The Ladders and Painted canyon have been on my to-do list for quite some time. Finally I had the opportunity to go with my Wednesday hiking buddies. It's quite a drive to Mecca Hills but worth it. We met in Indio, then drove to Painted Canyon which is a 4.7 mile bumpy dirt road. SUV is recommended.
There is so much to explore in this area. Not only is it a fun rock scramble with lots of ladders to climb up but the slot canyons are beautiful. Painted Canyon exhibits many mineral deposits of rose, pink, red, purple and green colors. My pictures don't do it justice at all.
Salton Sea
Nice pics, makes me want to go out there too. In the photo with you standing in a hole, is a ladder missing or is that a scramble up?
You seem to have a pretty big to-do list. Of course the more stuff I read in this forum the more I realize I need to get out more.
"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours".
Donald Shimoda
Jeff, yes there is a ladder. You just can't see it with my pic from my phone. I also took a pic of my friend where you can clearly see the ladder. You should go so much fun and lots more to explore.
Tekewin-surprisingly for a Wednesday there were about 10 cars at the trailhead. And a camper. Also, quite a few kids with their parents but no one followed the same trails we did. We climbed up a few ladders that were probably intimidating to others. There were so many side trails and lots of opportunities for rock scrambling. We did alot of exploring. When we hiked through the Painted canyon we were all alone. I think because we went the day before Thanksgiving it seemed a bit crowded at the parking area.
Nice report, and it looks like a fun area. It's about three hours from San Diego, so if I go I might want to stay overnight. I know it's on BLM Land, but just off the road it's considered Wilderness, so no cars allowed. Did you notice if anyone was camping along the road as you went in, or if there were signs prohibiting camping? BLM is usually pretty relaxed about that sort of thing, but I'd rather not get out there and find out the hard way... Thanks!
Jfr- we actually seen a camper out there about a mile from the trailhead, so I assume it's ok. Plus, there was a bathroom were we saw the camper.
It looks like a nice area for overnight camping. It was a 2-hour drive for me.
Thanks to your TR, My wife and I decided to head out there from San Diego. We spent the first day mostly driving and doing a big loop hike around the perimiter, then camped down the road a bit. There were several others camping nearby.
The next morning we woke up early and hit the fun parts: Rope Canyon and Ladder Canyon. We decided to climb UP rope canyon, then hit the ridge trail before descending ladder canyon. We figured to do Rope Canyon upward because we could always downclimb a rope if we had to, but we might not be able to climb back up if we reached a broken rope or other barrier. And ladders should work well in either direction.
Anyway, Rope Canyon was an absolute blast. Super-tight slot canyon with several big chockstones that you had to crawl under. Not recommended for overweight people. At all. I had to take off my backpack and turn sideways to get through several narrow sections! Climbing the ropes was a lot of fun, too. Very cool canyon.
Video of Rope Canyon with Tight Squeezes
Up the final rope near the top of the slot section
Here is a 15 minute unedited Ladder Canyon GoPro video.
The first few minutes are general slot canyon walking, so skip ahead to 4:40 minutes as we climb down a sketchy ladder, deeper into the slot. And the ladder was missing the second-to-last rung so I almost landed on my butt!
