Mosaic Canyon, Death Valley National Park

4 more images

A short gravel road located just west of Stovepipe Wells leads to the trailhead. The parking area also offers a nice view of Stovepipe Wells below and Death Valley beyond. Although the trail appears at first glance to be a wide gravel trail, bring your hiking boots if you have them. The trail will narrow and pass over some smooth rocky marble surfaces. Footing is difficult at some spots. You can traverse the trail in athletic shoes, as I did, but I guarantee you’ll occasional be on all fours like a mountain goat in order to avoid being flat on the trail floor after slipping and sliding of the slick marble. The marble trail is picturesque. Eventually the trail will open into the prize, a wide scenic canyon. The trail was our first adventure upon reaching Death Valley, as we took this walk shortly after our arrival. This was a nice, somewhat short hike that proved for us to be a wonderful introduction to the wilder side Death Valley.

2 more images

One of the most colorful parts of Death Valley, Mosaic Canyon offers some good hiking and picturesque scenery. It's a moderately difficult hike, where the trail winds and twists through some narrow passageways.

Mosaic Canyon is located off a gravel spur road just north of Stovepipe Wells. A two mile trail leads through the colorful canyon. Its an easy walk, although some sections require a bit of scrambling towards the end. Its worth a trip out here, even for a brief stroll, to admire the multi hued walls of the narrow canyon.

Mosaic Canyon is a beautiful gorge washed out of the rock over eons. The hike goes through a narrow gorge that is in some spots only wide enough for one person, and contains beautiful water-eroded rock. The hike involves some neat, gentle clambering over rocks. It's easy enough to do with a toddler, but definitely some people would find it too much.

Hiking in Mosaic Canyon is easy and fun. The most interesting narrows can be found in the first 1/4 mile of the trail. Here you hike along the winding marble corridors as seen in photo. Some areas only allow 1 person to pass. Then the canyon gradually widens up.

Keep pressing on, after the first mile the canyon gets narrow again and the trail gets a little difficult. Occasionally you need to climb (with hands) around the dry waterfalls or huge rocks that block the narrows.

The marble corridor of Mosaic Canyon is what makes the hike interesting. Polished by years of rain and water runoff, the marble walls (to be more precise, dolomite) are silky smooth with beautiful patterns. For a while I thought I was hiking in the restrooms of Bellagio in Vegas.

Be warned that, this area can be extremely dangerous when it rains. In a few minutes, the beautiful corridor becomes channels filled with gushing runoff.

Mosaic Canyon is the popular trails in the National Park. The short, easy walk is along with pretty, multi-coloured, layered rocks.
After a few hundred metres of narrow twisting passageways the ravine curves to the south, opens out and becomes less interesting. It branches several times over the next mile, and climbs quite steeply. The walk through this section takes only 10 minutes but the mosaic and marble formations are quite enchanting and well-worth a quick visit.

You can walk a short distance from parking to see a colorful canyon, but you can also make it a longer hike.

Spectacular rock and sand patterns. The colours are very "unrocky" and it's smooth so smooth! A nice trail!

The Mosaic Canyon, 3 miles from Stovepipe Wells, provides an exciting walk-in as it gets narrower and narrower...