Jun 10, 2019 — Mud Spring Canyon is one of the shorter technical canyons in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. A few years ago, I thought I could descend from Windy Peak via Mud Spring Canyon, not realizing it was technical, and I had to navigate around the technical sections. Fortunately, it worked out somehow. I think this route would work really well if you combined Windy Peak and descend this route using the technical way. This time around, Scot, Kelly, and I set up a shuttle just to do this is as a technical descent.
We parked our first car along a dirt road just north of the tiny town of Mountian Springs, then followed a social trail up a ridge leading east. This ridge led to the limestone crest just west of our canyon. We descended on a wide slope and then dropped north into Mud Spring Canyon. Some light bushwhacking led to the technical stuff. The first section of rappels (4-6 of them, depending on if you link some together, or avoid the main drainage to bypass one of the raps) are fun and have some nice views down the canyon. After these rappels, the canyon lets up for a bit and we rock hopped to the second section of rappels, where the fun really began. Only one of these rappels in this section is actually necessary, all the others avoidable via bypasses. There were a couple of potholes for us, a rappel into a full swimmer, and a small waterfall. It was nice. Once past the last rappel, we did some more boulder hopping until we located a social trail on the north side of the drainage and followed this to where we parked the second car. Along the way, we encountered a mountain bike trail that facilitated desert travel.
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