Rate this Adventure 2.5 miles 600 ft gain - Out-and-Back Trail

Added by Jim Bellings

'My wife (Teresa) and I went to Death Valley for a couple days. We heard about this trail Sidewinder Canyon in a movie, and had to try it out! Beautiful canyon down by Mormon point, Three slot canyons come off the main canyon that is two miles long. Tons of exploring. We only saw one other person while there for about 4 hours.'

You'll find 5 incredible waterfalls after a short, but steep bushwhack into Bear Creek Canyon.

This video shows all of lower Sidewinder Canyon, and 6 of its slot canyons, the way it was on 3-19-2018. The hike starts at the Sidewinder Canyon parking lot. Sidewinder Canyon For even more twists and turns inside a slot canyon, Sidewinder provides some of the best claustrophobic hiking in Death Valley. You can find more detailed route information here. This hike is considered strenuous, so use caution in the passageways. Sidewinder Canyon is a 3.9 mile heavily trafficked out and back trail located near Death Valley, California that offers the chance to see wildlife and is rated as moderate. The trail is primarily used for hiking. Length 3.9 mi Elevation gain 1,046 ft Route type Out & Back Hiking Views Wildlife Scramble No shade Fee No dogs.

Find County Road 1802 in Hagarville, Arkansas off of Arkansas Hwy 123. Travel about 2.2 miles down the road and park. Coordinates 35.68642, -93.17392

You'll start hiking west and should find yourself on the right hand side of wet weather ravine. Look closely as you follow this ravine, you'll see pink markers hanging from tree branches as you descend deeper toward Bear Creek Canyon.

Sidewinder Slot Canyon

You'll come across 2 of the 5 waterfalls pictured at Coordinates 35.68930, -93.18470. The waterfalls are named Sidewinder and Swamp Falls. If the water level is low you can climb down below Swamp Falls for some fantastic pics.

Journey upstream a short distance and you'll approach Baby Bear Falls. Take in the sight and shoot some pics before turning around and heading back downstream.

You'll want to go past Sidewinder and Swamp Falls continuing downstream to V Slot Falls. I recommend a rope if you want to climb into the slot cut into the rock over centuries of erosion. Truly a magnificent sight. On this day the creek was flowing descent, but not enough water to form a 'V' around the boulder pictured.

A little further downstream and you'll reach the last waterfall. This one is Slot Pool Falls. I ate lunch here. It'd be the perfect place for a summer swim if you were up to bushwhacking through thorns, poison ivy and all the undergrowth associated with warm weather in the Ozarks.

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Sidewinder Slot Canyon

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Last week Tom and I hiked up a canyon that isn’t in any of our Death Valley hiking books: Sidewinder Canyon. Several people had recommended this hike and its companion Willow Creek Canyon. Both canyons are located in the southern part of Death Valley south of Badwater Basin and close to Mormon Point.

We drove to mile 31.5 and found the unmarked dirt road off to the left. After driving on that for just a few hundred yards, we came to a former gravel pit (Tom says everything here looks like a gravel pit so how can we tell?). According to the directions we were given, Sidewinder Canyon was to the right of the gravel pit and Willow Creek Canyon was to the left.

Sidewinder Slot Canyons

The hardest part of the hike was finding the right canyon. The instructions said to hike up the wash to the shallow canyon on the right. All the washes had run together and we could see three different shallow canyons. Which one was correct? We checked the topological map against the directions and decided to head for the farthest shallow canyon.

Just beyond the gravel pit we found an arrow made of rocks that pointed in the direction we were going. Just above it we could see a cairn and after that we followed the cairns to the mouth of Sidewinder Canyon.

Sidewinder Canyon is made of conglomerate rock, worn smooth in some places by the flash floods that come down Mt. Smith through the canyon. There are three slot canyons that branch off the main canyon. The last slot canyon was the most interesting as it got narrower and narrower until it ended in a rock fall that you could only climb up.

The canyon got its name because it winds from side to side as it goes up. The walls of the canyon get closer together until it almost feels like the canyon is turning over on itself as you climb. We also heard that it got its name because there are so many sidewinder rattlesnakes that live in the canyon, but we didn’t see any.

We hiked two miles into the canyon with a 900 foot elevation gain before we turned around to come back. Tom had been hoping to find a shortcut to Willow Creek Canyon, so that we could climb up and over, down into Willow Creek Canyon, and come back out down the canyon. He scrambled around for a while and probably could have done it, but it was more rock climbing than I can do. So we headed back to the mouth of the Sidewinder Canyon the way we had come in.

I am always amazed at how different the view going down a canyon is from the view going up. Going up I am focused on the next curve, the next turn, the next rock scramble up. Coming back down you can catch glimpses of the valley beyond the canyon and the mountains that surround everything. Going up I look at the particulars, the details. Coming down I see the bigger picture that always makes our climb seem insignificant in comparison.

The temperature in Sidewinder Canyon was 91, so I was hot and tired by the end of the four mile hike. We decided to save Willow Creek Canyon for another day. There are plenty of canyons to explore in Death Valley.