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Apr 08, 2018 — I love hiking to all the Lake Mead hot springs. There are a bunch of them, and while most are accessible via kayak/boat from the Colorado River, I consider that cheating and would prefer to trudge through the desert. Despite evolution telling us walking downhill at midday in a 90 degree desert, Tara and I were enthusiastic about finding Moonscape Hot Spring. I noticed the name on a topo map, but didn't have information on how to get there. This route starts the same as Weeping Spring Canyon, a technical route I've done a few times, so I was familiar with the start of the route plan.
We started down a broken glass and scree-covered dirty slope from the parking lot into the obvious wide wash below. We followed this wash until just before the head of Weeping Spring Canyon. You'll know you've gone too far in the wash if you hit a dryfall. We scrambled out of the wash and headed northeast over open desert toward the next canyon, which took us down some Class 2/3 obstacles and through short section of narrows. We were able to avoid most of the unpleasant brush in this canyon by keeping to the east side, cairns helping a bit. We later found out this canyon is sometimes called Emerald Pools Canyon. The canyon led into a junction with a wider canyon, where going left you we found Moonscape Hot Spring, and right led to a beautiful cove on the Colorado River. We returned the way we came.
A couple of years after doing this route, I returned to Moonscape Hot Spring via the technical Devil's Drain Canyon. I would highly recommend the Devil's Drain loop route over just the out-and-back described in this trip report. That is of course, assuming you have technical rappeling knowledge.
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