Despite a horrible weather forecast for the entire region, me, the girlfriend and Rick Kent opted to head to Death Valley for the weekend. Afterall, the forecast there -only- called for 80% chance of rain on Saturday and 70% on Sunday!
As it turned out, we had blue skies and comfortable temps!
Since we expected bad weather, we hiked up an easy mountain, Thimble Peak, in the morning. Nice views, easy hiking and great company. Afterward, with the weather holding, we decided to scope out Keane Canyon, recently posted on Chris Brennen's website, for a good weather day. Getting there, the weather was still holding. Hmmmm.
Starting at the Y-junction 1.8 miles below the ruins, we left the car and began hiking up. I couldn't drop into the canyon without first bagging a nearby 5,300-ft peak, Chloride Cliff, though. It's too close and convenient to ignore.
Soon dropping into the canyon, we headed down, easily negotiating the occasional difficulty and checking out the extensive and fantastic mining ruins down in there.
Despite the route description saying 6 (or whatever) rappels, we only did one. A couple semi-challenging downclimbs and no mandatory rappels. Our only rappel could have been bypassed with more effort than it was worth.
2 hours, 50 minutes car-to-car, though Chris Brennen calls for 6.5 (without the bonus peak) on his website. Quick, short and easy.
To sum up the canyon experience - the ruins are well worth seeing but the canyon was otherwise uninteresting.
(Link to Rick's pics, minus Keane Canyon - he forgot to bring the camera for that one)
*Thimble Peak photos courtesy of Rick Kent
Thimble Peak, Chloride Cliff & Keane Canyon
