Lizard King Canyon
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| | Difficulty:3A III (v3a1 III) Raps:7, max ↨120ft
Red Tape:No permit required Shuttle:None Vehicle:Passenger | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Condition Reports: | 22 Dec 2024
"Went through here with a rondy team. OK half day canyon. Not especially compelling scenery nor notable challenges. |
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| Best season: | Nov-Mar (avg for this region)
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36.7869, -117.1393
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Introduction
Thanks to Scott Swaney for pioneering this canyon. Lizard King is a canyon in the Grapevine Mountains of Death Valley. It is a good half day canyon with an easy approach, 7 rappels and some cool blue narrows in its lower reaches - perfect for those people looking for a fun, non-epic, non-marathon Death Valley canyoneering experience. It does have some minor anchor challenges such as a webbing knot choke anchor in a crack - so moderate anchor building skills are required.
Approach
From the intersection of Scotty's Castle Road and CA-190 it is about 12 miles north on Scotty's Castle road to the parking area. Park a few hundred feet north of the roadside marker/alluvial fan interpretive sign.
You have your choice of either a left (north) or right side (south) approach to the top of Lizard King. The easier of the two is up the alluvial fan to the south. From the top of the fan just below the dry fall take a left up to the ridge of a hidden couloir. Important! A little before this point, the gully is split by a cleaver in the middle. Passage looks easier on the right side but don't do it! You won't be able to get back to the left side and will miss the hidden couloir. If you go right, the ascent route is much sketchier. From the top of the hidden couloir, follow this ridge north then north east over to the upper south drainage of Lizard King. Follow this drainage down to the intersection with the north drainage. From here it is short distance down canyon to the first rappel.
Make sure you download the GPS tracks specifically from this page, as the track that comes with other canyons in this area is different, and doesn't show this ideal approach.
Descent
The canyon has 7 rappels.
R1: From a knot choked piece of webbing- 50 feet.
R2: From a rock cairn, two stage, 45 feet, 65 feet - 110 total - we used about 120 feet of rope
R3: From a piece of webbing lodged in a pinch point - 35 feet.
R4: From two nuts in right wall of canyon, two stage, 30 feet, 60 feet - 120 feet of rope length total.
R5: From a pinch point - 30 feet. Next rappel is immediate, but didn't seem like rope pull would be good if tried to do as multi-stage.
R6: Fiddlestick from an upright boulder, about 30 foot rappel. Or you could build a cairn anchor; plenty of material available.
R7: Pinch point under a very large boulder. About a 20 ft rappel. Used 50’ of rope from the anchor.
Exit
Very short exit down wash to your car.
Red tape
Beta sites
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Super Amazing Map : Lizard King
Trip reports and media
FIRST DESCENT TRIP REPORT 2-5-11:
Background
Originally explored by SCOTT SWANEY & AYSEL GEZIK on 2-5-11 - SEE TRIP REPORT ABOVE FOR DETAILS
