Ice Cube Canyon "The Maze" is a Las Vegas classic located in the Red Rock National Conservation area. This canyon can take a full day to get through and IS for experienced canyoneers only.
The technical portions of this canyon are rather straightforward, in my opinion, but a bit of effort is required to hike up and over to the tail of the canyon and complete the route within daylight hours.
I found this canyon to be quite enjoyable and straightforward as far as the technical aspects and the hiking were concerned.
I wore a 5mm farmer john wet suit and had a 3mm top that I never used but some others got a bit cooler so I highly recommend taking a fair assumption on your skillset and cold tolerance.
Like all other canyons listed on my blog, this is just for rambling documentation purposes only and is not to be used as beta of any sort.
The only slightly annoying part about this canyon was the intermission between the two narrow sections that takes you into the heat of the desert ( with shade here and there, ill give it that) where the boulder hopping and the tree scratching occurs.
I felt that the lower narrows section was the best part and I understand that there is a sneak route that will get you into the lower narrows section which I think might be a great route to check out.
The last rap was a nice 190ft drop to the bottom of the canyon floor and a great exit out of the canyon.
We encountered a few jumps in the canyon with pools of water deep enough to jump into instead of rappelling down.
There are sections of this canyon that resembled a Zion like feature but I found that this canyon had some good variation and some good raps for an enjoyable day in the park.
Please come prepared for this canyon with the right amount of exposure protection, experience, and stamina.
We ended up lowering one of our team and setting up guided raps for the last two drops to safely.
I highly recommend this canyon for anyone visiting vegas or for a nice weekend out of town visit to these amazing canyons.
