Epic Travel → North America → Mountain States → Nevada →  ⊗ Weeping Springs Canyon

⊗ Technical Route ⊗
♦ Intrepid Top Pick!
Warning: Do Not Attempt Without Proper Training – click here for details

Location: Black Canyon Area, Las Vegas, Nevada

Time Required: 6-9 hours

Distance: 4.5 miles total, 0.7 miles technical, 0.2 mile paddle (optional)

Elevation Gain: 1600 feet

Rappels: 7-9, lengths up to 150 feet

Red Tape/Notes: No permit required, no shuttle required. Some additional info and a gpx of the route is available on ropewiki, but if you’re going to be doing canyons in this area, I’d highly recommend buying Las Vegas Slots by Rick Ianniello (available on Amazon or through Canyoneering USA).

What’s Nearby?: Bighorn Canyon, Goldstrike Canyon, Hoover Dam, Historic Railroad Trail, Colorado River Hot Springs Packrafting, Ringpin Canyon, Secret Canyon

Weeping Springs is a great little canyon with several cool rappels, beautiful desert scenery, and interesting rock formations. But more importantly, you can do this canyon as a loop by exiting up the non-technical Bighorn Canyon AND you can connect the two with a packraft on the Colorado River! This is absurdly enjoyable, particularly if you time your excursion to be in the water when it’s hot. You get your first glimpse of the Colorado River after the 4th rappel, and as you continue on through more rappels and downclimbs, the canyon transitions rather quickly from a dry desert canyon into an oasis of vegetation. The final rappel is over a waterfall (or at least the trickling remnants of a waterfall, depending on the season) that drops down into a lovely little hidden inlet off the river. Depending on water levels you may or may not have room to blow up your packraft after making the rappel. We had access to the large rock at the bottom, but it doesn’t provide a ton of room so we blew up our rafts at the top of the rappel, then one of us rappelled down and the other passed the two rafts over. The transition from the rock to our rafts was a little tricky, but we managed it without going completely into the water. The short distance to the mouth of Bighorn Canyon was the perfect amount of time to enjoy the scenery and cool down in the water (since we were basically sitting in a bath of cold water by the end, due to the amount of water we had splashed into our rafts). Luckily there’s a great little beach at Bighorn where it’s super easy to land your rafts, and there are nice flat rocks where you can spread things out to dry while having lunch before starting your exit up Bighorn. If you don’t want to packraft, there is an overland route you can take that connects you to Bighorn.

Epic Travel → North America → Mountain States → Nevada →  ⊗ Weeping Springs Canyon