Conditions:Cove Canyon (Marble Canyon)-20260318200443
Latest: |
14 Mar 2026 (18 days ago) |
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| Reported by: | Ryandunn1995 (1 reports) | |
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| Location: | Cove Canyon (Marble Canyon) | |
| Quality: | Great |
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| Waterflow: | Very Low |
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| Wetsuit: | None |
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| Water temperature: | ||
| Difficulty: | Advanced |
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| Time: |  4 days
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Team: 3 people with experience level Intermediate to Advanced
Trip report URL:
Comments: Overall, this was an excellent canyon, and well worth repeating. I think it falls short of other five star canyons in the area though, as the majority of the rappels were short and not expecially beautiful by GC standards. Day one, our group of three hiked along the Esplanade and completed the first two rappels. Approaching on the Esplanade was generally straightforward, and the Tuckup Trail is overall well cairned. Day two, we descended into the Muav and stopped in the early afternoon at a beautiful camp in a large flat area with a trickling waterfall next to it, Just before the confluence with Burro Canyon. Highly recommend spending the night here if the timing works out for your group. Day three, we descended the rest of the canyon and completed the float. We did not have to portage any rapids/riffles despite the water level in the Colorado river being relatively low at 10,000 CFS. Day 4, we hiked out the sun-exposed and very hot lava Falls Trail. Highly recommend you get an early start on this one! Water: the canyon was overall in a very dry state, however there were still clear pools of high quality water starting in the Supai and extending all the way to the river, intermittently disappearing underground. We chose to carry two days worth of water in the beginning of the trip, though this was likely not necessary if we had been willing to hike a little bit farther on day one and get into the Supai. Wetsuits: not necessary for the canyon, but nice to have on the float in case one were to capsize. Other logistics: Definitely recommend the car shuttle if feasible. Two Subarus made the trip with airing down tires and using a spotter for the rockier sections. Shuttle not possible if there has been recent rain, as the section to lava Falls trailhead would become impassible with thick mud if wet. Anchors: this canyon requires excellent natural anchor skills. Our group cleaned lots of messy anchors with tan/green/red webbing. Please remember that only black webbing is permitted in the Grand Canyon for safety and visibility reasons, and please clean old tat off anchors when adding new webbing, don't just add a new layer of webbing on top of the old one. Have fun and be safe out there!
All condition reports
| Date | Quality | Waterflow | Wetsuit | Difficulty | Time | Team | Reported by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great | Very Low
| None
| Advanced | 4 days
| 3 people Intermediate to Advanced | Ryandunn1995 (1 reports) | |
Comment: Overall, this was an excellent canyon, and well worth repeating. I think it falls short of other five star canyons in the area though, as the majority of the rappels were short and not expecially beautiful by GC standards.
Day one, our group of three hiked along the Esplanade and completed the first two rappels. Approaching on the Esplanade was generally straightforward, and the Tuckup Trail is overall well cairned. Day two, we descended into the Muav and stopped in the early afternoon at a beautiful camp in a large flat area with a trickling waterfall next to it, Just before the confluence with Burro Canyon. Highly recommend spending the night here if the timing works out for your group. Day three, we descended the rest of the canyon and completed the float. We did not have to portage any rapids/riffles despite the water level in the Colorado river being relatively low at 10,000 CFS. Day 4, we hiked out the sun-exposed and very hot lava Falls Trail. Highly recommend you get an early start on this one! Water: the canyon was overall in a very dry state, however there were still clear pools of high quality water starting in the Supai and extending all the way to the river, intermittently disappearing underground. We chose to carry two days worth of water in the beginning of the trip, though this was likely not necessary if we had been willing to hike a little bit farther on day one and get into the Supai. Wetsuits: not necessary for the canyon, but nice to have on the float in case one were to capsize. Other logistics: Definitely recommend the car shuttle if feasible. Two Subarus made the trip with airing down tires and using a spotter for the rockier sections. Shuttle not possible if there has been recent rain, as the section to lava Falls trailhead would become impassible with thick mud if wet. Anchors: this canyon requires excellent natural anchor skills. Our group cleaned lots of messy anchors with tan/green/red webbing. Please remember that only black webbing is permitted in the Grand Canyon for safety and visibility reasons, and please clean old tat off anchors when adding new webbing, don't just add a new layer of webbing on top of the old one. Have fun and be safe out there!
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| Great | | None
| | 3 days
| 4 people Intermediate to Advanced | RFontaine (351 reports) | |
Comment: A really beautiful canyoneering backpacking trip in the Grand!
We aired down our tires and drove about 2hrs on dirt to get out to Lava Falls TH where we left our shuttle then drove over to Tuckup TH to start the approach. The roads start out graded then progressively get worse. Lots of sharp limestone rock notorious for slashing tires further on. Heavy duty offroad tires and airing down highly recommended. High clearance 4x4 needed to negotiate some small obstacles, ruts, and rock steps near Tuckup/Lava. Approach is 7.5miles and took us 3 hours to get to our chosen campsite, half a mile from drop in. The site we dubbed “TajMahal” featured multiple overhanging alcoves nestled around a drainage, perfect camping! It had rained recently so there were pools nearby to filter from. Last time my friends went, it hadnt rained in some time and they had to start down the descent before finding water… Next day we descended the canyon. There are some really neat sculpted rooms, some beautiful fluted drops, and a couple pools of water waist deep. Water wasnt cold, we were happy to have forgone the wetsuits! The canyon goes on and on much of it large open rock hopping or bouldery downclimbs with short narrowiah sections scattered between. A couple larger raps were particularly memorable. My favorite was the sculpted white narrows near the beginning. This was very pretty but over quick. We eventually arrived at the beach of the Colorado in 6 hours. We hiked up stream along the beach set up camp in a nook by the water where the river turns. The flow was up quite a bit after recent storms. In the morning of the next day we dragged our feet and eventually inflated our packrafts to paddle down river. We all were happy to have our Alpacka rafts to enjoy the playful rapids with carefree ease! The river was quick and despite trying to drag it out, we arrived at Lava Falls in 1 hour, 20 minutes. Where we hung out and watched other rafters tackle the infamous rapid. The exit out from Lava is just over a mile but is all straight up. It took us 2 hours to get back to our vehicles. Over all a very enjoyable and worthwhile trip! | |||||||
| Good | Very Low
| None
| Normal  | 2 days
| 6 people Intermediate to Advanced | PatWinstanley (80 reports),Danielson (93 reports) | |
Comment: Reached the confluence with Burro Canyon in 9 hours on day one, finished the canyon, float and hike out in 9 hours again on day 2. Very little water in the canyon, we only encountered one pool where we had to get our feet wet, about knee deep, springs were relatively dry, no wet suits needed for the canyon. One small, but decent pool under a rock at Burro confluence. Reconstructed many terrifyingly poorly tied/constructed anchors throughout the canyon - this is not a great canyon to do if you are not very familiar with anchor construction. Wet suits are needed for the packraft, the river was quite cold and had a few wild rides through the riffles where all in the party took on quite a bit of water in their rafts - fun!
Found the canyon narrows to be good, but short with long sections of hiking in between.
Check with locals about road conditions ahead of time. Google Maps sent those of us coming from LA down a road that doesn't exist anymore. It would be best to have a map that is not dependent on cell phone signal. Temperatures above the rim at night were mid 20s Fahrenheit, and not fun; however, it was enjoyable during the day. While the temperature at Phantom Ranch was reported to be 30F the night we spent at the Burro confluence, it felt like a comfortable mid 40s in the canyon, and the group had no complaints. As Pat states above, water was scarce and green at the Burro camp, but about an 1hr 45min before Burro there is another nice flat camp spot DCR on a rock slab where more water was available. The raft trip was pretty chilly. I think everyone was cold in 4/3 wetsuits. I had a full rainshell over my wetsuit and was ok except for my hands (in retrospect I would consider adding the weight of some nice neogloves). The raft trip was far rougher than what I expected. I spent most of the time bailing my raft out with a mug I clipped to my backpack. One group member flipped twice, so by prepared for a swim. The exit up is fun. not. We counted 14 rappels which I believe is +1 to Todd's book.
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