Yannick Chaigneau at the bottom of Miracle Max Canyon.  Death Valley National Park, California

California has some incredible geologic diversification, especially when we look closer at all of the character and personality that our national parks have within these santuaries.

Yannick Chaigneau at the top of Miracle Max Canyon.  Death Valley National Park, California

Death Valley is no exception and with a distance of about 140 miles long and 15 miles wide, in places, Death Valley is a massive expanse of desert geology and is home to some fascinating ancient history.  There is a lot of hidden wonders within the park from the position of what is readily available online to what is known by a select few. 

Within the number of ranges that accompany Death Valley, you will find hundreds of drainage's that seek the valleys below sea level and around the basins that these ranges respectively fortify.

Within these drainage's you can find hundreds of canyons.  Some are non technical, but most are of the technical nature, requiring rope access.

These canyons cut through the mountains to revel amazing metamorphic, sedimentary, and igneous rock which also might include some hydro thermal activity and evidence to ancient oceans that once occupied this region.

Among these canyons, is a little gem of canyon in the Princess Bridge range called Miracle Max Canyon.

Now, If you have seen the movie "The Princess Bride" than the names of these canyons will make a bit more sense.

Miracle max worked miracles and was a medicine man who was played by Billy Crystal in "The Princess Bride.

The canyon itself has a bit of an approach as it is a total of nine miles, car to car.  I recommend combining miracle max with another canyon.  We combined Miracle Max with Buttercup canyon in a day.

The technical portion is only around a half mile and we found the 4 raps encountered to be less than 200ft. 

The raps were described to us as up to 150ft in length but please refer to www.ropewiki.com for more accurate information.

We made our approach in great winter death valley conditions and hiked to the top of the mountain and down into the Miracle max wash in about 2 hours.

The swirling walls of ripped limestone were amazing to see and appeared to be bent and molded into a circular like manner.

This canyon was short but absolutely worth the run.  I think it was the most interesting canyon we did that weekend.

Make sure you look back at the canyon when you exit.