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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
Grotto Canyon is a death valley canyon located near mosaic canyon and near the town of stovepipe well in Death Valley.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
Grotto canyon is located in the Tucki Mountain Range just south of Stovepipe wells.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
There are a lot of Forks to Grotto canyons drainage's but after a bit of research, we found that the layer fork route had some interesting rock features so we decided on the Layer fork.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
I have been through mosaic canyon and felt like Grotto canyon would be a good visit utilizing a technical descent.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
There is a traditional non technical hike up grotto canyon from the mouth of grotto
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
It appears that you can get quite high into the canyon from the bottom but you will not be able to get up the technical portions of the canyon .
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
I was surprised to see the narrow corridors within Grotto layer fork, the strata layers, and the amount of narrow passage in grotto canyon.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
Typically there is not a lot of narrow corridors through Death Valley canyons but grotto is one of the few exceptions.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
The road leading to the mouth of grotto was not as bad as we thought.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
We were all able to make it to the trailhead in a Subaru Forrester, outback, and a jeep
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
It did get a bit wash board like and we were driving on the wash but we were all able to drive right up to the trailhead.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
You will need to have a high clearance AWD or better to make it to the trailhead.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
Once at the trailhead, we hiked up to the ridge on the left and basically followed this ridge for some ways to a point where we had a go right and hike a steep slope to the top of one of the mountains.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
There were sections where the hike was a bit steep and slightly exposed but other sections were quite flat.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
We passed by some interesting gastropod fossils and other Mississippian era fossils.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
Once we got to the top, we started to make our descent into grotto VIA a sneak route that cut out a third of the highest peak hiking.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
This sneak route should become the regular route since above this sneak there is just more ascent and more non technical wash hiking.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
We went down a steep and down climb route which had one rap for safety.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
This brought us to the wash of the Layer fork Grotto Canyon .
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
The first was was really interesting as it had some nice layering along the walls and was tiered.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
We did not keep track but there might have been around 15 raps that were less than 200ft in length.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
Unfortunately, we managed to stick a rope on one of the drops.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
I climbed back up so I was in between the group and James and Mark Arnold both worked on un sticking the rope.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
Mark ended up climbing the rope and was able to find a keyhole where he could crawl through and get to the top and unstick the carabiner lodged into the v slot.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
Mark was the rope hero for this canyon and Lauren was the recognized for her perseverance.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
We eventually made it into the main fork and out in about 8 1/2 hours which was great time with sticking a rope and taking our time to get to the canyon.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
The weather was a beautiful 72 degrees and some clouds came through but it made for a fantastic day!
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California |
At our time in the canyon, the webbing appeared to be in decent shape so we did not change any of the anchors.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
For accurate beta, please refer to ropewiki.com for more information.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
This website is used for personal and documentation purposes and is not to be used for obtaining beta or accurate information on how to descend this or another canyons.
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
I really enjoyed this canyon and although the hike is long, It is well worth the drop through this canyon .
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| Grotto Canyon "layer fork". Death Valley National Park, California. |
