I love a good rock scramble.
Finding a path in amongst the boulders, jumping, climbing and scraping knees, it’s all a great adventure and challenge to my physical strength.
After being told about a secret canyon that only locals know about near the Hoover Dam, I recruited three others from the hostel to come with me on the adventure. Second prize if we didn’t find it from the vague directions we were given, was to be a tour of the Hoover Dam.
The canyon delivered far more than expected with great rock scrambling, even requiring guide ropes to haul yourself up or down in an abseil fashion in a few places. Mixed in amongst this were some hot springs and some fabulous formations along the main canyon wall and finally, at the end we came to the Colorado River.
I was keen to see the view of the Colorado without the canyon walls limiting my periphery, so I braved the icy cold water (in stark contrast to the hot water flowing into the river from the canyon) and keeping to a ledge along a rock wall where it was shallowest, I made my way towards a rocky point. At one stage I thought I was going to get hypothermia and had to force myself to continue a little further until I could climb up the rock wall and onto the point. The view was totally worth it.
I had the bridge near the Hoover Dam occupying my sights to the right and then on the left was the canyon with walls reaching 500m into the air. It was incredible and I sat there for ages with that special feeling you get when you’ve challenged yourself and won and when you are somewhere that most other travellers don’t know about. It was great.
So while I may have been a little underwhelmed by the Grand Canyon, this canyon and its rock scrambling adventure made up for it.
a little cameo 