Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Painted Canyon Ladder Loop Hike

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Out of all the hikes we've done, I have to say that the Painted Canyon/Ladder Loop in Mecca, California was one of the best so far! The colossal colorful Painted Canyon rock layers had beautiful hues of pink, gray, and brown in the morning sunlight. We explored a couple of narrow slot canyons that we actually squeezed our way through the crawl spaces and climbed down a couple of ladders.

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At the start of our hike my husband saw a pile of rocks in a formation of an arrow that was pointing to several huge boulders. It didn't appear to be an opening for us to crawl through so we ignored it and passed it. Little did we know, that was the beginning of the trail and we ended up doing the Painted Canyon Ladder Loop in reverse. Even though no one listened to Gordie (my hubby lol!), it was still a spectacular hike!

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Big Painted Canyon/Ladder Loop


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5 comments:

William Waite said...

Great video! My wife and I, along with our daughter, son-in-law and four grandchildren did the Ladders & Big Painted Canyon Loop last weekend (great weather; topped out at about 74 degrees). As we hiked along, we decided we were having our own "Indiana Jones" adventure. It took us just under 4 hours with ample time along the way for some rock stacking in the Painted Canyon portion of our hike!

Desertnut said...

Thanks, William! We like doing the rock stacking too. This by far is one of the best hikes in the Coachella Valley area. We also like the San Jacinto Peak hike too. Best times to hike that one is around summer time when the desert is 110 and only 80 degrees up the mountain.

Anonymous said...

Hi , doing this hike May 12 early am with a friend. Playing it by ear on the weather hoping its not to hot that day/weekend. You did it in reverse, curious if that may be smart if its hot that day, even with a 830 ish am start since most of the hike is exposed that direction and ends up it the slots. Any ideas/suggestions will be appreciated, Bill.

Anonymous said...

Forgot email, curranb@msn.com. thanks in advance.

Desertnut said...

Hi Bill,

Thanks for visiting my video blog!. The best way to do Painted Canyon hike is to go the right way and not in reverse. Walking in the sandy canyon is a lot easier going down hill. Hope the weather is not too hot on the day you gol. Make sure you bring plenty of water and possibly go earlier then 8:30 a.m.

Have fun on your hike! Let me know how it turns out.