Location: Lake Mead National Recreation Area
Length: 8.56 mi
Elev. gain: 1,480 ft
Time: 4 hrs 31 mins
The hike:
This hike was hard.
Most of the time there was no defined trail. You just had to know the direction you were going and find your way there.
Soon I reached Bowl of Fire area.
This is also where the climbing started.
Below are the views from the “trail” looking back.
The hike was getting harder and harder, with lots of scrambling.
But the views were great.
Finally reached Anniversary Peak.
But then I realized I had to hike along the ridgeline that was basically piles of loose rocks and it looked very sketchy.
While working up the courage, I spent some time enjoying the views of Bowl of Fire from the distance.
It was time to continue. I took my time. I was scared of heights so this wasn’t easy for me.
According to the trail map I downloaded, I was supposed to turn left here which means I had to go down the shaded slope on the left in the picture below.
There was no trail! I didn’t know how anyone could go down this thing as it was just loose rocks/gravel/dirt on a very long steep slope.
At this point I felt trapped. I didn’t want to go forward because it looked very dangerous. But I didn’t want to go back either as it was also dangerous and hard.
Here I was surveying the slope to see where I could possibly start my descent. It was a lot steeper than it looked in the pictures.
I finally decided to take my chances and make a go of it. It was one of the most horrifying descent I had ever done. A lot of times there was nothing I could step on or hold on to, because everything was loose. There were some rocks in the dirt but once you hold on to them, they came off. At one point I was just scared to move at all because it seemed that any small movement would cause me to slide all the way down. I felt so helpless. I froze there for minutes thinking this might finally be the day when I had to be rescued. But there was no other hikers and no cell reception so I didn’t even know when that would happen 😂.
But miraculously I managed to get down without injury.
I wasn’t able to take any picture during the first part of the descent as I was hanging on to my dear life. Below are pictures of the second part of the descent as I looked back. This was a lot easier than the first part.
The trail got a lot easier after that. And after a while, I reached the slot canyon Anniversary Narrows.
The rest of the hike was easy. I had to run a few times to make up the time I lost during the descent.
My route:
