Little Bridge Canyon is a short hike through a colorful canyon to one of Death Valley's major natural bridges and is a fairly well-known hiking destination since it is included in several guidebooks.  Difficulties encountered on the hike include route finding to access the canyon without turning off into some of the smaller side canyons on the way.  A topographical map of the hiking route (turned to the west for better viewing) can be found by clicking on the button above.  GPS coordinates for the parking area are 36.601283, -117.095168.  GPS coordinates for the mouth of Little Bridge Canyon are 36.576445, -117.080880.  GPS coordinates for Little Bridge are 36.562841, -117.080440.

Little Bridge Canyon is an excellent hiking destination for those who are looking for a shorter hike out of the Stovepipe Wells area.  This is a good hike for newer visitors to the park if they can handle a round-trip hike of about 6 1/2 miles with an elevation gain of around 1,900 feet and if they have decent route-finding skills.  My wife and I decided to do the hike when we first began exploring some of the more isolated park destinations outside of main trails such as Mosaic Canyon and Golden Canyon.  Little Bridge Canyon caught my attention because I was interested in seeing another major natural bridge in the park after seeing Natural Bridge in Natural Bridge Canyon.  We started out for the hike one late March morning but had to call it off due to having extreme heat on that day.  So I waited a couple of days and found a cooler afternoon in which to carry out the hike.  On the way up, there are some interesting side canyons to check out with dry falls.  None of these are passable for very far but they are neat to explore.  Upon finishing the long climb up the hillside, it is a great moment to finally catch sight of Little Bridge Canyon.  The canyon itself is quite pretty with some especially colorful red and white rock on the walls.  The two highlights of Little Bridge Canyon are the arch on the right side wall and the major natural bridge a little ways farther up canyon.  Little Bridge is just what the name implies -- a smaller natural bridge than what you will find in Natural Bridge Canyon.  It is not a canyon span from one side of the canyon to the other.  Rather, it is what I refer to as an angled column, with one side connected to the canyon wall and the other angling down to the wash.  Little Bridge is definitely a great place to check out and all of those hikers who want to begin to appreciate the numerous major natural bridges in Death Valley need to see Little Bridge as part of that.  Our hikes took place on March 24 and 26, 2008.

Many more photographs taken during our visit are available for viewing for this destination.  To see all of them, choose one of the two options presented below.  The two options are Slideshow viewing and Trip Report viewing.  The Slideshow option allows for viewing larger images with an autoplay option and a full screen option (available on most browsers).  This option works very well for large computer screens and tablets.  The Trip Report option allows for viewing smaller pictures in a standard scroll-down format and enlarging of any panoramic photos taken during our visit.  Click on the option of your choice to view all of our photos from this destination.  The Slideshow format opens in a new browser window and the Trip Report format uses the same browser window for viewing.