North Bowl Grand Traverse

This hike was exploratory trying to connect Ravens Balcony to Cartoon elephant arch in a loop hike without a car shuttle. It turned out to be about 6.5 miles and around 900 ft of gain completed in 5 hours and 15 minutes walking normally and including breaks.

We started from MM3 on Callville Wash road and walked up the wash toward the center of the escarpment.

Going up the cleft in the escarpment there is a left turn that gains the top of the ridge.

   View inside the cleft where the trail turns left through a rabbit hole.   Open the link and then click the picture to open the 360 degree panorama.

enroute from the cleft to the Ravens Balcony

View from Ravens Balcony   Open the link and then click the picture to open the 360 degree panorama.

Looking toward the lake

Looking east from the high point

The group

Descending the slot that led to the Ravens Balcony

Looking NW toward a gap in the white rocks that led to the central canyon which was our way to the western wash leading back to the car.

Descending from the gap in the white rocks into the canyon.

Part way down the canyon. There was one high pour over that we went around on the left.

At the foot of that pour over

Continuing on down the canyon

Nearing the confluence of the inner canyon and the exit canyon where we went north to near the water hazard and cut left up a wash that leads to the arches.

Cartoon elephant arch

Very delicate arch. From here we descended into the wash leading back to the car, took the straight shot across the mesa and arrived back at the car in one hour.

 Overall route. North is to the left.

Detail of where we climbed the cleft in the headwall and turned left to access the plateau behind with a short excursion to the balcony before continuing west out the inner canyon.