Feb 28, 2017 — About a year ago, I explored Rattlesnake Canyon and headed up to Willow Hole. It was a really nice route and I wanted to explore the Widlerness of Rocks more with Shawn to see if we could find anything new and exciting. Prompted by a featured listed on a map called "Johnson Spring", we set out to find a loop through this rugged section of JTree. This route ended up being a significant amount more work than we anticipated.
From the Rattlesnake Canyon Trailhead, we headed generally west. We did a mini warm-up by scrambling behind a bouldery hill, and then continued west until we located the canyon opening that would lead to Johnson Spring, what I'll refer to as Johnson Spring Canyon. Immediately, we were hit with a ton of boulder obstacles that would eventually becoem exhausting. We encountered lots of little talus caves within Johnson Spring Canyon, accidentally finding an old dam within one of them. Shortly after, we got to Johnson Spring, less exciting than we hoped it would be. We kept heading west, still enjoying the physicality of boulder-hopping.
An enticing side canyon took us south, some water and washes making the going a bit easier. We ended up in a wide bowl with piles of JTree granite boulders in every direction. This was the highlight of the hike, in my opinion, the farthest spot from the trailhead, naturally. We continued southeast out of the bowl into what appeared on terrain maps as a flatter section. It wasn't, and I'd say this spot was the most frustrating. Countless cacti made progress slower than it had been all day, but we were rewarded with a sweeping view of the Wilderness of Rocks to the south. We then found a side canyon leading back east, our hope that it would take us to the head of Rattlesnake Canyon. A ton of huge boulders later and we were within Rattlesnake Canyon, the going a bit easier now.
I remembered from last year along the route out of Rattlesnake Canyon, I encountered some really cool talus caves. We made a quick detour to revisit them on this trip, and this time the caves were full of waterfalls. Gorgeous. We continued out of Rattlesnake Canyon on the standard route, now seeing people, and back to the trailhead.
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