One up, one down, no tarantulas (Boy Scout and Sloan Canyons)

Truth in advertising

Two canyon hikes a couple of weekends ago. Neither of these are ever likely to set the pond on fire, but I love them both for peace and solitude, for the utter off-grid stillness of the desert ... give or take a plane or two and sporadic gunfire. They also both feature a slog uphill through ankle-deep loose gravel, sand, or both, which is a reasonable workout.

Sloan Canyon is less than 20 minutes' drive away from home to the trailer that houses the 'visitor contact station'. One small claim to fame is that you can't get there from here, according to Maps. It has an island of paved road but you have to cross to it on unmarked dirt roads that are really just construction tracks for a new mega-subdivision. Having found the contact station and parked, you walk up a not-too-steep wash, the walls rising steadily higher. One turn, two, and the city is left behind.

Last turn before the city disappears

Petroglyphs

Looking up the canyon

Mosaic Canyon, Death Valley,
walking up the 30+ foot long marble slide.
Yes, I slid back down. No, there is no photographic evidence

This canyon is noted for the variety and profusion of its petroglyphs from several cultures and periods, probably the closest place to Vegas where you can see such a number of them. I was struck by their being out in the open - most of the petroglyphs I've seen so far are under rock overhangs or otherwise sheltered.

Another really cool thing about Sloan Canyon is its rock slides - not as in landslides, but as in slides made of rock, polished by water as it roars down in flash floods. They're not as extensive as the marble one at Mosaic Canyon in Death Valley ... but on the other hand,

Slide at Sloan Canyon - approx 7 feet tall

they're a lot closer to home. And you can slide right down them. It is a lot of fun.

The park ranger at the contact station thought we might see tarantulas - it was the time of year where they're out and about. He showed us a photo of one on his phone, taken just outside the door. Well, we didn't. I guess all those fierce critters are pretty rare, really. I've still only seen tarantulas and scorpions in captivity, and rattlesnakes in the freezer at El Dorado Canyon (yeah, thereby hangs another tale). Anyone who knows me knows I'm not the world's keenest arachnophile, but I will admit to being curious to see one in the wild. (On an intellectual level, that is. If and when, I'll probably have nightmares after.)

Descending into Boy Scout Canyon. This is the first spot that
Harry would have really objected to

Boy Scout Canyon is less well known - it's in one of our guide books, and it has hot springs that we didn't get to yet but will one day. It's further east and involves a drive down dirt roads around the edge of a local gun club's firing range. You start driving down a wash, and go as far as your vehicle can - not far, for a 2wd passenger car that you care about at all. We parked, laced our boots and walked.

It's pretty plain at first sight and even at second. But look closely, and the high walls are full of long slow stories of accretion, of persistence, of cataclysm. The sky looks impossibly blue against the purplish brown of the hills. We keep stopping to look at the shapes of the rocks, and glitter of small crystals among them - at a nook in the canyon wall with shrubs in natural bonsai - at ripples in the alluvium where it's been stirred by wind and water, braided with trails.

We didn't see any animal bigger than a lizard throughout our walk down and in, back up and out. That includes humans - there were bootprints, but we had the place to ourselves. Your own footsteps scraping through the loose underfoot, your own voice and gentle breathing sound in your ears, so you stop, hold your breath a moment, and the silence is so deep you can hear your heartbeat. Cellphone reception? Nope. Just us - and distant echoing reports of people firing their weapons. Just as well. We might have thought we'd stumbled into paradise.

Sunset, looking towards the Black Mountains and McCullough Hills