On the way down the river, mariners of the channel can meander around spectacular ancient volcanic rock where small caves lined with hanging gardens and hot springs exist that range in temperatures from the 70s to over 150 degrees.  

There are plenty of stops to make along the way to Willow Beach as you float down the river and numerous hot springs can be found in the canyon passages that range from non technical, "down and back routes", to 3BIII routes that have multiple drops ranging from 60ft. to 350ft. and a lot of those routes require a pack raft to the exit route and wade down the Colorado river.

The rock is of an ancient volcanic nature that have stretched faults that allow the springs to surface that bring all kinds of minerals up with the watercourse that splatter tarnish the walls and provide amazing hanging gardens, some of these garden are some of the most beautiful hanging gardens that I have never seen.

We headed out from the launch point at the bottom of Hoover Dam, thanks to desert explorers for renting kayaks for all of us and providing transportation to the launch point.

Sauna cave is about 100ft of passage but is around 120 degrees inside which made it difficult to photo inside.  I was able to snap a few shots of us and the formations in the cave.

Gold Strike Canyon

We spent about an hour soaking up the natural geothermal sauna as we started back out into the Black canyon river which was really nice and beautiful weather.

It is Superbowl weekend and although there were people on the river, there were not as many as there should have been which was really nice.

We continued down stream to Gold strike Canyon which is a non technical canyon that allows people from the top to hike down to the river and back while enjoying the hot springs that can be visited along the way.

Laura Relaxing after a paddle on the Black River.

I was amazed as to how colorful and varnished the walls were in the canyon and how high the walls were at points.

We set up day camp here and hopped around the hot springs while a few groups of people passed us by.

hiking up a canyon in the Black Canyon

 The springs ranged from temps in the 80s to 0ver 100 degrees but I was drawn to the amazing mineral formations on the walls and the rain shower hanging garden grottos that are cut into the walls.

After spending a few hours here, we continued down to run Secret canyon which is a 3 hr loop 3AI trip with a waterfall next to the river and hot springs on the last rappel. Afterwards we made our way over to the ear Cave which was interesting as the large passage went in for about 50ft. and has a large entrance overlooking the Colorado river.

We enjoyed a potluck of sorts of festivities and built a fire which ended up taking down just about everyone in the group early into the night from all of the travelling and the lack of sleep everyone got the previous day.

The Next day we worked our way through Devils Drain canyon which was not as interesting as we thought it would be yet the best part was at the bottom of canyon where the hot springs were so we hung out here for a bit and headed over to Boy Scout canyon.

Boy Scout canyon was nice, I hiked and climbed up the canyon across the river to see where that canyon went and it got into the valley above us.  I came back down and crossed the river to Boy Scout Canyon.

Boy Scout canyon has more narrow slot canyons and waterfalls the have hanging gardens and some amazing hot springs to soak up in. The top of Boy Scout Canyon has a 340ft. drop into a cathedral wall and a grassy field which was absolutely amazing. The following drops have handlines but they are all 15ft or less in the drops themselves.  The drops were in hot spring water and gradually got warmer as we got farther down until we got to this main pool of water which was between 90-110 degree water.

Andy was able to work his way up to this spring so he did fantastic working his way up the canyons! I was impressed. The interesting aspect about this canyon is that there were springs with cold water and hot water right next to each other which was interesting to see and knowing that the water level of the black canyon is regulated by hoover dam which flocculates depending on he demands that the nearby cities require for their electricity needs. At night the water would rise almost 3 feet and we had to drag our boats up and tied it off to trees so they would not float down to Mexico the following day.  

We hung out in these hot springs for the duration of the day and headed back to camp for a night of festivities, spirits, and good times before we had to head out early to make it to port the following day.

Sunday, we headed out early and made out way over to the Arizona Hot Springs canyon on the Arizona side to run down the 3AI and visit the hot springs on the other side of the connection trail.

The canyon only had a few small drops and the non technical section of the canyon was interesting with all of the mineral colors that tarnished the walls and decorated the stream of steamy 100 degree water.

There was a ladder to climb up on to get to the springs and there was a series of springs that progressively got hotter as I kept walking up the passage and into the valley.

People are able to access the Arizona Hot Springs Canyon from the highway which is a 3 hour one way hike down to the pools of water. 

Kayaking down the river made visiting these canyons a lot easier and gave easy access to technical and non technical canyons that would have taken a few more days to visit otherwise.

Continuing down the river, the canyon walls opened up a bit more and the current slowed down but thankfully we had the wind with us and the current was also moving with us so this made the float pretty easy to do.

Eventually we came up on the last walls before breaking into Willow Beach.  We passed the Emerald sea cave and a cat walk that was used for workers back when the Colorado river was a raging torrent of rapids before the hoover dam was created.

shortly after passing the final canyon walls, Willow Beach was in site and finally was able to port rather early before the scheduled pick up time. Phones didn't work so we had to hang out in the 75 degree February desert weather drinking a Tecate and ice cream while time passed by, oh darn!!

I absolutely recommend this float trip from anyone looking to escape from the city and get some pretty easy and straightforward float time with numerous campsites and hot springs to visit.