03/17/03:
Two days of rain and wind and cold and even some snow this morning drove me out of the Mohave Desert National Preserve so here I am outside of Death Valley National Park.
Driving north on US-395 north of Ridgecrest I saw a sign for Fossil Falls so turned off. Interesting canyon with strange erosion bowls formed in volcanic rock. Water long since dried up. BLM campground right there too but they want $6/night. At least they have water.
Flowers really blooming now, mostly, I assume because of all the rain. They're not big, for the most part, but they certainly are plentiful. Mostly yellow, orange, purple and some red. All sorts of sizes and shapes. I stopped along the highways several times for pictures.
Big time winds most of the day.
03/18/03:
Winds to 55mph last night. Only gusted to 45mhp today.
Got up into Death Valley National Park and drove down to Wildrose Campground for the night. Gas $2.99 for regular. Gonna have to plan where/when I drive while I'm here.
03/19/03:
40's last night. Wind seems to have died down. Listened to the Mammoth ski report on the radio this morning. The mountains may not be a good idea for me yet.
Hiked the Mosaic Canyon Trail (4 miles round trip) at 8am. The narrows part is all beige marble sanded smooth by ancient runoffs. Beyond the narrows the canyon opens up with some nice formations. The last mile or so is back to a narrow marble canyon again and you have to start getting over 3-5 foot ledges.
The last half mile is indicated by a bunch of boulders in the canyon and you have to go up over a ledge to the left. After some more climbing you come to an unclimbable (for normal people) section but you can pick your way around it to the right. The trail ends with a 35-40 foot marble wall and no way around it.
Wandered around the sand dunes outside of Stovepipe Wells for a while. Got some nice photos. Drove out to Titus Canyon until the cool mountain colors ran out and then headed for one of last year's campsites. They don't allow camping there anymore so I had to go past Furnace Creek to a 4X4 area. Also have to re-do my driving plan.
03/20/03:
50's last night and periods of 25mph winds died down by morning.
First stop was Zabriskie Point where its impossible to take a bad photo. I'll be going back there to do the Golden Canyon Trail.
Hiked the 20 Mule Team Canyon Road. It was closed to traffic because of mud resulting from recent rains. This is a road everyone drive but also a great hike of 7 miles round trip through all sorts of colorful mud formations.
Started down towards Badwater, the lowest point in the U.S. but ran into construction and turned back. All of the salt flats seem to be pretty much gone, maybe because of those recent rains. Well, they're not gone... they're covered with a thin layer of mud and just look that way.
Hiked the Natural Bridge Trail (2.0 miles round trip). This is a natural bridge in a canyon consisting of mud. I walked under and looked up and saw lots of fairly large rocks embedded in the rocks along with several large cracks. I didn't linger under the bridge.
03/21/03:
Strong winds picked up somewhere around 3am and continued till 9am. I had more or less decided to take the day off when they died. Instead, I headed for Dante's View at 5400 feet. There's a nice trail that winds along the rim overlooking the Death Valley salt flats.
I could feel the temperature dropping as I made my way up 5000 feet to Dante's View. By the time I got up there the temperature was in the 40's and so was the wind. One trail leads over a series of small peaks towards Death Valley itself. I followed these as far as I could and got some nice photos. With the wind and cold I decided not to do the rim trail.
03/22/03 Hiking Zabriskie/Golden Canyon Trail (5 miles round trip):
Picked up the trail at Zabriskie Point around 7:30am while it was still cool. This is a great hike down through all the multi-colored hills and slopes. Great views all around. A couple of mine shafts along the way too.
Two steep hills of less than 1/4 mile, one of 50 yards and one long one of about 1/2 mile on the way back caused the sweat to flow a little. Temperatures on the way back were well into the 70's. I also got to travel along with 20 boy scouts in the 10-15 year range. Have you every heard 20 kids screaming in a narrow canyon? Unfortunately they kept pace with me the entire return trip.
Decided to make a long drive to Devil's Hole off NV-127 but didn't see any signs. Continued the loop along US-95 to Beatty and then picked up the Titus Canyon Road back into the park. This road is all up hill and washer board the first 8 miles or so. Once in the mountains the view improves and finally gets good the last 8 miles or so when it enters the canyon proper.
The way was blocked by an SUV stopped in the middle of the road with no way to get around it. 2 couples were standing in the road looking and pointing up the cliffs. I grabbed the camera and got out and saw a big horn sheep browsing on whatever big horn sheep browse on up there. I've seen mountain and desert big horn sheep before but this is the first time with a zoom camera that works. Got several good pictures. He didn't have the big, thick curly horns but the ones he had will do for now.
03/23/03:
Didn't do much today, Sunday. Drove down to Badwater, the lowest point in the U.S., where they're doing construction during the week. The other parts of the salt flats have mostly turned brown, probably because of a recent rain. Death Valley only gets two inches of rain so is also the driest place in the U.S. In any case Badwater is more like Sadwater and the salt flats are mostly brown there too.
Stopped off at Salt Creek which wasn't too exciting other than the fact there is water in the creek. Pupfish and some water bugs can survive in the salty water but nothing else. There were 1000's of the little Pupfish though.
Wandered on back to Wildrose. I'll hike the Wildrose Peak trail tomorrow and call it quits on Death Valley for the year.
03/24/03 Hiking Wildrose Peak Trail (8.4 miles round trip):
40's last night at 4500 feet. Drove 6-7 miles to the Charcoal Kilns and the Wildrose Peak Trailhead at 6900 feet. The peak is at 9000+ feet.
The trail led past the 10 kilns used around 1900 to make charcoal for fuel for separating lead and silver from rock 30 miles away. It would take 2 weeks to burn pinon trees and wait for the charcoal to cool. Kilns are 20 feet high and 35 feet in diameter.
The trail wound behind a peak without sunlight and the temperature dropped into the 30's. Snow patches began around here and became more numerous as I started climbing higher. The first mile or so was pretty flat. After that it became steeper and steeper.
At 2 miles or so a nice view opened up of Death Valley Salt Flats. The trail remained flat for 100 yards and then turned upward again. That was enough for me. I hadn't hiked anything over 4000 feet in 6 months or so and here I was trying steep inclines at 8000 feet. I didn't want to hurt myself and turned back.
Picked up CA-178 by the campground and followed it 40 miles into Trona and then another 20 miles into Ridgecrest. Did some shopping there and continued on to Lake Isabella in the Sequoia National Forest, another 70 miles or so.
Tons and tons of mostly yellow and purple flowers along CA-178 after I passed CA-14 and I had to stop and take lots of pictures.
Couldn't find a laundromat in Isabella so may have to go on into Bakersfield, another 70 miles or so. Need to have the old truck looked at too. It's starting to moan and groan.