Hall of Horrors

Hall of Horrors is a cluster of rounded granite boulder piles between Ryan Campground and Sheep Pass Group Campground. Dirt access paths wind among the formations; visitors come to explore two narrow slots or watch and do roped climbing. The usual wander is short and nearly flat. Treat it as an informal boulder scramble, not a signed canyon hike. Come if you enjoy working through rock formations; the slot passages are optional.

The openings are easy to miss. Two slots sit among the boulders, and there is no signed route to their entrances. Follow existing access paths rather than making new tracks. One passage narrows to about six inches, and another starts with a drop into the slot. Check the squeeze and your way back out before climbing in; you can enjoy the formations without entering either slot.

These piles are part of Joshua Tree’s monzogranite landscape. The rock crystallized underground more than 100 million years ago. Cracks divided it into blocks, groundwater rounded their corners, and later flash floods washed away surface material to expose the boulder piles. Look at the stacked, rounded blocks and deep seams as you move from one formation to the next.

Steep faces and cracks draw roped climbers. The slot corridors make an upward-looking composition, with rock closing in overhead; from the upper boulders, the view opens toward desert and mountains. Getting to those positions requires scrambling off the basic path, so frame the formations from ground level if rough rock is not for you.