Feb 12, 2017 — Turtle Tears Canyon and Ladder of Doom Canyon are located to close to each other, and are both relatively short. Both canyons are interesting, but the drive out is somewhat tedious on a somewhat rocky and rough road, so we decided to group them together as a one-day outing to maximize our time. From the parking spot we chose just north of a hill, we set out into the desert, noting three major ridges, separated by Ladder of Doom Canyon (the northern one) and Turtle Tears Canyon (the southern one). We headed south to the ridge just south of Turtle Tears and ascended on Class 2+ fun scrambling to the head of Turtle Tears. There were lots of down climbs and short rappels, and overall it was a nice little excursion.
After the final rappel, which was the prettiest of the day, we headed out of Turtle Tears Canyon, keeping to the northern slope of the canyon. We ascended the ridge to the north of Turtle Tears, some more class 2+ as we worked along the side of the cliffs. We wrapped around the cliffs to the head of Ladder of Doom. Note that the standard route for Ladder of Doom comes from the northern ridge, but we took this way in order to link the two canyons. It was fine overall.
Ladder of Doom Canyon was comparable to Turtle Tears, but probably a bit less interesting. There's a wooden ladder at the bottom that leads up a side canyon to basically nowhere. We hiked bck through the desert back to the car.
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