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This page last updated on 04/10/2018
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09/04/2012 Trip Notes: Harvey Smith and I drove into Cottonwood Valley, behind the Late Night Trailhead on the 2.6 mile long Black Velvet Road, shown in (Fig. 02) below, to the Black Velvet Canyon Trailhead. Click on (Fig. 01) above to pinpoint this canyon. For a detailed map and more information on the hikes in Cottonwood Valley and along the Wilson Cliffs, go to my page Daytrip - Wilson Cliffs & Cottonwood Valley. Once this road makes a sharp left turn, you start heading straight towards Black Velvet Canyon as seen in the center of (Fig. 03). Climbing a relatively small hill to the right of the road revealed some really beautiful views facing north.
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| After leaving the parking area at the trailhead, the trail starts out on an old dirt road for several hundred feet before turning into an often rocky, well defined trail (Fig. 05 & 06). As is often the case when hiking in the desert, distances are a little deceiving, and it seemed to take longer than we anticipated to reach the cliffs that surround this canyon. Hidden from view, in the center of (Fig. 7), we were then even more surprised to find that when we finally reached a point relatively close, that we had to hike 50 feet down a partly washed out loose graveled trail (Fig. 08) to reach the bottom of the wash (Fig. 09) before being able to continue any further up into the canyon. |
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| Once we reached the bottom of the wash, the views looking up the canyon walls (Fig. 10) towards the top of Black Velvet Peak were gorgeous. As we walked up the canyon, we came upon several rather large pools of water (Fig. 11) that were being filled by water that was running slowly, but steadily down the wash, probably the result of last weeks heavy rains. Several of these pools contained dozens of tadpoles. There were even a few small frogs (Fig. 12). There were also butterflies and numerous dragon flies (Fig. 13) flitting about the area. After Harvey did some more “scouting” ahead we determined that it was going to require some heavy scrambling (Fig.14) to continue much further. In fact, had we continued on much further we would have been confronted with the obstacle in (Fig.15). From this point, one has to use the permanent (blue) rope that a previous hiker has left, in order to get to the next level. Smartly, we decided to accept this final view up the canyon of the 2,000 foot high Black Velvet Wall (Fig. 15) before making the trek back. Notice Harvey behind the large boulder in the lower left of this picture. |
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