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Feb 11, 2017 — I was hoping to visit some leser-visited hot springs, and a couple of small notes on a topo map piqued my interest for "Lone Palm" and "Lost Man" hot springs. Both hot springs are commonly accessed via boat/kayak, but my goal was to get to both using the desert. I came back to this area in 2020, but with the goal of bagging peaks surrounding these hot springs. That trip report can be found here, and it's a bit more difficult than the route described here from February 2017.
From the trailhead (a parking area at the end of Kingman Wash Road) I followed a wash to the west. Once in the wash, two options exist: keeping to the right leads to some fun Class 3 down climbing obstacles; heading left continues down a more casual wash walk. Both lead back to the same wash. This wash led through some narrows and to the start of a technical canyon known as Secret Canyon (labeled "dryfall" on my attached map). I didn't have gear for rappeling today, nor for ascending back up for that matter, so I backtracked a bit and ascended along a social trail into the hills to the south. It was a little difficult to find the trail at times, but as of 2020 the social trail is pretty clear. I found myself just above Lone Palm Hot Spring, where a Class 2 section led down into the canyon where the springs live. It's a really lush area relative to the general Black Canyon Wilderness landscape. I headed up the canyon, where a bunch fo sandbags were piled up to form a pool (no longer there as of December 2020). I got onto the right side of the canyon to avoid brush in the drainage, then continued southeast, hopping over some boulder obstacles and emerging into a fairly major wash. I followed this wash to the head of Lost Man Canyon.
The descent into Lost Man had a few Class 2/3 obstacles, the hardest popping up as I approached the Colorado River. A couple of dryfall obstacles could be easily avoided by keeping to the left or right, but I did have to pull a couple of Class 3 moves. Once I reached the Colorado River, I realized Lost Man Hot Spring was just a small stream of hot water, no pool. Definitely a hot spring, but not the kind you'd want to soak in.
Once back out of Lost Man Canyon, I did some scrambling up a few washes and came upon a beautiful red amphitheater-like feature, another desert highlight of the day. I scrambled up and around the ampitheater and headed into the desert hills. Unfortunately the rest of the route follows AZ-93 closely enough to hear vehicles to get back to the trailhead.
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