Scott Swaney's Death Valley Canyoneering Exploration

Introduction[edit]

NOTE: current locations: 338 - for 2023 NOTE: Map and canyon list is very out-of-date. Many New canyons have not been added.

(NOTE UPDATE: May 1, 2019- going through the 2018/2019 winter season, currently there are 323 locations being listed now with the end of Spring for 2019)

(NOTE UPDATE: March 18, 2018- going through the 2017/2018 winter season, currently there are 307 locations being listed now with the beginning of Spring for 2018.

And with the plans for this season, there are be well over 300 canyons (323) locations identified and explored in Death Valley for this season with the ones I had earmarked for exploration missions. This exploration continues and should make Death Valley one of the prime canyoneering locations in the United States for winter type desert canyoneering opportunities (mostly dry canyons). A lot of new stuff to go see in the future when this documentation is completed.)

(NOTE: JUNE 2016 UPDATE) - originally posted in November 2014 with the current map list view (as listed below), and not current yet. As of June 2016, I have been involved in over 200 new canyons where a first descent and documentation was completed. And of the total canyons in Death Valley, I have been down and have beta for over 260 canyons out there now. And will continue to get this beta on all the canyons out there to the canyoneering public.

My introduction into Death Valley was a visit in 1976, and after traveling around there to see all the points of interest, and afterward, I decided that there was nothing else interesting to see there, so I hadn't planned on going back there again. I had no idea as to what was hidden there at that time. I had extensive exploration & training experience in cave exploration starting back in 1965. And this also included rock climbing, white-water kayaking, and other technical disciplines, and did my first canyon in Moab, Utah back in 1972 as a rock climber. And just to see what was in those canyons, with having the skills to get into them. Although I never thought of documenting anything at the time. No such term as "Canyoneering" back then. New exploration was my main focus on any new project. After many years of doing these types of adventures, I decided to move to California in 2001, I found out about Chris Brennan's canyon exploration in the San Gabriel's, and quickly started visiting as many of those canyons as I could. And further found that he had also been exploring in Death Valley, and also started checking them out as well. Soon after that, I heard that another person, Rick Kent, was picking up on Chris's lead, and finding more new canyons out there. He was great in letting me join in on with his team at that time, and I started exploring many of his new found canyons as another one of his team members. Also, after many scouting trips and map / Google Earth studies, I could see that huge park with many mountain ranges and valleys still had a lot more potential with a more intensive back-country exploration. All the easy ones had already been found. So I continued on with my own exploration project looking for more new canyons, and trying to pick up any partners willing to head out into the unknown wilderness with me. And I would like to thank all those who volunteered for the arduous mission. I will be adding the names of all the team members who were on these new canyon explorations efforts, including the new ones I did with Rick.

Over the last few years, with all this effort, there are over 260 new canyons that have been explored now. I, and my teammates, have been down over 200 new First Descents there, and found others that had anchors, but not documented anywhere. And also visited most all of the known canyons in addition. So this list of new canyons here will provided beta for all the canyons that I personally have been down and documented. Hopefully, this will provide canyoneers with a lot of new canyons to check out in Death Valley. As of the beginning of last winter season, there were only about thirty canyons listed on any websites for Death valley. Now there are lot to choose from. And there are other canyons already done by others that I am not documenting here. I need to go check them out first.

NOTE: There are a few known canyons on this map that I placed there as a point of reference, or ones that I was involved with as a first descent, but organized by others. This to make it easier to identify where the new canyons are located. Also, there are canyons where we found anchors, but don't know the details, so a name was given on this map instead of stating an "unknown canyon".