40 miles of hiking • 8500' elevation gain • 4 nights
Presidents Day Weekend trip to Death Valley. 4 of us left Weds afternoon and drove the 18 hours to Ballarat, CA. We hiked up Surprise Canyon intending to reach Panamint City, but didn't have the energy or time, so decided to set up cam about 5.5 miles in and hike up to Panamint City in the morning. Panamint City is a deserted ghost town/mining camp in a high valley. Ruins of buildings and mining equipment lay all around, as well as later attempts at squatting in the wilderness. The "Panamint Hilton", a creaky old house with some ratty cots is livable, but the hantavirus threat kept us away. A huge smokestack from a smelter still stands in the town.
We descended to the car and drove the 80 miles to the "town" of Panamint Springs, where there was a campground, for the night. A couple argued next to a car with a leaking radiator as steam billowed out from under the hood. At least they made it to a gas station before being stranded 100 miles from nothing else. In fact, it's so remote, there is a generator on the hill above town which runs constantly to supply the town's power.
The next morning we decided to hike to the Panamint Dunes. The Dunes are huge sand mountains which look near, but in fact are very far away. We drove 7 or so miles to the parking and walked the remaining 3.5 miles to the first of the dunes. I dropped my camera at the summit of a 700 foot high dune and little grains of sand found their way into the lens and screwed up my focus. It worked for a few more days at least. We marveled at the interesting patterns in the sand, the huge barren landscape around us and took in the strange environment.
We continued the trek to Stovepipe Wells to get gas and then on to Scotty's Castle, a 1930's mansion which was the product of the strange relationship between a con-man and a wealthy Chicago businessman. Google it. After taking the tour, we needed to continue the trip. We headed for Beatty, NV about 100 miles away. We arrived around 8pm and set up camp in a mobile home park near a creek. The temp dropped into the 30s overnight.
We got up around 4am and began the drive towards Titus Canyon, a one way road through a marvelous rocky canyon. We watched the sun rise and turn the canyon walls all different colors. We passed the ghost town of Leadfield, and several other campers nearby checking out the ruins.
Our destination for the next two days was Fall Canyon at the mouth of Titus Canyon. We began our trek up Fall Canyon, with it's narrow smooth walls that closed in around us, sometimes as narrow as 4 or 5 feet. The walls were smooth from eons of flash floods. We had to scramble around and then with ropes, haul our packs up a twenty foot dry falls. Up higher, Cougar scat was all around, as well as the bones of Bighorn Sheep. Keep walking! We spent a wonderful night (minus the Scorpion sighting) in the Canyon listening to the Coyotes howl.
The next day we trekked out and came across a herd of 6 bighorn sheep grazing above the canyon. We marched out to the car and began the long drive towards "The Racetrack", a large mysterious playa where rocks are said to "move" leaving tracks in the dry mud. It was 24 bumpy miles out a rough road to the Homestake campsite. Many photographers were there. We met a guy from Oklahoma who was roadtripping on his own. We shared a campfire that night, and were visited by a curious Desert Fox who stole some of our food! The next morning, we walked out to the "Grandstand", a large rock outcropping in the middle of the playa. After some photos, we began the long drive out towards Furnace Creek, where there is a visitors center and a very nice resort.
No trip to Death Valley is complete without a visit to Badwater Basin, at 220 ft. below sea level, the lowest point in North America. It was super windy. We completed the Artist's Drive, a section of road snaking through some interesting colored rock formations, and then the long drive home. In a real example of the wide spectrum of conditions we encountered, we drove from the hot desert and through a snow storm in the middle of the night on Willamette Pass. Several white knuckle hours brought us up and over the mountains.
Great trip to a place I had never been or even previously contemplated. There is a real diversity of terrain and temperatures, but I don't doubt that we saw it at it's most pleasant in February.
