Overview

Long Canyon is a nice, remote-feeling desert hike with a trailhead that is less than an hour from town. The route follows an old road through some wonderful Mojave Desert Scrub scenery into a deep, narrow canyon that runs up into pinyon-juniper woodlands. The top of the narrows is about 3.3 miles from the trailhead, but you can keep going for as far as you want.

Link to map or elevation profile.

For general information on camping, regulations, other issues, and the natural history of the Wildlife Refuge, see the Desert National Wildlife Range -- Area Overview page.

Watch Out

Other than the standard warnings about hiking in the desert, this is a wild and remote area. There are no particular dangers, but be prepared to take care of yourself out here. It is just an hour from town, but this area is seldom traveled.

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

This is a wildlife refuge, so pay extra attention to respecting the land. Please, don't bother the bighorn sheep. They have a hard enough time making a living in these desert lands.

Getting to the Trailhead

This hike is located on the Desert National Wildlife Range, about 2 hours north of town.

From town, drive out to the Desert National Wildlife Range. From Corn Creek Field Station (Table 1, Site 106), continue east to a T-intersection a few yards beyond the parking area (Site 731). Turn right onto Mormon Well Road and drive south following the road for 9.3 miles as it winds around to the east and north up along the east side of the Sheep Range. Stop at a large parking area on the left side of a hard curve to the right (Site 883). Park here; this is the trailhead. For details of the road, see the Yucca Peak route.

When passing Corn Creek Field Station, be sure to stop and sign the visitor register. Use a false name if you worry about the government tracking your movements, but they need all the visitor-use statistics they can get to argue for more funding.

The Hike

The trailhead is on the top of a dirt cliff overlooking Long Canyon Wash. From the trailhead (Table 2, Waypoint 1), the route starts on an old road that runs north from the parking area. The old road runs along the top of bluffs overlooking Long Canyon Wash from the east. This part of the route runs across open country where there are great views in all directions. Off to the east is the Yucca Forest, a broad, flat valley that seems to get a fair amount of precipitation and is full of Joshua trees and other vegetation. To the south is Fossil Ridge, a striking ridge that, in fact, is full of fossils. To the west is Yucca Peak with imposing summit cliffs. Long Canyon wraps around the east and north sides of Yucca Peak before turning north into the narrows.

About 1.0 miles up the old road, the route passes several large agave roasting pits (for example, Wpt. 2 and Wpt. 3). Unfortunately, the road actually runs over two of them. These are places where the native peoples brought Utah agave plants to centralized roasting areas. It is always interesting to me that there can be so many agave roasting pits in an area where there is so little firewood and so few agave plants.

The vegetation here is Joshua tree, yucca, blackbrush, saltbush, spiny menodora, few fall flowers, and Nevada Jointfir. Near the trailhead, the vegetation is fairly sparse, but it gets more dense nearer the hills, and in the wash it is much more dense and diverse.

From the agave roasting pits, the old road turns west into the mouth of Long Canyon. Not far beyond the pits, the road starts to angle away from the wash and heads up a side canyon to the north. I don't know where the road goes, but the route leaves the road early and drops into the wash (Wpt. 4), cutting down through one of the little gullies to avoid the steepest slopes on the side of the wash.

In the wash, the route continues upstream and westward for about 1.5 miles to what appears to be the head of a box canyon. The wash passes interesting carbonate (limestone or dolomite) cliffs and caves high on the sides of the canyon, and there are a few glimpses of Yucca Peak. The vegetation in the wash is more lush and more diverse than it was along the old road, which provides an interesting contrast between areas that get precipitation and those that get precipitation and runoff.

At the head of the canyon (Wpt. 5), beneath the towering cliffs on the north side of Yucca Peak, the canyon takes a hard turn to the north and cuts up through the carbonate cliffs. The canyon is fairly narrow for about 0.8 miles to the top of the cliffs (Wpt. 6).

I ran out of time here and turned back, so I can't say what is above this point, but it appears that you can continue for as far as you want up into Long Valley.