Conditions:Coffin Canyon-20241225041241

Latest:	21 Dec 2024 (23 days ago)

Reported by:	Rapbear (73 reports)
Quality:	Great
Waterflow:	Dry
Wetsuit:	None
Water temperature:
Difficulty:	Normal
Time:	6 hours

Team: 7 people with experience level Intermediate to Expert

Trip report URL:

Comments: Coffin canyon is great with very scenic views and a wonderful 190ft rappel. The approach can be a bit scrambly, steep, and nerve racking but the payoff is worth it.

All the rock cairns and webbing look good but please check before you rappel. Some nice down climbs to add too!

All condition reports

Date	Quality	Waterflow	Wetsuit	Difficulty	Time	Team	Reported by
21 Dec 2024	Great	Dry	None	Normal	6 hours	7 people Intermediate to Expert	Rapbear (73 reports)
Comment: Coffin canyon is great with very scenic views and a wonderful 190ft rappel. The approach can be a bit scrambly, steep, and nerve racking but the payoff is worth it. All the rock cairns and webbing look good but please check before you rappel. Some nice down climbs to add too!
28 Dec 2023	Great	Dry	None	Normal	6 hours	2 people Intermediate	JasenPlus (16 reports)
Comment: What a gorgeous canyon! Definitely one of those Death Valley straight up the ridge style approaches. I found the worst parts were the first few hundred feet and then just a lot of elevation gain after that. The approach does have constant breathtaking views and that slowed us down again and again as we caught our breath from the climb and just took moments to enjoy the valley and the topography looking towards Copper. We rappelled one of the down climbs before the big drop and one extra one somewhere after that as well. Didn't notice any issues with anchors on our trip.
8 Dec 2023	Amazing	Dry	None	Normal	4 hours	1 people	Willie92708 (973 reports)
Comment: Running solo, I was not slowed down on the approach. It took 10 minutes to hike to the ridge, one hour to climb to the 1st main summit and another 50 minutes to descend into the canyon and hike to my first rappel. The canyon run and hike back was an easy 2 hours more. Note that there were 2 shorter rappels before the "main event" 200' off the 2 bolts (beta R1) which I measured at around 175'. There are 2 more rappels and a few downclimbs before the next 2 bolt anchor (beta R3). Then 3 more making a total of 9 rappels compared with the beta's 5. Thanks to a team running it this season all the webbing was fresh. I will note that one of the rock cairn anchors is rather shifty and should be rebuilt.
8 Dec 2023	Great	Dry	None	Normal	4 hours	1 people	Willie92708 (973 reports)
Comment: Solo run before our trip down Hades on Saturday; all the anchors are fresh, and it's easy travel in the canyon.
12 Nov 2023	Great	Dry	None	Normal	8 hours	6 people Intermediate to Advanced	AZ Advocate (40 reports)
Comment: The approach was almost as much fun as the descent of the canyon. The views into Copper and of Badwater are amazing. As noted by KMiller, first run of the canyon since Hilary swept through the park. All anchors were rebuilt and/or left with fresh webbing. Super fun canyon with a short but sweet narrow section and a very picturesque 190' rap.
12 Nov 2023	Great	Dry	None	Normal	8 hours	6 people Beginner to Advanced	Kmiller (5 reports)
Comment: This was the first run of Coffin for this season. Plus Hurricane Hilary and the flooding made for a lot of anchor rebuilding and some rock farming. Had a CA Dept Of Fish and Wildlife employee tag along with us to retrieve the collars from a dead bighorn ewe. That added some time to the canyon in addition to needing to rerig/rebuild all of the anchors. Excellent approach with amazing views as usual. Weather was great!
2 Mar 2023	Good	Dry				2 people	Cheveran (84 reports)
Comment: Fun canyon. We got a little off route initially on the approach, which got us into loose terrain. Course corrected (indeed head straight up onto the ridge via class 3 terrain, don't be tempted further south) and had a much better time. The canyon has several pretty rappels. All anchors in good shape.
6 Jan 2023	Amazing	Dry					Abby Wines (39 reports)
Comment: I love the view from the top of the approach of the yellow-color Copper Canyon drainage and red-colored Coffin Canyon. A fun, scenic canyon.
23 Dec 2022	Amazing	Dry	None	Normal	7 hours	3 people Beginner to Advanced	Mfeingol (51 reports)
Comment: Really beautiful canyon with intense geology. The 190 foot rappel is great fun. Then approach trail is reasonably easy to follow, but is quite exposed in places and rather relentless on the whole. The hardest part of the approach was actually route-finding on the descent side, locating the right vector to drop into Coffin Wash. Anchors were in good shape, and we only had to update the webbing on one of them.
22 Nov 2021	Great	Dry	None	Normal	6 hours	2 people Intermediate	Sri (30 reports)
Comment: Awesome canyon. All anchors and most webbing were in good shape, replaced webbing in just one of the anchors.
13 Mar 2021	Amazing	Dry		Normal	6 hours	10 people Beginner to Advanced	Toddk (15 reports)
Comment: Great short canyon with beautiful views. All webbing was in good shape.
12 Feb 2021	Good	Dry	None	Normal	6 hours	8 people	Morgan (103 reports)
Comment: We didn’t have any out-of-shape daughters along, but this is a pretty good canyon.
2 Jan 2021	Amazing	Dry	None	Normal	6 hours	3 people	Willie92708 (973 reports)
Comment: My daughter was rather slow on the climb up the ridge; she's out of shape; approach took over 3 hours. The approach itself has amazing views so spending extra time on it and taking lots of pictures was actually a good thing. The canyon itself is amazing, definitely worth the effort to climb up to it. Also plenty of "dead things in canyons" to see too. All the anchors had been recently rebuilt with fresh webbing; it was smooth sailing for us.
6 Dec 2020	Great	Dry	None	Normal	5 hours	2 people Intermediate to Advanced	JPugh (6 reports)
Comment: Nice time in Coffin. Curiously, on one of the rappels the anchor had been left completely disassembled. I believe it might have been rappel #4 listed in the beta, but could not say for sure, since it was a casual canyon jaunt and I was not counting rappels. The webbing was still present and the the anchor was easy to reassemble, but nonetheless was a curious discovery. There was a party of 2 who had done the canyon right before us. Just a friendly reminder to not enter even the "easy and commonly done" canyons in Death Valley if your group doesn't have anchor building skills, and for Christ's sake don't leave an anchor disassembled if you change you mind and find a down climb or walk around!!!
20 Feb 2017	Great	Dry	None	Special challenges	6 hours	9 people Intermediate to Expert	Danielson (93 reports)
Comment: All anchors in good condition. Rebuilt cairns to inspect but reused webbing,

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