1/19/2022 Recently, I changed the name to Buzzard Canyon from Jackpot to align with Ricks book to minimize confusion. I am becoming more aware that there are secrets in the desert that are still being revealed.
I think it is safe to say that I have integrated myself pretty well
into the canyoneering community and would know about some of the " less known canyons."
Even I have a few caves that I have found that I keep secret.
but when your kicking rocks around a festival and looking for something a bit different, you might start getting curious.
This time we got quite curious and 5 of us went out to a canyon just south of big horn and came up on this.
I did a bit of research, but I was not able to find much about this canyon.
I was able to an obvious road to the trailhead, two sections of dark canyon, and a cliff going into the river.
I gathered up a crew of 5: Justin, Ed, Natalie, Yannick, and I set out with 700 ft of rope 100 ft of webbing 12 rapides, and a whole lotta sarcasm. How we picked this name for this canyon will be mentioned in the end.
We parked our cars at the weeping springs canyon trailhead. You could park your high clearance here but if you have a 4x4 high clearance with good tires,
you can continue driving all the way to the end of the road where you would descend down into the canyon. This would save you at least a 1/2 hours worth of hiking. You can also leave a car at weeping springs and drive the 4x4 to the final trailhead to save a bit more time.
Once you are at the rim, there are many ways to pick your way down into the canyons valley.
Pick your way down and head into the obvious drainage.
The canyon starts to narrow up and you will be walking through some scenic narrows. They get pretty narrow but not quite as narrow as bighorn canyon.
easy downclimbs and scenic narrows breakout into a big view and your first rap sequence.
This was a nice view as the canyon drop magnified and dramatic.
The first rap was around 30 ft to a ledge that can fit 4 people.
The first rap has webbing around a tree.
The next rap has a two bolt master point. We threw down 200 ft of rope and found we had around 10-20 ft left at the bottom. I recommend bringing 200 ft for
this rap and the equivalent for the pull.
This rap was sheer and a had some free air to it. There is also a small "cave" at the bottom that barely qualifies as a cave for Nevada Standards, but it is a cave prob 50-60 ft in length.
Afterwards we found a series of boulder downclimbs to the next section of narrows.
There is a downclimb here where a handline can be helpful for some people.
Soon after more downclimbing, we found a series of two rappels one was around 30-40 ft and the following rap was around 50-60 ft.
Once we got down, we continued walkign through some narrow corridors and made it to another 20ft rap.
This took us to the final sequence of three raps. from the top there is a 30-40 ft rap, a 20 ft rap, and another 20ft rap that goes directly into the water.
This is such a scenic area and really made the canyon shine with all the variation that it had. a big rap, scenic narrows, and a nice multi rap segment that takes you directly into the colorado. I rate this canyon among the best in the Lake Mead NRA black Canyon range.
Now why did we call it Jackpot? Well after doing some research, it did not appear that the canyon has been visited up upon our visit we found that the canyon has been bolted. The bolts looked suspect as they were painted, there was only a one bolt placement with a rapide, and no Deadman, knot choaks. This leads me to believe that a climber might have been through here and bolted the canyon.
Upon making this canyon known, I was told that this canyon is called Buzzard canyon. We named it Jackpot canyon because of the st. patty days event/weekend, its prob the best canyon in the range, it appears to be a secret that was being held, and its quite nice. Plus we are in Vegas and once we got out the canyon, we realized that we hit the jackpot.
