Dec 12, 2017 — Desolation Canyon is a colorful and easily-accessible non-technical canyon on the west south side of the Black Mountains. It's located near the scenic Artist's Palette Road, a road that views a lot of the very colorful scenery from the pavement. This hike heads into that scenery, leaving the crowds and cars behind. I headed up a wash leading to the mouth of Desolation Canyon, and a social trail materialized as I got higher up and entered the progressively narrowing canyon. The greens and purples on the canyon walls slowly became more prominent and I soon found myself in some tighter narrows with big bursts of color. Past the narrow section Desolaton Canyon continued to be pretty, and I continued all the way to its head to get a view to the south of the sunset over Artist's Palette. A social trail led the whole way up.
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