Death Valley National Park

As we were leaving Las Vegas a cold front came through and it was suddenly 60 degrees out and very windy. We were glad that we had the typical Vegas heat for pool time on the strip... but also hoped this was a fortuitous change for our visit to Death Valley National Park.

We stopped by Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, hoping to get another stamp in our passport... but when we got to where google maps indicated the national monument was, there was only a single interpretive sign and evidence of road construction. After further googling, it turns out the monument is so new that there is no visitor center yet and therefore no stamp!

After an uneventful drive through the desert (save one giant cow), we arrived at Furnace Creek (right in the middle of the park), and was delighted to see that the high for the day was in the 70s. Where was this world renowned hot weather we’ve been hearing about? The next few days would be 83, 88, 93. Below 100? Perfect. The day we left the park it would shoot up over 105 and then a few days later 113. It actually drizzled on us twice too.

The campsites at Furnace Creek were first come first serve and had a handy automated pay station – the first one we’ve seen this summer. We grabbed one of the few available with good afternoon shade and set up camp. There were quite a few people tent camping actually, which was a surprise to see.

We visited an overlook that afternoon (Dante's View -- we also stopped by Devil's Golf Course -- you can see a theme here...) which had a spectacular view of the valleys on either side of the range, and we could see the virgas of a nearby raincloud – the columns of precipitation that weren’t making it to the ground.

The next morning, we started early to beat the heat and headed down to Mormon Point – where we spent a bit of time trying to find the dirt road that would take us to Sidewinder Canyon, which contained several slot canyons which begged exploring. We came upon the first slot canyon and found the described boulder dryfall. The hiking guide said to go “through” the dryfall, which ended up being the trick after we attempted to go over.

These slots were unlike the ones we had done in Utah – the rock here appeared to be tuff -- volcanic ash beds, rather than sandstone.

The first slot was spookier than Spooky Canyon though! It was almost pitch black as we continued, and eventually ended in a dark hollow with a vertical wall.

The second slot was similar, and the third had a few areas with arches. The tuff seemed very delicate though and we scurried through the arches to avoid death by blunt trauma and/or asphyxiation.

On the way back to camp, we stopped at Badwater Basin, so named because the spring there is full of salt. Table salt, mostly, which Vitali couldn’t help but try and taste. He confidently confirmed the salt content. Despite being one of the hottest and driest places on Earth, Death Valley sits atop a vast aquifer system.

We walked out onto the salt flats a bit, but it was getting hot already and we started to feel a bit like sushi fish being dried on a giant table of salt.

We also visited Artist Drive, a one way scenic road through badlands. More badlands! Our favorite thing. This one featured pastel colors and nauseating hairpin turns.

The next day, we drove out towards Stovepipe Wells Village, and to Mosaic Canyon. All of the hikes here were in the mountains – so you had the very interesting effect of climbing the gently sloping valley floor up to the base of the mountains and then having a spectacular view across the basin.

Mosaic canyon ended up being incredibly beautiful – one side was buff colored marble, and the other volcanic tuff.

The marble was incredibly slick though and the trail required a few instances of scrambling over it -- which was pretty entertaining, for all parties. Getting down was easier though, they acted like slides!

Eventually we got to the top of the canyon that wasn’t technical, to a high dryfall, and turned around.

We also stopped by the Mesquite Sand Dunes, which looked similar to the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, but were far hotter. Several people were venturing out into the dune field in the heat of the day and I wondered if they were brain damaged.

We had one more stop that day, Titus Canyon, which is a one way OHV drive through canyon narrows. We parked at the bottom and hiked in for a bit – Numa wasn't up for this today. Not the most exciting narrows we've been in, but pretty cool.

On our final day in the park we drove 60 miles to the north -- up to Ubehebe Crater, a 600' deep crater formed when magma interacted with a spring – with the explosive energy resulting in the half mile wide crater. Very few adventurers out this far.

We watched the sun set at Zabriskie Point that evening, which overlooked Badlands. We spent a bit of time dry heaving on all fours as we suffered from flashbacks to our last encounter.

We packed up camp the next morning and started our final hike -- Golden Canyon, Red Cathedral, & Gower Gulch, which traversed the Badlands. "Maybe these are different", I pondered rhetorically, as Vitali shook his head sadly.

There ended up being a very steep climb up towards Manly Beacon, a particularly imposing pile of dirt, which turned Vitali's mood sour. The rest of the hike was a gradually sloping wash with some scrambling, and before we knew it was 9AM and 88 degrees out.

As we headed west towards the park exit, we stopped by Rainbow Canyon -- where the US military conducts low level flight training. The canyon didn't look very colorful to me, but apparently it had a more appropriate nickname -- Star Wars canyon -- for it's resemblance to Tatooine. We didn't see any flight training though.

Death Valley was definitely more hiker oriented than I expected. When we talked with the ranger for suggestions he pulled out six options for us, each trail with it's own a single sheet hiking guide. It seemed like he had quite an array of options to pull from too.

We are used to closely monitoring our water intake but here the need to hydrate was almost constant. Luckily, we had already spent two months in the desert so we were mostly acclimated...

We left Death Valley through Panamint Springs (which sounds more refreshing than it looked) and started our 7 hour drive around the southern end of the Sierra Nevada, and back north to our next stop, Sequoia National Park.