Location: Panamint Valley, CA
Riders: Pinhead, Conehead, Ev’, and The Rookie
Some trails are cursed. Ours was called Happy Canyon—which, in true desert irony, has never made anyone particularly happy.
For several years, we’d made feeble attempts to reach the ghost town of Panamint City. Every time, something went sideways. Last time it was The Rookie throwing a chain so hard it practically welded itself to his swingarm. Then Pinhead’s WR coughed up a lung and died. We limped back with Pinhead riding buddy-tow. Unfortunately, I was the buddy. I’m the worst tow-man in the history of off-road recovery. His description of the ride? “Equal parts terrifying and regrettable.”
This year’s attempt? Somehow worse.
Desert Camp Site - Happy Canyon
Obstacle #1: The Slime Slide
The first real test is a slick, mossy waterfall that looks innocent enough… until you’re halfway up it and realize moss has a higher coefficient of friction in a salad than on rock. The only successful technique we’ve found is a WFO commitment with eyes closed. This time? No one made it. At all. Just a mess of boots, bikes, and bruises.
Obstacle #2: The Wall of False Hope
Next up is a larger waterfall. We’ve never cleared it clean. Ever. The drill is: get stuck, curse, then haul each other’s bikes over like medieval siege engines.
Obstacle #3: The Board of Sketch
The third waterfall comes with a built-in booby trap: an old 2×12 plank that’s always there and always sketchy. We used it, of course—because that’s what we do. After shoving the bikes up and over, things went from bad to worse.
The Tunnel of Terror
Normally, the trail beyond is a mellow ride through ankle-deep water and leafy canyon walls. Not this time. Happy Canyon had gone full jungle.
We found ourselves riding inside a green tunnel of overgrowth—claustrophobic, grabby, and unrelenting. At times, the only option was to drop the visor under the number plate and pin it until something stopped us. Usually a bush. Occasionally a small tree.
In a few spots, the brush was so thick we had to stop and break out our backcountry landscaping tools—aka the saws on our Swiss Army knives and Leatherman multi-tools. There we were, hunched over like a trail crew from the island of misfit toys, hacking and swearing and wondering how much worse it could get.
Spoiler: it got worse. Conehead took a vine to the chest and got cleanly ripped off his KDX—cartoon style, no warning, zero finesse.
Skyhooks and Silence
At one point, I caught traction. Glorious, unexpected traction. The front end of the RMX launched skyward like it was trying to escape the canyon entirely. For a moment, it was majestic—my own little slice of two-stroke glory.
As the wheel lifted, I thought, “Man, I must look cool.” Then I found myself wishing, yet again, that I had a chase ‘copter with a camera crew following me—just to capture the full slow-mo hero shot of me cresting the ridge like some kind of budget action star.
That’s when the lights went out.
No warning. No memory of what went wrong. I woke up under the RMX with gas pouring down my leg, my right foot twisted under me like a pretzel. I managed to kill the fuel and untangle myself, then passed out again. Later, I’d discover a silver-dollar-sized crater in my helmet—souvenir of my big-budget crash scene.
Where’s Conehead?
Roughly twenty minutes after my lights went out, Pinhead came grinding up the trail and found me unconscious under the RMX. He managed to wake me up, drag me out from beneath the bike, get it upright and on its kickstand, and me more-or-less upright on a nearby boulder. I must’ve looked like a cross between roadkill and a crash test dummy.
Still no sign of Conehead. But that wasn’t overly alarming. The man has a long history of disappearing mid-ride. We figured we’d either find him back at camp sipping Gatorade… or halfway through building a shelter out of branches and old tubes.
We agreed Pinhead would go after The Rookie, and I’d sit tight in the shade and try not to die. After about thirty minutes of sunbaked reflection on my life choices, I decided to start wobbling my way back toward camp. Still loopy and shaky, I promptly crashed twice more on the way down—but at least I was crashing in the right direction.
Eventually, I spotted Conehead’s KDX leaned off the trail like it was thinking about giving up. But no Conehead. After a bit of scanning, I finally saw him, kicked back in the shade, sound asleep.
Turns out he’d binned it too. While catching his breath, he noticed his bike was still upside down and had dumped most of the gas. So, he righted it, took stock of the situation, and decided a nap was the only reasonable course of action.
Lucky for me, he had water. I didn’t. So we swapped gas and fluids like post-apocalyptic trail traders and limped our way back to camp—beaten, burned, and once again, beaten by Happy Canyon.
Meanwhile…
Pinhead and The Rookie had pressed on. So close! And yet… not. They also failed to reach Panamint City. Even better—they ran out of water and ended up chugging creek water laced with iodine tablets. A classy end to a very classy ride.
The Final Attempt
We never made it to Panamint City. Again. And honestly, this was probably our last real shot on bikes. Not long after, Happy Canyon was officially closed to motor vehicles.
It’s now a hike-only zone—a beautiful, brutal gauntlet of springs, waterfalls, and walls of green. Happy Canyon is one of the lushest canyons in Death Valley, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s a walk in the park. This place is nature’s chokehold.
The lower canyon is home to four major springs, which means it’s wet, wild, and completely overrun. The brush doesn’t just line the trail—it owns it. Most of the time, it stretches wall to wall, forcing you into hand-to-branch combat. Progress comes by breaking branches, backtracking dead-ends, and creatively scrambling for any bypass that doesn’t involve a cliff face. And when there is a bypass? It’s rarely friendly. Hikers have described 13-hour days just to cover 6 miles. Think about that: slower than your average push-mower.
We once thought riding through this jungle was hard. Turns out, walking it might be worse. Scratched, bloodied, and beat up like they’d brawled with a lawnmower, even veteran hikers have called Happy Canyon a once-in-a-lifetime adventure—and not necessarily in a good way.
Still, for the truly adventurous, it’s worth the effort. The waterfalls are stunning, the springs unexpectedly lush, and the old mining ruins at the top whisper stories of when men came here with dreams of silver. Now, nature’s taken it back—with vines, thorns, and a general attitude problem.
Happy Canyon wins. Again.
Addendum: The Day the Canyon Won for Good
For those wondering why this might’ve been our last shot at reaching Panamint City on two wheels, here’s the kicker: The California Desert Protection Act rolled through in October 1994, swinging the big legislative hammer. It turned vast swaths of the desert—including our stomping grounds—into protected wilderness. Happy Canyon made the list. No more motos. No more buddy-tows. No more flaming clutches or creek-filtered CamelBak water.
We squeaked in one last brutal attempt post-‘94, likely skating the edge of legality and bad decision-making. But by 2001, the feds officially dropped the gate and locked it—issuing a BLM closure order on motorized travel through what they now called an “Area of Critical Environmental Concern.” Which feels pretty on-the-nose, given our experience.
Today, Happy Canyon’s a no-throttle zone. What used to be a barely-passable moto route is now a full-contact hike through jungle-thick brush, vine-wrapped springs, and trail-less terrain that laughs in the face of Surprise Canyon. It’s stunning, sure—but it’ll claw at your arms, chew your legs, and leave you wondering why you didn’t just go to Joshua Tree like a normal person.
So if you’re reading this and thinking of hiking Happy Canyon—pack light, hydrate heavily, and maybe carry a note that says “Tell my bike I loved her.”
Happy Canyon didn’t just beat us.
It retired us.
