Mosaic Canyon: Beautiful canyon, but get an early start as this is a popular hike

Mosaic Canyon was the third of three canyon hikes during our stay in Death Valley, the others being the Golden Canyon-Badlands-Gower Gulch Loop and Fall Canyon. Each hike was wonderful but each was unique and offered a lot of variety in terms of scenery, geology and obstacles (although none of the hikes were that difficult; easy to moderate at least for the areas we hiked). For the previous two hikes were arrived at the trailhead before 9:00 AM, so there were only a couple of other cars in the parking areas; however for our Mosaic Canyon hike we pulled in at 10:00 AM and the lot was jammed (and the cars were rather erratically parked) but we found a spot to park and were shortly on the trail. As the parking lot indicated, this is a popular trail and there were lots of hikers including families with kids scattered about from the trailhead through the first narrows and up into the amphitheater following the narrows. The initial entry on to the trail in a wide wash so plenty of room to maneuver around the slower groups. Before we knew it we were in the first narrows. No wonder this is such a popular hike, you hardly have to walk at all before you reach this very pretty cut through the rock. It was a bit of a bottleneck here with all the folks but that just gave us more time to study the natural mosaic patterns and the interesting contours in the rocks. Once through the first narrows, the trail snakes around a little uphill section then opens up into a large amphitheater. There was quite the crowd of folks at this point, not huge masses of people of course, just several small groups scattered about, some relaxing, some studying the rocks, certainly many just hiking through the wash or exploring the numerous social trails that worked along the rock ridge to the west of the main trail. The sight of all these folks just enjoying the day in this one area of the canyon brought to mind the “beach party” scene we had witnessed at the top of Nevada Falls in Yosemite and again below Tokopah Falls in Sequoia. There was a group of 20-somethings up on top of the rocks to our right playing Frisbee. The kids on top of the rock were tossing the disc to their friends down in the wash. We continued on through the amphitheater. The social trails worked parallel to the main wash but went up into the rocks to high spots (like where the Frisbee kids were hanging out). Lots of traffic on those trails; actually seemed like there were more folks on the social trails than on the main trail in the wash. I guess the lure of the social trails was the view as they ran higher in the canyon wall. Unfortunately for the folks on the social trail that paralleled the wash up the canyon the two trails don’t reconnect. The social trail comes to an abrupt halt about 15 feet above the level of the wash with no way down into the wash. It seemed that backtracking was the only way to get back to the main trail in the wash. The crowd thinned out a lot as we exited the amphitheater and by the time we reached the first real obstacle in the canyon the tourists had all but disappeared and left the trail to the hikers. There were a series of narrows and falls as we continued up the canyon. Some were minor and were easy to negotiate while others had detours to provide access to the canyon beyond. The description of the trail in Hiking Death Valley was very valuable as it provided the needed clues to get around the bigger falls that had detours and did not require climbing skills. Of course we had to climb back down these same obstacles on the return hike although many of the smaller falls were very simple to get down as they were simply Mother Nature’s polished rock sliding boards. Yep, just sit and slide right down to the next level, just like Digonnet suggested in the book. So for the third day in a row we have found a very nice canyon to hike through. Like the previous two days, the trail ran uphill through the canyon but the incline was gradual enough to not be an issue. As mentioned, there were more obstacles in Mosaic Canyon but more were easy to climb over or detour around. Like Fall Canyon, our hike ended when we reached a tall fall that did not have an easy work around. Our turnaround point was about 2 miles up the canyon, so this was the shortest of the canyon hikes that we did but it still packed a lot in. Not too much in the way of flowers, but there were a few critters about. Lots of butterflies (mainly the orange Sagebrush Checkerspot) and a few birds including some sort of swifts or swallows flying near the canyon walls (perhaps Cliff Swallows). The rocks were the real stars of the hike through Mosaic Canyon. The namesake mosaic are most notable at the start of the hike around the first narrows. These are truly amazing natural formations. Some of the panels look like they were crafted for the backsplash in a high-end kitchen. Then there are the narrows with the polished rock that is like marble in places. Again, simply beautiful. Of course there are wonderful colors in the rocks throughout the canyon, dominated by the reds and oranges like we saw in Fall Canyon. The return trip down the canyon was fairly quick with the gravity assist. Hey, downhill can be fun! We enjoyed the narrows and the mosaics as we passed through, getting a different perspective from this direction and with the change in the lighting. We were back at the jumble of cars in the parking lot by 12:30. It was tight getting out of the lot as the vehicles were still sort of parked every which way with little concern for an exit plan, but we managed to get through and headed back down the dirt and toward sea level again. That’s three excellent canyon hikes over the course of three day in Death Valley. While there were similarities, each hike and each trail had very distinctive characteristics. Since a goal of this first trip was to get a fairly wide sampling of the areas in the park I would have to say that we were wildly successful in that regard with these three hikes.

Hiking/Backpacking

Get and early start! We did not use trekking poles for this trail.
California, United States
OhioHick photo
time : Mar 27, 2016 9:09 AM
duration : 2h 17m 32s
distance : 3.8 mi
total_ascent : 1289 ft
highest_point : 1886 ft
avg_speed : N/A
user_id : OhioHick
user_firstname : Allen
user_lastname : Arrington
Mosaic Canyon was the third of three canyon hikes during our stay in Death Valley, the others being the Golden Canyon-Badlands-Gower Gulch Loop and Fall Canyon. Each hike was wonderful but each was unique and offered a lot of variety in terms of scenery, geology and obstacles (although none of the hikes were that difficult; easy to moderate at least for the areas we hiked). For the previous two hikes were arrived at the trailhead before 9:00 AM, so there were only a couple of other cars in the parking areas; however for our Mosaic Canyon hike we pulled in at 10:00 AM and the lot was jammed (and the cars were rather erratically parked) but we found a spot to park and were shortly on the trail. As the parking lot indicated, this is a popular trail and there were lots of hikers including families with kids scattered about from the trailhead through the first narrows and up into the amphitheater following the narrows. The initial entry on to the trail in a wide wash so plenty of room to maneuver around the slower groups. Before we knew it we were in the first narrows. No wonder this is such a popular hike, you hardly have to walk at all before you reach this very pretty cut through the rock. It was a bit of a bottleneck here with all the folks but that just gave us more time to study the natural mosaic patterns and the interesting contours in the rocks. Once through the first narrows, the trail snakes around a little uphill section then opens up into a large amphitheater. There was quite the crowd of folks at this point, not huge masses of people of course, just several small groups scattered about, some relaxing, some studying the rocks, certainly many just hiking through the wash or exploring the numerous social trails that worked along the rock ridge to the west of the main trail. The sight of all these folks just enjoying the day in this one area of the canyon brought to mind the “beach party” scene we had witnessed at the top of Nevada Falls in Yosemite and again below Tokopah Falls in Sequoia. There was a group of 20-somethings up on top of the rocks to our right playing Frisbee. The kids on top of the rock were tossing the disc to their friends down in the wash. We continued on through the amphitheater. The social trails worked parallel to the main wash but went up into the rocks to high spots (like where the Frisbee kids were hanging out). Lots of traffic on those trails; actually seemed like there were more folks on the social trails than on the main trail in the wash. I guess the lure of the social trails was the view as they ran higher in the canyon wall. Unfortunately for the folks on the social trail that paralleled the wash up the canyon the two trails don’t reconnect. The social trail comes to an abrupt halt about 15 feet above the level of the wash with no way down into the wash. It seemed that backtracking was the only way to get back to the main trail in the wash. The crowd thinned out a lot as we exited the amphitheater and by the time we reached the first real obstacle in the canyon the tourists had all but disappeared and left the trail to the hikers. There were a series of narrows and falls as we continued up the canyon. Some were minor and were easy to negotiate while others had detours to provide access to the canyon beyond. The description of the trail in Hiking Death Valley was very valuable as it provided the needed clues to get around the bigger falls that had detours and did not require climbing skills. Of course we had to climb back down these same obstacles on the return hike although many of the smaller falls were very simple to get down as they were simply Mother Nature’s polished rock sliding boards. Yep, just sit and slide right down to the next level, just like Digonnet suggested in the book. So for the third day in a row we have found a very nice canyon to hike through. Like the previous two days, the trail ran uphill through the canyon but the incline was gradual enough to not be an issue. As mentioned, there were more obstacles in Mosaic Canyon but more were easy to climb over or detour around. Like Fall Canyon, our hike ended when we reached a tall fall that did not have an easy work around. Our turnaround point was about 2 miles up the canyon, so this was the shortest of the canyon hikes that we did but it still packed a lot in. Not too much in the way of flowers, but there were a few critters about. Lots of butterflies (mainly the orange Sagebrush Checkerspot) and a few birds including some sort of swifts or swallows flying near the canyon walls (perhaps Cliff Swallows). The rocks were the real stars of the hike through Mosaic Canyon. The namesake mosaic are most notable at the start of the hike around the first narrows. These are truly amazing natural formations. Some of the panels look like they were crafted for the backsplash in a high-end kitchen. Then there are the narrows with the polished rock that is like marble in places. Again, simply beautiful. Of course there are wonderful colors in the rocks throughout the canyon, dominated by the reds and oranges like we saw in Fall Canyon. The return trip down the canyon was fairly quick with the gravity assist. Hey, downhill can be fun! We enjoyed the narrows and the mosaics as we passed through, getting a different perspective from this direction and with the change in the lighting. We were back at the jumble of cars in the parking lot by 12:30. It was tight getting out of the lot as the vehicles were still sort of parked every which way with little concern for an exit plan, but we managed to get through and headed back down the dirt and toward sea level again. That’s three excellent canyon hikes over the course of three day in Death Valley. While there were similarities, each hike and each trail had very distinctive characteristics. Since a goal of this first trip was to get a fairly wide sampling of the areas in the park I would have to say that we were wildly successful in that regard with these three hikes.
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