Ladder & Painted Canyon Loop
Mecca Hills Wilderness (BLM) · near Mecca · California Desert
Hiking
At a glance
- Difficulty
- moderate
- Route type
- loop
- Distance
- 4.2 miles
- Elevation gain
- 600 ft
- Time needed
- day
- Best season
- Oct–Apr
Permits and booking
- Permit required
- No
- How the permit works
- Free BLM Mecca Hills Wilderness; no permit or fee. Volunteer-maintained ladders; no facilities, water, or cell signal.
- How hard the permit is to get
- 0 of 5
What is here
- Features
- Slot canyons · Wooden & metal ladders through narrows · Banded 'painted' rock walls · San Andreas Fault geology
Worth knowing
- Dogs
- Allowed
- Good for a first timer
- No
Hiking detail
- Intl tip
- Go clockwise (up Ladder Canyon first, down Painted); the unsigned turnoff into Ladder Canyon is easy to miss — look for the pile of rocks and first ladder on the left.
The guide
The desert's best adventure hike: a loop that climbs a series of ladders bolted into a genuine slot canyon, then returns down t…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Ladder & Painted Canyon Loop — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 33.6003, -115.9967