ADAM HAYDOCK

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

The air temperature cooled off to around 37 degrees as we stepped out onto the concrete street of dantes view. The sun started to luster colors of purple red and orange on the eastern horizon as we started to gear up for the descent down Cerebrus canyon.  As we were getting ready, the second group showed up but they pulled into a spot about a 1/4 mile before Dantes view. .

Andy in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

I checked my GPS and confirmed that we were in the wrong spot to head into the canyon, so we quickly got back into the car and headed over to the trail head as the second team was leaving for the canyon.

Heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

Abby Wines and I arranged to connect teams together since we would both be in the North fork so I planned to have my team each carry a rope with them in their packs so we could keep leap frogging as we go.  Our head count went from 8 to 17 people, that's 17 people in Cerberus canyon!.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

Cerebrus Canyon is one of the grand Death Valley classic routes which starts from the top of Dante's View and descends over 5000ft. into bad water basin.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

Planning for this canyon is required as you will have to have a shuttle car staged at the bottom of the canyon and a choice between two forks, North and South fork.   Remember to pack extra webbing to replace anchors as the sun will bake the webbing crispy dry.

Heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We took the north fork approach and found 29 rappels including two 270ft rappels and a bunch of fun down climbs through out the day.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

I recommend staging a car the night before so you do not have to stage the car the following morning.

Lyndsi in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

This will save you around 45 minutes of time and sunlight is precious when running Death Valley canyons since winter season doesn't offer a lot of sun for the day.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We headed off and caught up with the first group at the first drop.  We went down and started to leap frog each other as the other group brought a number of ropes as well.

Nick in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

17 people in the canyon would have taken a long time to get through if we did not all leap frog each other and continue to set more raps but we had some good flow until we got to the big drops.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

The canyons North fork was interesting as it had some beautiful colors and the strata in the rock was quite impressive to see.

Justin and Adam in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

The raps in the North fork were pretty good as well, so the enjoyment of rappelling through different types of metamorphic layers with the view of telescope peak and bad water basin made this a fantastic day.

Justin in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

There were a couple sections that narrowed up a bit but I found the North fork, and most of the canyon to be more gorge like and open than anything else.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We all worked our way down the raps and eventually got to the first 270ft drop.

Nick setting up a anchor in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

This one was broken up into two 30ft drops followed by a 210 ft drop.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

This is where we found a bottle neck in our pace but it worked out great as we just socialized and had lunch while we waited our turns to take a ride down the mountain

Joy, Andy, Nick, Abby in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We had to rebuild two anchors and we inspected the pitons with webbing on the 210ft of this 270ft sequence and found that it worked out best for us to pull from the top instead of managing from the 210ft. rap station

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

Once we got down we continued on and found some more raps before running out of ropes. 

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

This slowed us down a bit since we could not keep setting up raps but that was fine since we were still bottle necked at the top of the 270ft drop.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

I wanted to stay in site of the big drop in case the rope got stuck and they needed extra help so as the group came down the corridor, they continued on when more ropes showed up.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

I was happy to see the rope fall once the pull was complete so Heather and I continued to work our way down to the second 270ft. drop.

heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

This is where we slowed down a considerable amount of time as we were here for over an hour.

Lauren and Heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

The sun was starting to set over the horizon and we had about another hour and a half of sunlight to go.

polished stone in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

This drop was also pretty nice as it was a straight shot down and the last 50 ft. was free hanging.

Heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

There was also a cave in the wall but the mud stone silt stone layer gave away to an obvious impression that the cave would not go anywhere.

The D in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We continued to rap down and only had three more raps to go with the sun light diminishing. 

Lori in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We set off for the the final drops and found that one of the team members wanted to build an anchor and another built an anchor around a horn in the back of the drop.

Lori in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

One of the team members burned his hand a bit as he was descending but other than that, we did not have any other injuries in our group of 17 people.

That is quite impressive and a good sign that we had a good group and we all worked well together.

Heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We got to the last rap and the sun was just setting over the horizon.  We still had some good sunlight coming through but we were running out fast.

Justin in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

one by one, we roped down and out of the canyon without incident in 11 hours from when we started

Heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

I think that this I a good time since we were a group of 17 people and we worked through 29 raps and about a mile of descent.

Adam Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

The canyon is great because you are .2 miles from the first rap from the trailhead, you get great views and you get some big drops.

Heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

I think that this is one of my favorite canyons in Death Valley as of now but I still got quite a few more to catch up on.

A 270ft drop in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

The conditions were perfect outside and I couldn't imagine how hot it must be to do this route in the summer. I have a feeling that it would be deadly.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We hiked back to the cars as the darkness set in and we all gathered to enjoy a bit of a celebratory achievement as we waited for the moon to rise over the mountain.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We could see two head lamps in the mountain which must have been people canyoneering and working their way down the mountain.

Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

Unfortunately they ran out of sunlight and must have had a bottom up approach.

Shane rapping down the 270ft drop as Abby belays at the bottom in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

The Black range is home to Cerberus canyon and about 10 other canyons that start from dante's view and end in the badwater basin area.

Shane rappels past a cave in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

There are another 20 canyons within the black range are loop trips so you have to hike up the mountain and gain the ridge before descending down into the canyon.

Heather in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

We all had a freaking blast coming down this route as it was very little effort and a lot of reward as well as canyon raps for 11 hours!

Heather, Adam, Daniel, Abby, and Shane in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

we went back to Furnace creek and enjoyed some great laughes and ended the night with a good time!

Heather at the last rap in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

I am looking forward to running more of these death valley canyons and some first descents with Scott swaney.

Just some of the group of 17 coming through Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

Andy and Daniel looking over the playa in Cerebrus canyon. Death Valley National Park, California.

Joshua Tree National park is one of the many famous parks in the southwest that is a magnet to climbers and desert hikers from all around the southwest and the united states.

There is a vast amount of land that is sectioned off within the boundaries of Joshua Tree where people can find some fantastic hiking through liken boulders, beautiful Joshua trees, and beautiful desert terrain.

Climbers can find hundreds of routes for Bouldering, Trad, TR, and sport climbing of all types and ratings.

When we got to the park we headed over to the hidden valley area to find a route that I could rig for a Tope Rope so Heather can get some climbing practice in place.

There are numerous sections with massive boulders called Gneiss, which is metamorphic rock that transformed from pressure and heat which created these smooth looking boulder features.

More info on the rock geology here: https://www.nps.gov/jotr/learn/nature/geologicformations.htm

We found a route that had some crack climbs and a few 5.6 5.8 routes so I set up an anchor and we climbed around on this rock for about half of the day.

Afterwards we headed over to 49 palms which is a 3-4hr hike to a oasis in a canyon. This hike only took us around 1:45 minutes to complete but it was quite beautiful.  The massive palm trees clustered together gave a nice shade to the sun it felt like we were on a desert island.

There are other oasis patches of palm trees like this one and I am looking forward to visiting those in the future as this was really interesting to see.

Afterwards, we headed out and had to go south since we were headed to the LA area.  We found a section of BLM land where we were able to camp at for the night and found that it is quite the popular place since other people found this strip of land camp worthy.

The BLM land is located just north of route 10, outside of the park

The sunsets were fantastic and the climbing was pretty nice yet climbing is not the kind of sport that I identity with, yet it is fun to get out once in a while and climb.

I am looking forward to coming back here soon to enjoy the winter season conditions and the beautiful sunsets.

The middle of the lava field has a volcanic cinder cone that is dormant and quite fun to camp on top of if you are able to get your car up to the top.

We headed out to the lava field and hiked to around 9 caves in the area including, bad, Owl 3, TF, AF, QQ, PSJ, Mojave, cactus, and Glove lava tube caves.

We found most of these lava tubes to be quite short with the exception of PSJ, and quite dusty! Most of the lava tube caves did not have any corrosion and devoid of formations but a few sky lights and walking passages gave way to these anomalys.

The temperatures were around 80 degrees but We could imagine how hot it would be in the summer 100 degree heat.  This place must turn into a boiler field of black rock and sand. 

A couple of the caves had some walking passages but theyw were pretty short lived and they did not go very far.  Some others were quite tight and would require ripping through our clothing to get through,.

There was one lava tube called QQ which had a vertical entrance but we did not bring rope to check out the drop.  This would be something I would come back to if we were ever in the area.

The other caves varied from having tight entrances to having some large entrances that ended quickly.  Bring clothing that you don't mind tearing up if you are going to visit the lava tube caves.

This lava field appeears to be fairly new but it is not known when the last eruption happened.

I highly recommend checking this place out if you are in the area and if you are a caver and will like to get into some tight crawly holes.  I bet that there are more caves to be found out there.

I also recommend the camping spots at the top of the crater which will give you some great views of the basin below and the night sky.

Make sure to pack you knee and elbow pads along with a helmet and three sources of light when venturing to these caves

There is another crater about an hour north called Ambroy crater that is also worth a visit.

Heading out to toroweap is an adventure in itself.  The roads are known to be a sinister natural filter that keep most away from visiting the overlook but once you get to the parking lot, the views are excellent. 

It was a long day to begin with but we mustered up the time and effort to make it out just before sunset and before the gates closed.  The park closes the gates 1/2 hour after sunset and open them a 1/2 hour after sunrise. 

I drove a Subaru with KO2 tires and I did not find the road to toroweap to be too much for the subaru. The last 2 or 3 miles are quite bad as you are driving on the esplanade and it will require high clearance and good tires.  The rock is sandstone but there can be a few spots that might be a bit sharp.

Once you get there, park at the bathroom and walk a few minutes to the overlook and enjoy the views!.

It was quite spectacular to see how the view looked from above and to ponder the time when I was going down the river in a pack raft with one ore after canyoneering through cove canyon.

We didnt have the best sunlight conditions but right when we were leaving we caught some decent sun on the mesas.

We drove off and found a beautiful dry lake that was filled with flowers so we stopped for a bit to get some last minute photos of this to round off the night.