Heather and I were looking for a mellow desert escape and the Mojave’s Spooky Canyon came to mind. It is one of the few true slot canyons in the Mojave, with sections requiring headlamps even at midday. As an added bonus the whole area is quite scenic as the “Grand Canyon of the Mojave”, one of the few places where the Mojave River regularly flows above ground. It had been a good long time since I had been there and I thought it could be fun to explore more thoroughly and photograph. Also the slightly atypical landownership meant it was one of the few scenic places in the Mojave where drones were allowed. I found an account that indicated the neighboring canyon to the east was also a worthwhile slot and got excited about potentially being the first to do a loop by going up Spooky and coming down “Not Spooky”. I also realized that we could probably improve on access and avoid potentially deep Mojave River crossings by approaching from Corn Springs to the east rather than from Afton Canyon from the west.
We managed to rally for an early start and made good time out the highways. We found the roads to be increasingly maze-like the further in we went, with the pre-planned route not always the most obvious on the ground. The canyon walls began to gradually close in and we had some nice views of the intricate badland walls. We crossed the wash several times and battled some deep rutted sand but overall had no issues making it to our railroad siding destination.
We first did a short hike to check out a small arch hidden against the wall of the wash and a very short slot ending at a dryfall plunge chamber. We drove a couple hundred feet further and grabbed our bags for our Spooky loop.
We crossed under the railroad tracks and within minutes the conglomerate cliffs closed into a slot. We steeply ascended the sinuous slot, clambering over a few boulders and bedrock sections. The slot was at least 100ft deep with golden light at the top filtering into darkness below. Before long we needed headlamps and had four roped upclimbs to contend with. The conglomerate is quite young and unconsolidated such that despite best efforts critical hand and footholds give way if you are not careful. All the ropes were old and variable but generally anchored to my satisfaction. The last rope was a steeper and taller two-stage climb probably totaling about 35ft. For this we put Heather in a harness and she had a first go at using ascenders, which worked well.
Once up we had a few more turns before the canyon spit us out into the colorful metamorphic rocks above. I found a loose gully that provided a shortcut in crossing over to the neighboring “Not Spooky”. This canyon had a steep downclimb near the top and one additional one further down that I provided a meat anchor for Heather to rappel. A couple nice hallways followed with at least one notable chock stone overhead. The narrows were shorter and not nearly as dark in this canyon and soon we entered a corridor of breakdown to clamber over and around and then reached the railroad tracks at the mouth to close the loop.
We found ourselves completely boxed in with about 20 4WDs and off-road vehicles surrounding our car with twice as many people loitering around. The first appearance was aggressive in how they chose to surround our car but we found them very friendly and it clearly wasn’t deliberate.
We still had plenty of day left and so decided to drive a little further up the Mojave’s canyon to just before the first major stream crossing. We noticed a road leading up to a dramatic dryfall amphitheater and so drove all the way up inside it for a neat view. I also sent the drone around for a long loop past some of the badland cliffs and up to an interesting cliff-hugging mine with ruins of an old tramway system. After that we called it good, navigating the maze slightly better and not too much traffic back to Riverside. Spooky Canyon was maybe even a bit better than I remembered it. I thought it was well worth the visit and made for a nice day out.
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