall.
  54. Another obstacle on the left that we stemmed to get up. It was loose and a little freaky.
  55. Shawn stemming to get up.
  56. The small opening after the stem section. We were blocked here by a massive dryfall.

Photo 1 of 1

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Hire or refer me as a web developer, or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I'm not sponsored, so it's funded by yours truly. It also takes a ton of work to edit photos and write these reports. I really appreciate it!

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