Desert Destination: Death Valley--Golden Canyon & Salt Creek

 Our Death Valley adventure continued after Badwater with a jaunt to Golden Canyon. This is one of the easiest canyons to hike, so I thought it would be perfect for the kids. But it turned out I had a rather whiny kid who did not want to hike, no matter what. I tried to distract him by pointing out the pavement--a road used to go up Golden Canyon, but a flash flood in 1976 that dumped over two inches of rain undermined the road and washed most of it out. That distraction lasted all of about 2.3 seconds.

 I noticed some people duck into a side canyon ahead of us, and we took their cue. It was really cool, and Desert Girl and I had so much fun going up the narrow passage. Mr. Whiny? He hung out near the entrance, pouting.

 Next we found a little cave under some boulders, which I checked out to look for snakes--it would be a perfect place for them to escape the heat. When I didn't see any, I let the kids go in. Desert Girl was up for the challenge, but not Desert Boy.

 Finally I found something that really distracted him--a climbing wall. Here the sedimentary layers have been steeply tilted, making for some fun, but crumbly scrambling.

That distraction changed Desert Boy's attitude. He was now ready to have some fun, so we played the shadow game, trying to stay in the shade of the canyon. If we ran out of shade, we would try to get to the next bit of shade in ten seconds or we would melt. It was a good game and got us up to a part of the canyon that was rather straight and wide and didn't look so interesting. We decided this would be a good place to turn around. But first--one more side trip into a side canyon.

 The canyon was narrow enough we could touch both walls at the same time.

 It had some fun climbing obstacles (and the dry waterfall in the photo above wasn't quite as steep as the photo makes it look!).

 Finally we got to a place where it was a little too tough for us to continue. (Plus we had run out of bandaids.) So we took some photos and headed back down, enjoying a game of hide 'n seek along the way. My advice for Golden Canyon? It's one of the most popular hikes in Death Valley because it's so easy to get to and not too difficult. If you want to get away from the crowds, just slip into one of the many side canyons--they are fun and you don't know what you will find!

By the time we finished, it was time for lunch and swimming. I was lucky in that some teenage girls who had been lounging around the pool for a week were ready for a distraction and played with the kids for a long time. They even taught Desert Boy how to dive. It was great, and I appreciated some relaxation time.

 In the late afternoon we went to Salt Creek to look at the pupfish. Spring is mating time, and we saw thousands of pupfish in the creek. The kids thought it was really cool.

 Desert Boy shows with his fingers how big the fish are.

 A blurry, colorful pupfish. It is so amazing that this fish can survive in such a harsh locale. In fact, thinking about the huge lake, Lake Manly, that used to fill Death Valley and that had many fish species in it, kind of blows my mind.

Salt Creek was an excellent late afternoon stop. Then it was back to our campsite for some more relaxing. We went to bed early, as we wanted to get up early the next morning to pack up and see the sand dunes on our way across Death Valley.

Desert Destination: Death Valley Part 1

 If you want to visit the desert, Death Valley certainly fits the bill! It is one of the most beautiful desert locations in the world.

After we had exited Titus Canyon, we drove down into Death Valley proper. Desert Boy was not impressed. I asked him what he expected to see, and he said a barren valley where everything was dead. I told him that was coming.

First, though, we had more important things to do: put up our tent and go swimming. I was worried that the campgrounds might be full as it was spring break for a lot of schools, but we had quite a few sites to choose from.

Furnace Creek Ranch lets campers swim for a fee, and the kids could not wait. It was hot, about 85 degrees (which is not really hot for Death Valley), so after picking up a junior ranger booklet at the visitor center, we headed to the pool and spent much of the afternoon there in the spring-fed pool. Ah, that's a good way to spend an afternoon!

 Next was a picnic dinner of hot dogs roasted over the stove (I was lazy and did not want to build a fire, plus, as I mentioned before, it was hot!).

 We had some free time before the evening ranger program, so we went to the Borax Museum and the displays behind it. They were mildly interesting, and since they were free, worth it.

 They had a cool old engine from the Death Valley Railroad. I thought Desert Boy would get a little more excited, but he was tired of looking at things. So we jumped on our bikes and headed down the bike path to the Borax Twenty Mule Team exhibit.

 The Twenty Mule Teams are one of the iconic symbols of Death Valley, although most people probably couldn't tell you why. If you ever pick up a package of Borax soap, there's a good chance you'll see an illustration of the Twenty Mule Teams on it. Since we've started making our own laundry soap with Borax as an ingredient, Desert Boy recognized them.

 The evening light was beautiful.

Taking our bikes was a great idea, as Desert Boy really likes bike riding. I do too, as we can cover more ground yet still get some exercise.

Next was the evening ranger program about the night skies. The highlight was meeting up with a couple rangers who have been working at Scotty's Castle for the winter. I so much enjoyed seeing them and hearing their stories.

Then it was off to our tent for a good night's rest. We all slept well. I woke up early, so I climbed up a nearby hill and watched the setting moon as the sun's rays spread across the valley.

 The parking lot campground (that can hold about 1,000 RVs) was only partially filled. Our campground, which was mainly tents and smaller RVs, was mostly full. I'm not used to camping in such a crowded campground, but it worked out fine.

 I wanted to make the most of the early morning light, so I rousted the kids and got them into the truck, telling them we would eat breakfast later.

 We went to Zabriskie Point, one of the most photographed places in the park.

 The kids had fun running around.

 We were joined by quite a few other people on the overlook. Can you see our shadows waving?

We ate breakfast and then headed to Badwater. This is the part of Death Valley Desert Boy was imagining.

 It was only mid-morning, but the day was turning out to be hotter than the day before. We passed a group from Backroads bicycling, and I didn't want to be part of their group on this day.

 Coming from the high desert where we still had snow, Desert Boy and Desert Girl were not thrilled with the heat or the fact that they were now 282 feet below sea level. Whew. Maybe they won't ever consider doing the Badwater Ultramarathon, considered the most difficult ultramarathon race. Why so difficult? Well, it's 135 miles for one thing. It starts at Badwater and ends at the Whitney Portal, which is 13,000 feet of cumulative vertical ascent. And the real kicker? It's held in July, when Death Valley air temps may be 120 degrees F, and ground temps even higher. Runners run on the white line painted on the road so they won't burn their feet and get into huge coolers (or even coffins) filled with ice water at rest stops.

A fifteen minute stop convinced them that they had seen enough, and I wasn't about to argue.

More tomorrow...

Desert Destination: Tule Hardpan and Fossil Mountain

After our recent rock climbing adventure on the Ibex Crags, we took out the bikes and headed out on the Tule Hardpan, also known as the Ibex Hardpan. If you've never ridden a bike on a hardpan (playa), it is the bomb. You can go anywhere you want, it's perfectly flat, and it just feels great. The last time we biked on this hardpan, Desert Boy was just a toddler and we had an alien experience (click the link to see more!).

Desert Girl gave the playa a try on her little bike with training wheels, but soon decided she'd rather ride with mom. I guess I should add that when I say perfectly flat, I don't mean perfectly smooth. The playa has plenty of mud cracks, and it's best not to have super inflated tires or you will have a bumpy ride.

 So while my husband took a rest, the rest of us rode around the "island", a projection rising from the middle of the playa. Someone had planted three flag poles on the top, which seemed rather out of place to me. I'm not sure if it's some group or remnants from when they filmed part of the movie John Carter out here (which I have yet to see). As I noted in another post, playas have all sorts of uses.

 Someone had dug out a low spot on the playa, which gathered water for animal use. Desert Girl just barely resisted getting wet.

 After our little bike ride (which I could have continued much, much longer--did I mention how much I like riding on playas?), we packed up the bikes and headed around the south end of Ibex Crags and the Barn Hills to Blind Valley. Our destination?


The mighty Fossil Mountain, in the south Confusion Range. Nearly the entire mountain is made of fossils! Here's a link to a very brief geology of the mountain. Many of the fossils are from the Lower Ordovician Pogonip Group and include brachiopods, cephalopods, trilobites, and echinoderms. Dr. Lehi Hintze (who wrote the marvelous Geology of Millard County) and his coworkers used the area to establish fossil zones for rocks of this age that are a reference to paleontologists all over the world. He noted that because this area was at the edge of a sea, the wave action caused many of the fossils to be in pieces.

 We drove to the end of a four-wheel drive road and then headed up the wash towards the mountain. It didn't take us long to start spotting fossils.

 Here's a cephalopod.

 I'm not sure what this is, but it looked pretty. I wish I knew more about paleontology, because I mainly just look for pretty things but don't understand much about what they mean. Nevertheless, I appreciate that very different things used to live here, and that the landscape has changed so much over the millennia (although I'm looking for a word that means even bigger time changes--geologic time is so hard for my mind to grasp!).

We happily spent about an hour looking around.

Someday we'll have to hike all the way up the mountain. Summitpost says that it takes about two hours;  I think it would take me longer because I'd be stopping frequently to look for fossils!

Desert Destination: Titus Canyon, Death Valley National Park

Happy Earth Day! Here's a post where you get to see plenty of earth: Titus Canyon, one of the most popular backcountry drives in Death Valley National Park. I had visited the canyon about 16 years ago and wanted to see it again.

After a lovely night in Beatty and a quick stop in Rhyolite, we headed down the pavement towards Death Valley National Park. We took the road marked as the Titus Canyon turnoff, prepared for a 27-mile adventure. The road is one-way except for the last three miles.

The beginning was a typical gravel road with creosote bushes and other desert plants on both sides. It didn't take long to get to some spectacular scenery. I stopped and took photos several times, trying to capture the variety of colors in the mountains.

At one of the stops, we could see the road leading up to Red Pass, with the red road cut giving an indication of the origin of the name. We would be on that road soon, and I was very glad we were driving the truck and not the van. The road is designated as high clearance, and I would agree with that. 

The road was in good condition and seemed plenty wide enough. Granted, I've driven some scary 4x4 roads, so it takes a lot to intimidate me. I did put the truck into 4x4 so it wouldn't bounce so much on the uphill.  I thought we'd see a lot more flowers, but we saw relatively few.

Here's looking back from near the top of red pass at the road we had just traveled. Wow, what great mountains! I would like to hike more of that terrain someday.

I've biked much of this Titus Canyon road before, which was wonderful. If you want an even more in-depth view, you could enter the Titus Canyon Marathon. It used to be held in February but due to a number of years when storms washed out the road and they had to reroute the marathon, they've changed it to December of this year, limited to 300 participants. Hmmm...

Descending from Red Pass, we soon entered Titus Canyon proper. I had fun guessing where exactly the road would go.

Before long we reached Leadville, a small ghost town. (Like the dirt bikes? Several people used them to go down the road, and they sure could travel a lot faster than the vehicles!)

Desert Girl did a little happy dance on an old foundation. I wondered how they had gotten all that cement to such a remote location.

A few buildings persisted, and we had fun peeking in them.

We could walk through one old shed.

Oh yes, this is a good adventure!

What a view out the window!

I don't think I would be cut out to be a miner in such a remote location.


We went over to a mine adit and walked up to the bat gate.

Inside was a culvert, and beyond that old timbers supporting the mine shaft. The miners had clearly spent a considerable amount of time and effort to make such a large shaft. It went beyond where my camera flash reached.


We continued on, with fantastic rock strata dipping in the same direction we were traveling.

As we continued to descend, the surroundings became much more canyon-y, and the rock layers continued to impress. Most of these are Cambrian age limestones.

As we rounded one corner, we saw some bricks. We couldn't tell what they were doing there, so we got out and walked over.

When we got closer, we still didn't know why the bricks were there.

A bit further on we saw some petroglyphs. A spring is nearby. We didn't stop, as the kids weren't terribly interested and we wanted to pass one vehicle that had stopped there. We saw about ten other vehicles on the road that day, and all the other drivers were quite polite and pleasant.

The canyon continued, wider than I had remembered. I couldn't wait to get to the good part--the narrow section!

Finally we were there. See how the rock has changed and now consists of huge breccia cemented into the bottom of the wall? I didn't notice while I was driving--I was more concerned about hikers in the canyon. To my surprise, we didn't see any--all the hikers in the rather full parking lot had gone over to nearby Fall Canyon.

It took us over two hours to get to this narrow section of the canyon, and Desert Girl had fallen asleep and Desert Boy was ready for lunch. So we didn't spend quite as much time appreciating it as I had planned. Oh well, it was still enjoyable.

The canyon ends rather abruptly, with a parking lot just outside it and then a washboardy road leading down to the highway. When we looked back from the highway, we couldn't even pick out which canyon we had come down--there are just so many canyons in Death Valley!

I'd definitely recommend this trip to anyone who likes the backcountry and a little driving adventure. Plenty of hike options lead off from the road, including Titanothere Canyon (before Red Pass), peaks from the top of Red Pass, upper Titus Canyon, and anything else that strikes your fancy. When the kids are older I hope we can return and spend a whole day in the canyon, checking it out more thoroughly.

Question of the day: What is your favorite canyon?

p.s. It's the last day to enter the Zinio Magazine Giveaway!