Overview

The Lime Canyon Wilderness Area was designated in 2002. The area includes the long, disjointed, and sparsely vegetated carbonate Lime Ridge, deep canyons that cut through the ridge, and desert bajadas that overlook the Overton Arm of Lake Mead. The geology of the area is complex, but the main feature is the ridge (of system of ridges) that was caused by the tilting and uplifting of carbonate sedimentary rocks. The uplift blocked existing drainage systems and probably formed lakes, but new drainages formed and cut through the ridge, making for deep, narrow canyons and some odd geologic structures.

Lime Canyon makes for a fairly easy and interesting route that cuts across the southern end of the wilderness area. Initially the canyon is narrow and rocky, then it gets narrower and winds about, opens into a wide desert wash, takes an odd twist in an area of colorful mudstones where the canyon actually forks going downstream, and finally runs over the bajadas into the Overton Arm of Lake Mead. There are no established trails, but Lime Canyon makes for an easy hike with no predetermined end; just walk until your time runs out, then wander back to the trailhead. If you are like me, bring a headlamp.

Link to map or elevation profile.

Watch Out

Other than the standard warnings about hiking in the desert, ...this is a safe hike in a wild and remote place. I encountered no unusual hazards, but be careful out in this remote area because even a twisted ankle could be serious. The Gold Butte road is graded, and the Backcountry Byway to the Lime Canyon turnoff is pretty good, but the side road into the wilderness area is sandy and drops into a wash. Either drive carefully and stop early if you need to, take a 4-WD vehicle, or just walk from the Byway. If you get that far, there is a 3rd-class waterfall about 3.5 miles down the wash.

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 remote hike, so be sure to bring the 10 Essentials.

This hike goes into a federally designated wilderness area, so pay extra attention to respecting the land.

Trail Guide

Getting to the Trailhead

Lime Canyon is located in the Lime Canyon Wilderness Area, which is out in the Gold Butte region at the northeast end of Lake Mead. This hike is about 3 hours east of Las Vegas. The trip includes about 20 miles of rough paved road and 25 miles of dirt road -- this area is wild and remote. Gold Butte Road is graded, and at least the first few miles of the Red Bluff Spring Backcountry Byway is a good, unimproved dirt road.

From the intersection of Gold Butte Road and Red Bluff Spring Backcountry Byway Road (Site 806), turn right (north) onto the Byway. Drive north on the Backcountry Byway for 3.4 miles to a small dirt road that cuts off to the west (left) (Site 809), heading for a major gap in the ridge. The ridge is Lime Ridge; the gap is Lime Canyon.

The side road leads into a pocket of non-wilderness in the wilderness area. Either drive down the road (probably requires 4-WD) or park at the Byway and hike about 0.9 miles to the mouth of the canyon (Site 808). If you drive, the road drops into a sandy wash. The boundary of the Wilderness Area was not marked when I was there, but there is an old cattle fence and a gate in the mouth of the canyon. This is an obvious place to stop, although it might be inside the wilderness area, and some people on ATVs and motorcycles continue down the canyon into the Wilderness Area. Park here; this is the trailhead.

The Hike

From the trailhead (Table 2, Waypoint 21), walk through the gate and into the canyon. Just around the first bend, a big boulder in the wash blocks most off-road vehicles.

The canyon is deep, winding, and fairly narrow with spectacular carbonate cliffs that rise hundreds of feet to the crest of Lime Ridge. The vertical walls the border the wash never are that high, but they are pretty high, and every now and then the canyon narrows a bit such that there are several "narrows" in the canyon.

As is typical for carbonate-cliff country, the canyon walls are nicely layered, and the ledges provide habitat for barrel cactus and a few shrubs. The vegetation in the wash is diverse, with dominant species that include catclaw acacia, desert willow, Arrowweed, Ephedra, desert almond, Paperbag bush, indigo bush, bickhorn cholla, and a variety of composites. Where there are rocky slopes between the wash and the cliffs, vegetation also includes Joshua trees, yucca, mound cacti, and agave.

The rocks look as if they should be fossiliferous, and I did find some curiosities, but nothing that I would definitely say was a fossil. Some of the curiosities looked like the polished off ends of crinoid stems (circle with a hole in the middle), but they didn't look quite right.

The upper part of the canyon is quite winding, and it takes about 1.6 hiking miles to go 1.0 air miles and get below the narrow section and out onto the west side of Lime Ridge (Wpt. 24). On the west side, the canyon opens up into a broad desert wash between rolling hills. This part of the wash gets a fair bit of off-road vehicle use, although most riders seem to stay in the sandy bottom of the wash and do little permanent damage. There are animal trails on the bench along the south side of the wash that provide fairly easy walking.

As you get lower in the canyon, you start to notice some low red cliffs farther down the wash. Then, about 2.9 miles out and just before you get to the red cliffs, you run into a 15-foot waterfall where the water falls into a slot in the floor of the wash (Wpt. 28). This area is geologically curious. The falls and the slot are in a layer of conglomerate rock formed from what appears to be riverine alluvial materials. This conglomerate layer overlies a layer of red mudstone deposits, and the interface between the two is a layer of conglomerate formed from a mixture of river cobbles and red muds. Below that layer is mudstone, mostly composed of bright reds, but with yellows, light purples, and dark purples scattered about. When the area is wet from rain, the colors are striking.

Standing atop the waterfall and looking downstream, you realize that the wash continues westward for another 250 yards or so following the same line that it has been following for the last mile, but then instead of bending slightly to the north (right) and continuing down what appears to be the main wash, it abruptly cuts south (left) and runs down what looks like a side canyon. This appears to be an unusual case of a canyon forking going downstream, probably caused by the uplift of the carbonate hills just downstream from the falls that form the south side of what looks like the main canyon.

Following the watercourse, hike around the conglomerate falls on the north side using animal trails or the old road, then drop back into the wash. Fortunately, the off-road drivers don't seem to go this way, as the road they use goes down the canyon to the west. Continue down the wash, which curves south when it hits the base of the carbonate hills (Wpt. 28.5). The colorful canyon runs narrow for about 0.3 miles to a narrow slot (Wpt. 29). Passing that, you realize that the narrows were a prelude to a waterfall (Wpt. 30). The falls look an imposing 25-feet-high from the top, but the vertical fall is only about 12 feet (they always look higher from the top).

The falls can be passed fairly easily with a bit of 3rd-class downclimbing. From the top of the falls, follow ledges southeast (left) past a catclaw acacia and a barrel cactus, then through another shrub (catclaw?) to the dirt slopes below.

Below the falls, the colorful canyon continues for another 0.3 miles before it starts to open up again into a broad wash (Wpt. 31). This is a far as I went (3.7 miles out), so I can't say what lies beyond, but it looks as if you should be able to continue down the wash from here without running into any more waterfalls.

In the lower part of the canyon, the red muds give way to yellow mudstones and gray limestones with layers of borate material mixed in. Most of the borates lie in parallel layers, but in some places, fractures perpendicular or oblique to those layers produced places where borate materials create a cross-hatched or checkerboard pattern in the canyon walls. In some places, the rocks record what looks like mixed layers of mudstone, limestone, and borates, perhaps indicating ancient rising and falling sea levels or lake levels in this area. I saw no fossils here, although it was getting late and I didn't look very hard.

Return to the trailhead by retracing your route back up the wash. Be sure to leave more time for going back than it took you to get here -- it's all uphill on the way back.