An epic ride through a tight canyon.

Echo Canyon

One of the most scenic climbs in the US.

What is the surface like?

Like every climb in Death Valley, you’ll encounter a range of surfaces along the same road. This one trends towards being very soft and sandy, and the further up you go in the canyon you’ll encounter huge rocks you might have to carry your bike over. We recommend coming prepared with the “beefiest” rig you can run… and a spare tire or two.

It seems like a lot of Death Valley climbs are horrendously bad at the bottom and then actually slowly get better and less rocky towards the top… opposite of your typical gravel road. The reason is because of flooding. The floods are so chaotic and powerful here that every time it rains, all of the roads, especially these back roads that aren’t maintained, are absolutely obliterated by everything that’s on top of the mountains. Knowing the short term history of the weather (at least a few months) and doing your research on park road conditions and closures is critical for riding here.

View the Images tab in our Profile Tool for more detailed information on the road surface.

Climb summary by Sam Lyons (@sam.lionman)

This 14 mile gravel climb begins Just above the Badwater Basin, right along Dante's View climb (one of the best road climbs in Death Valley).

Being so close to Furnace Creek (3 miles),  this is one of the heaviest traveled dirt surfaces in the park - at least the first chunk of it.

This road leads to some very popular campsites, so the odds are fairly high you’ll see other people somewhere along the first part of this route. Much different than riding north into the Death Valley wilderness, where you can go days without seeing a single person.

Like many of these climbs, the first chunk of it is climbing on a gently sloping hillside towards some mountains. To your right you see the white sandy cliff formations of the Zabriskie point area and scenic overlook located around Furnace Creek.

The surface can definitely get loose rocky sandy at any time, but if you’re riding here in death Valley, you should be prepared for anything!

Keep in mind that iin Death Valley the rocks near the bottom usually tend to be larger than the rocks at the top. This is because flooding moves all the big stones down the canyons to the basin. But due to the high traffic getting to the campsites, this one is the opposite, with the biggest rocks near the top.

After a few miles, you’ll enter this narrow, winding canyon with cliffs straight up all around you

The gravel is pretty soft here still due to recent rains.

Just before entering the canyon

This canyon is narrow enough that it provides some shade. Not much of that in these parts!

At mile 7, the canyon opens up into a wide valley for the middle part of the ride. You can tell that the surface is gonna be unpredictable because it’s easy to see how whenever it rains, this whole valley turns into a giant river carrying everything down with it.

Not the canyon they filmed Star Wars in, but it looks like it!

After a couple miles, the route returns to another tight canyon.

Turn left to go to Armagosa Valley at the fork there’s a brief uphill, then a quick and steep descent and then you are on your way to the last part of the climb.

The surface through the last or through the upper canyon gets extremely rough. This is some real Impossible Route material!

The climb ends on a ridge of a dry grassy hill covered in desert shrubs. That’s how you know that you’ve really climbed from the low desert to the high desert!

10/10. Epic!

Links:

Learn about PJAMM’s Surface Index

Learn about PDI (PJAMM Difficulty Index)