Fall Canyon is one of the best and most famous canyon hiking destinations in Death Valley, being known for its towering walls and beautiful narrows.  Difficulties encountered on the hike through the lower canyon include slow hiking on deep gravel and a medium difficulty bypass to see the narrows beyond the 1st dry fall.  A Google Earth map of the hiking route can be found by clicking on the button above.  Parking for the hike is located at the mouth of Titus Canyon in a small gravel parking lot.  GPS coordinates for the mouth of Fall Canyon are 36° 49.873'N, 117° 10.439'W.  GPS coordinates for the 1st dry fall of Fall Canyon are 36° 50.756'N, 117° 8.738'W.

Many people consider Fall Canyon to be the best canyon in Death Valley. This point was emphasized a few years ago when the First Lady of the United States came to Death Valley for a visit.  As her visit would be short, the question was which two places in Death Valley would she be taken to as representative of the park's beauty?  The answer was Fall Canyon and Mosaic Canyon.  To the surprise of some, I held off on visiting Fall Canyon for over a decade after first coming to the park.  In fact, my first visit to Fall Canyon came in late November of 2008.  This is because I always wanted to save some of the best destinations in the park for future visits.  On each trip, I try to choose one or two major destinations and then spend the rest of my time visiting lesser known places.  And that's why Fall Canyon was saved for this particular trip.  Joining me for this hike were Daria and John Leidel, who had driven in from Marin County the day before.  We can assure you after hiking Fall Canyon that it is an extraordinary place, especially the narrows above the dry fall 2 1/2 miles into the canyon.  My only complaint would be the amount of people which we encountered while hiking.  We returned to hike Fall Canyon in March of 2011, which was 2 1/2 years after our visit.  Once again, we enjoyed the great narrows and had an excellent hike.  I also managed to find a unique viewpoint of the narrows after a challenging climb, which you will see in my pictures at the bottom.  The next time I hiked Fall Canyon was in December of 2011, but it was a hike into the upper canyon to see the 2nd and 3rd dry falls.  My plan, which we executed perfectly, was to hike over from Upper Titus Canyon to Upper Fall Canyon via a side canyon which connects the two.  You can check out pictures of that trip on my Upper Fall Canyon report.  Our hikes took place on November 29, 2008 and March 19, 2011.

Many more photographs taken during our visit are available for viewing for this destination.  To see all of them, choose one of the two options presented below.  The two options are Slideshow viewing and Trip Report viewing.  The Slideshow option allows for viewing larger images with an autoplay option and a full screen option (available on most browsers).  This option works very well for large computer screens and tablets.  The Trip Report option allows for viewing smaller pictures in a standard scroll-down format and enlarging of any panoramic photos taken during our visit.  Click on the option of your choice to view all of our photos from this destination.  The Slideshow format opens in a new browser window and the Trip Report format uses the same browser window for viewing.