Canyoneer Willow Creek Canyon Death Valley National Park, CA

Mar 15, 2020 — Easily my favorite non-sandstone canyon, Willow Canyon (or Willow Creek Canyon) was all I had hoped it would be. Five years ago (omg) I visited the falls using the official NPS trail, and ever since it's been on my to-do list as a full descent. I should note up-front that though this is an incredible canyon, it's rarely visited. We ended up eating through 40 feet of webbing, and were skeptical of a few of the bolted anchors. Leave as much time as you can for the canyon to deal with the numerous potential technical challenges. You can also skip the entire ascent approach if you are okay with the longest shuttle ever, dropping a car here: 36.04874, -116.68777. We opted to hike instead. Yay, exercise! Also, expect to get at least ankle-deep wet.

I set out with Kailey and our new friend Karileigh, a van life botanist who taught us all sorts of fun botanical and desert fun facts the whole day. We left the trailhead and followed the open desert into the major drainage leading to Willow Canyon's mouth. We left the drainage to ascend a slope to the north of the canyon, picking the most reasonable-looking option we could find. This ridge was straightforward enough, some short Class 3 sections and a whole bunch of Class 2 taking us to a false peak about 1k vertical from our drop-in point. A pretty-looking ridgeline continued east, and we got some first glimpses down into the beauty that would be Willow Canyon. I was giddy with excitement. Some more steep Class 2 led us to a point higher up, where we needed to decide how to enter Willow Canyon. We could continue along the ridge for another 1k vertical and drop into Willow Canyon via a more reasonable descent, but this option would add a fair amount of mileage and time. The option we chose was to descend in really steep scree slope. Concerned that we'd run out of daylight, and unsure of what kinds of obstacles we'd face in the canyon, we opted to choose the less-pleasant descent, favoring leaving more time for the technical challenges.

I recommend putting helmets on for this steep descent, where lots of loose rock could cause all sorts of hazards. After a good 800 vertical loss of this nonsense, we entered a side canyon bottom, which we followed south. It would eventually drain into Willow Canyon. We encountered a few Class 3 down climbs. We made it almost to the base of this side canyon when we hit our first rappel. This was an unexpected obstacle, adding another rappel to the already 10+ rappels in the day, and I somewhat not secretly started getting concerned for the difficulty of the canyon we were doing today. We set up a retrievable anchor on a boulder and continued down into Willow Canyon.

After some light bushwhacking and fun, pretty down climbs, we made it to a spring and the water began flowing more heavily (which, to be fair, was still only a bit more than a heavy trickle). We eventually made it to the first official rappel of Willow Canyon, where a sign-in register nestled under a cliff band boasted no visitors in a year. I immediately started thinking about how screwed we were, but tried not to share my anxieties. It was both friends' first time canyoneering, and although they are both capable climbers, anchor-builders, and adventurers, I had an internal monologue about the risks of starting the canyon. A year of no visitors would mean the anchors would likely all need to be rebuilt and all webbing replaced. I could imagine the time committment this would eat up and anchor-building and rappelling in the dark didn't seem like a good idea. Further, the previous visitor wrote something about not being able to go past the big drop and returning. Why not? Would we have to turn around? Were the anchors past that point even older and untraveled? We signed the register and possibly irresponsibly started our descent.

A short down climb from the register led to some old webbing tied around a cut-down tamarisk. We used the webbing, but backed up the anchor to test it. All good so far. As soon as we pulled the rope, most of my anxiety dissipated. The canyon was colorful, green, and had flowing water. I was thrilled. We bushwhacked for a bit and encountered a few down climbs and partner assists, but no more rappels for a while. There were at least a half dozen beautiful little waterfalls along the slickrock, and amazing canyon light keeping me taking more photos than I should have. Willow Canyon opened up for a fairly long time, and on a map it looked like we were making incredibly fast progress, but then of course the majority of the technical stuff began.

We could avoid the second rappel, and chose to do so to save time, by keeping to the right and down-climbing on some Class 2. Rap 3 was unavoidable, and gorgeous. Actually, all the rappels were gorgeous in this canyon. We were now in the extended narrow section of Willow Canyon, and unlike many Death Valley canyons, the narrows last longer than the open sections in this canyon. Some more down climbs and pretty narrows brought us to the large rappel I had been concerned about. It was a two-stage rappel using a bolted anchor, and the drop appeared to be quite big. Ultimately, it was a perfectly fine 80 foot rappel, followed by a shorter one. We did the two stages as one rappel, still trying to save as much time as we could.

A bunch more rappels and down climbs led through the rest of Willow Creek Canyon, all pretty short and either bolted or cairn anchored. They all sort of blended together, but served little challenge. We replaced some webbing along the way, and backed each other up on anchors we thought might be a little sketchy. There was another two-stage rappel above an absolutely incredible view down-canyon, where we could see the valley in the background, and crazy canyon colors in the foreground. There were also a couple of small pools that could be avoided along the way. I'll let photos speak below. We made it to the last rappel in the dark, so I only have a photo below of the last waterfall from my visit in 2015, but I was surprised how far we made it while maintaing daylight.