Overview

This picturesque and geologically interesting, but moderately strenuous, 3.1-mile hike starts at Zabriskie Point and runs down Gower Gulch through badland mudhills and narrow canyons to the Golden Canyon trailhead, passing a borax mining area and a 10-foot, 3rd-class pour-over along the way.

This hike requires a vehicle shuttle or other arrangement, as it is a one-way hike down the canyon.

Link to map.

Watch Out

Other than the standard warnings about hiking in the desert, ...this hike is fairly safe, but stay out of the canyon (and off the mudhills) if it is raining or threatens to rain because of possible flash floods. The pour-over at the lower end of Gower Gulch is an easy 3rd-class downclimb, but the rock is water-polished and slick, plus it is covered with dust and gravel, so there is greater than usual risk if slipping. There are several open mine shafts along this route; it is never safe to enter old mines.

While hiking, please respect the land and the other people out there, and try to Leave No Trace of your passage. Also, this is a fairly long hike, so be sure to bring the 10 Essentials.

Getting to the Trailhead

This hike is located along Highway 160 in Death Valley National Park, about 2-1/2 hours northwest of Las Vegas. From town, drive out to Death Valley, pay the entrance fee, and then drive to the Zabriskie Point Trailhead, depending on which end of the trail you want to start the hike. Park here; this is the trailhead.

Consider arranging a pickup or parking a second vehicle at the Golden Canyon Trailhead for a one-way, downhill hike through the canyon.

The Hike

From the Zabriskie Point trailhead by the information sign (Table 2, Waypoint 10), the route runs northwest on a well-defined gravel trail for about 1 minute to a low point on the ridge north of the Zabriskie Point overlook. Note that the trail does not follow the paved path westward and up to the Zabriskie Point overlook; the route runs north from the parking area and across some gravel flats before turning west.

The trail climbs to a notch on a low ridge that separates the Furnace Creek drainage (to the northeast) from the Gower Gulch drainage (to the southwest). The trail then runs generally westward for 0.4 miles as it drops through narrow, winding canyons to the edge of Gower Gulch Wash (Wpt. 12). From the edge, you can look back up some 225 vertical-feet and see the Zabriskie Point overlook atop yellow mudhills.

A sign at the edge of the wash says that you have 2.7 miles to go. The Gower Gulch route leaves the trail, drops into the gravel wash, and heads downhill. The other trail turns to the northwest and climbs up a mud ridge enroute to Golden Canyon.

The Gower Gulch route runs down the wash. The gray gravel in the wash contrasts nicely with the pale yellow badlands, and there is enough dirt mixed into the gravel to make the surface hard and easy to walk on. The vegetation in the wash is sparse, mostly desert holly and prickly penstemon, but it is lush compared to the mudhills.

Down Gower Gulch, there are places where water eroded the edges of the mudhills revealing the underlying sedimentary layers. It seems that the surface erodes and covers the hills with mud, making them look soft and rounded. There also seems to places where a volcanic conglomerate or pyroclastic rubble is mixed into the mud; makes you wonder if volcanic rocks were blasted into the ancient lake. The mudhills survived the eons because they were capped by basalt flows, and in places you can see the remains of the basalt cap on ridges south of the wash. For information on the geologic history of the area, hike the Golden Canyon nature trail.

The route runs down Gower Gulch Wash for 0.7 miles to a trail junction (Wpt. 06) marked with a sign (you wouldn't know it otherwise). The trail to the north (right) goes up and over the ridge to Golden Canyon. From this junction, continue westward down Gower Gulch Wash.

From the trail junction, the wash runs through mud hills for another 0.6 miles. At that point, the mud hills end and the wash begins to descend into conglomerate rocks that form the lower portion of Gower Gulch and Golden Canyon (there are some sedimentary layers here too). This is also the edge of the borax mining area (Wpt. 07). Several mineshafts penetrate the sides of the canyon, and an old road runs way up the hillside north of the wash. From the bottom of the canyon, you can't see any structures.

Just downstream from the mining area, the wash runs through a canyon with polished conglomerate rocks and green cliffs, and there are fossilized ripple marks in some red rocks on the canyon wall. About 0.3 miles below the mining area, the route is blocked by the Gower Gulch Falls (Wpt. 08), a 10-ft pour-over in the polished conglomerate rock. It is an easy 3rd-class scramble to get down the pour-over; there are several shorter scramble-downs in this section of the canyon too.

From the pour-over, the route runs downstream for 0.3 miles to the mouth of Gower Gulch, a 25-ft pour-over that suddenly opens onto the floor of Death Valley (Wpt. 09). When you first arrive at the edge of the pour-over, there is no apparent way to get down, but then you notice the trail cutting across ledges off to the north (right). This is a spectacular end to the canyon that would be nice to see with flowing water. Below the pour-over, you can see a fairly new erosion channel cut into the old alluvial fan with great contrast between new (bright gray) and old (dark and desert varnished) alluvium. The new channel has 6- to 10-ft high sidewalls that keep the newer waterflows tightly concentrated and flowing all the way out into bottom of the valley.

After taking in the view, the route follows the ledges northward until reaching the gentle slopes on the floor of Death Valley. From there, the route continues northward across the tops of several little alluvial fans to the Golden Canyon trailhead (Wpt. 01), which is about 0.8 miles north of the pour-over.