How to Hike Ice Box Canyon in Red Rock Canyon NCA | Las Vegas

If you love scrambling and boulder hopping, you will love Icebox Canyon. This trail does have two small parking lots as well as a little bit of parking on the shoulder, but if you want to do this you probably should get there early. We lucked out because we came directly from the Calico Tanks Trail and we pulled up just as someone was leaving. That is also a really cool hike and if you haven't seen that video yet, click in the upper corner right now to watch that one. As for the Icebox Canyon Trail, don't let the small stats of this hike fool you. Even though it only has a round trip distance of 2.3 miles and an elevation gain of 577 feet, the majority of this trail is hiking on rocks and these rocks get bigger and bigger and bigger as the trail goes on. After crossing the large wash you need to make a slight right to get back on the trail again. Everything starts off pretty well defined at first, but as it continues on it's going to become a little bit more of a choose-your-own-adventure type of situation. The good thing is that the majority of this trail takes place in a canyon so it is almost impossible to get lost. That being said, we do have a couple of recommendations of things that we think that you should bring on this hike. The first two items are pretty much a given and it is grippy shoes and more water than you think you need. The third item is hiking poles to take the strain off of your legs with all the rock hopping. And the fourth is a GPS tracker just in case you need help out there. About two-tenths of a mile into the hike you're going to come to two forks. If you make a right you're going on the SMYC trail and if you make a left you're going on Dale's trail, but you want to go straight here to continue into Icebox Canyon. At this point in the hike you can see some of the rocks that I was talking about earlier starting to appear. This hike really took a toll on our legs and it didn't really help that we had already done one hike earlier and about 12 miles on the trails the day before. We are now officially inside the canyon and things are about to get a little bit more challenging. You really need to watch your step and take your time. Not all of the rocks here are very stable and you definitely don't want to roll your ankle if a rock rolls out from under you. The trail is still marked at this point but it's going to start to get a little bit more faint. We came to several parts where there were forks but they all seemed to join back up again so it didn't really matter which way you went. As we continued our way further into the canyon stumbling and tripping over rocks and boulders we thought we heard a very familiar sound and that was the metallic clanking sound of carabiners and various climbing gear. The sounds were coming from the right side of the trail and we found a very faint path so we figured we head on in there and check it out. This small trail was super overgrown but the sounds were getting louder so we knew we were heading in the right direction. Soon the trees opened up to a clearing and we found out where the sound was coming from. It was two rock climbers. In addition to rock climbing there is also a canyoneering route here. The only problem is it is quite a challenging approach and there is only one rappel down the waterfall at the end of the canyon. Even though the waterfall was barely flowing when we visited it was still a really pretty area so who knows maybe it would be worth hitting that 160 foot rappel at some point. The trail will eventually drop down into the wash and as I mentioned earlier this is where the rocks are going to get a whole lot bigger and all of this climbing is going to slow you down as well. We are definitely on the slower side when it comes to hiking but this trail took us about two hours to complete. There are several smaller trails that you can take that will drop you down into the wash. We ended up taking one of the earlier ones but now that we look back we recommend staying up on the bluff as long as you can because that part of the trail is way smoother. One of the only benefits of dropping down early is that we got to explore some of the side trails on the left side of the canyon. One of the climbs out of the wash took us to this large boulder that was almost completely covered in moss. It was pretty cool to and it almost seemed a little bit uncharacteristic since we were in the middle of the desert. After you pass the large mossy boulder you are almost to the end of the canyon so keep on going. Our legs were getting pretty tired from all the scrambling but we refused to give up. As you near the end of the canyon there is definitely one thing that you want to keep your eyes peeled for and it is this tree pressed between the two rocks. This is the easiest way that we found to get to the back of the canyon. After the tree you'll be climbing up this slab and then working your way across this narrow ledge. You're still not quite done climbing just yet but the good thing is that the climb seemed like it had plenty of good holds and it wasn't that challenging. With that you have made it to the end of the hike or at least what should be the end of the hike. I say should because as we got to the end of the canyon we saw one more slab that would just take us up a little bit higher so we figured we would get up there and check it out. With our La Sportiva canyoneering shoes the way up didn't seem that bad. It was really pretty up there and after a while of checking things out V decided that she was going to come up and join me. There was a lot of wood debris where I was and at the bottom of the falls so I'm assuming that things are getting washed over the top. That means you probably don't want to do this hike in the Once V joined me at the top we realized that we had a tiny bit of a problem because it was way easier to climb up that slab than it was to get back down. It probably took us about 15 minutes to slowly and safely work our way back down and honestly I would say that the view from the top is not worth the sketchiness so I would probably skip that part if I were you. This is an out and back trail so when you're ready to head back to the car you're going to go out the same exact way that you came in. The challenge is that your legs are going to be tired from all the climbing up on the way in and on the way out you're going to be mostly jumping down off of boulders which is going to take even more of a toll on your legs. Needless to say we could not wait to get back on flatter trails again. Even though this trail is rated moderate to strenuous depending on what website you look at it is considered to be pet friendly. Just be sure to keep your four-legged friend on a And on the topic of cleaning up be sure to clean up after yourself as well. I'm pretty happy to say that we did not see any trash while we were out on this trail and that is awesome. If we can do our part to clean up after ourselves and if we see trash on the trails pick it up we could keep it looking this great all the time. It was such a relief when we got back to the hill that led down to that main wash just outside of the parking lot. Our legs were pretty destroyed by the end of this hike and we could not wait to sit down in the car and take a rest. Even though we were pretty sore after this hike we are glad that we did it and we're still shocked with how many awesome hiking adventures Nevada has to offer. If you want to see one of our other favorites click in the upper corner right now to see our hike to Spooky Canyon. That is a really fun short and creepy trail and also if you enjoyed this video don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe so you don't miss out on any of our future adventures. For all the information about Icebox Canyon as well as other awesome Nevada adventures head on over to thatadventurelife.com