Overview

Garden Canyon is a curious geologic feature where a wash cuts through a limestone mountain range. Usually, washes flow around mountain ranges, but here, because of earthquake faulting, the canyon cut through the range, thereby giving narrow access to the core of the mountains.

Starting from the Azure Ridge Cabin at the end of Garden Wash Road, the route runs down into the canyon. At about 1/4 miles out, the route passes Azure Ridge Copper Mine with dangerous open adits.

Beyond the mine, the route continues down the narrowing wash. At the narrowest point, there are curious fossils in the rock walls. The route eventually exits Garden Canyon into a broad open area with perhaps the northernmost stand of Ocotillos growing on the hillsides, which is about 1.3 miles from the trailhead. A bit farther down the wash, a second (shorter) narrows cuts through a smaller ridge and opens onto vast views east towards the Grand Wash Cliffs in Arizona.

Link to map.

Watch Out

Other than the standard warnings about hiking in the desert, ...this is a wild and remote area. I encountered no unusual hazards in the wash, but be careful on smooth rocks as a twisted ankle would be more serious here than in less-remote areas. The mine looks interesting, but it is never safe to enter holes in the ground.

This is a wild and remote area without services of any kind (no restrooms, no water, no gas, no food). Bring what you need to survive. Be prepared and be self-reliant. Someone will find you eventually if you stay on a main road, but be prepared to survive alone for a day or two. Cell phones only work along parts of the paved road. Cell phones don't work in this area.

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. Don't even bring your cell phone, except to use it as a camera.

Getting to the Trailhead

Garden Canyon is located in Gold Butte National Monument at the northeast end of Lake Mead, about 4 hours northeast of Las Vegas in a wild, remote, and scenic area adjacent to the Arizona Border.

From town, drive out to Gold Butte National Monument. From Whitney Pocket, continue south on the unpaved Gold Butte Road for 16.2 miles to a fork in the road. Stay left onto Devils Cove Road and drive southeast for an additional 1.0 miles to Garden Spring Road, a sandy road in the wash on the left.

Following Garden Spring Road 0.7 miles to Garden Spring and Corral, Garden Wash Road forks left in front of the corral. Driving 4 miles northeast on Garden Wash Road, the road ends near the mouth of the narrow Garden Canyon and 80 yards before the historic Azure Ridge Cabin.

Just before the road ends, there is a convenient place to turn around and stop. Park here; this is the trailhead.

The Hike

From the trailhead (Table 1, Waypoint 01), the route passes the old Azure Ridge Cabin (Wpt. 02). Little is left except for the collapsing shell of one cabin and the collapsed boards of another one or two. Nothing of particular interest remains, but it is interesting to consider the lives of men who lived and worked here in the 1890-1920 time frame. The plywood on the walls probably post-dates 1928, so the standing cabin may have been built or retrofitted by hopeful prospectors in the 1950s during resurgent, but unsuccessful, copper mining activity in this region.

From the cabin, the route runs down the wash into the canyon. Before long, the canyon walls narrow (Wpt. 03) and the hike gets more interesting.

After winding around a few bends, hikers pass Azure Ridge Copper Mine (Wpt. 04), on the right. The mine was active from about 1890 to 1918, and possibly again in the 1950s, and it yielded zinc and copper with smaller amounts of gold, silver, and other metals.

In the mine area, the north side of the wash appears to have been used as a work or staging area. The mine openings are on the south side. The lowest mine opening is just above wash-level and had been shorn up with timbers, but they are falling apart after so many years. There is a bundle of timbers at the entrance as if left with intention to further shore up the entrance. This adit goes into hard rock and is relatively safe, but it was grated in about 2019. The timbers at the entrance are falling away, so don't touch anything that could let the mountain side crumble away.

There is a work area and two additional adits higher up the slope. The work area is just above and left of the lower adit, and there is a pile of dark-colored ore, some pipes, and what remains of a wooden table. The middle adit is directly above the work area, and the third adit is up and right from there.

Continuing down the canyon, the wash winds around a big horseshoe bend, and at the end of the long, straight section, a pile of timbers washed down by floodwaters marks the end of the illegal ATV tracks in the canyon (Wpt. 05; note that the road is closed beyond the cabin).

From this point down, the canyon is narrow, and the wash runs over lots of exposed limestone bedrock.

After winding around a bit, the canyon reaches the narrowest point. Here, odd paint splotches on the south wall (Wpt. 06) appear to have been left by geologists marking interesting fossils in the limestone. I can imagine that the white paint was background for writing identification numbers that have since disappeared. Many of these appear to be Baculites [Wikipedia link] (genus Baculites), a type of ammonite with a straight shell (like an uncoiled ammonite).

From the fossil area, the canyon remains narrow until it begins to open onto a bajada (Wpt. 07) on the east side of Azure Ridge. Just after the canyon opens, the northern-most population of ocotillo can be seen growing on both sides of the wash.

The open wash continues another 0.4 miles to a second canyon cut through a second ridge. The lower narrows (Wpt. 08) is shorter, only about 1/4 miles long, and opens onto the final bajada with grand views out across the Grand Wash in Arizona.

From wherever one gets, turn around and hike back out.