WIND, TEA KETTLES AND FLOWERS ON STRIKE…

Lava Rock
Death Valley

With an early morning hasta la vista to Chula Vista we head north.  Our plan is to see how far we get, with a goal to be in Death Valley the following day.  Traffic is light so we keep going and get to Death Valley in the early afternoon.  Arriving at the Furnace Creek campground we discover that the space we reserved is still occupied, but the Ranger remembers us and offers another space that we gladly accept. We check the map and son of a gun if it isn’t the same spot we were in last December.  Now this just feels like home!

In less than an hour we are set up and walk over to the visitor’s center to check the schedule of ranger talks for the week and check their weather station.  Good news: there are a number of ranger talks on new subjects – (cool.)  Bad News:  winds will be hitting up to 65-70 mph in the next 2 days – (argh.)

Taking advantage of the calm before the storm we head up to the Furnace Creek Inn for a cocktail and to see if our favorite bar tender, is still there.  Unfortunately, she transferred to another park two weeks ago.  However our waitress recognizes us and we have a fun time catching up.  After one cocktail we decide to head down to the Corkscrew Saloon for the one dish worth ordering in Death Valley; Dante’s Pizza… a bit of thin crust heaven with extra chorizo & jalapenos. (Mouth burning heaven for us, or hell for those with sensitive taste buds.)

Dust Storm at Mesquite Flats Dunes

We get up early the next morning and drive up to Dante’s View, the wind isn’t too strong but a dusty haze obscures the landscape.  We drive out to the mesquite dunes.  The wind is picking up and sand is billowing and drifting across the road. Not too fun and certainly not weather to spend out of doors taking lots of pictures and the gusts are really picking up moment by moment.  So we head back and hunker down.

Once the winds subside we are ready to venture out.  This time of year usually draws hundreds of tourists to view the spectacular desert wild flowers and cactus blooms.  But this year the plants are on strike.  Seems the flowering plants are protesting cut backs in water and general climate change.  This coupled with the high winds leaves very few specimens but we are able to find and photograph some. 

Wild flowers

Wind Blown Wild Flower

Desert wild flower
& pollinator

Teakettle Junction

Starting early morning driving past the Ubehebe Crater we take a dirt road that leads to the racetrack. We stop at the quirky roadside attractions, Teakettle Junction. It’s located at the junction of two dirt roads neither of which leads to anything explaining the name.  The origin of its name is lost to history but its legacy lives on with ever-changing teakettles. Last December we passed the junction twice and were disappointed that there were no teakettles the first time and one teakettle and a watering can the second.  Visitors since that time have replenished the supply and we added our kettle to the mix.

www.daveanddimples.com

Wildrose Charcoal Kilns

We continue on the little used dirt road to Hunter Mountain, and down Saline Road to Panamint Springs through desert with budding yuccas and over higher passes through pinion pine forests.  From Panamint Springs we take the Wildrose cutoff to the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns. The charcoal kilns complex in Wildrose Canyon is among the more remarkable historical-architectural features of Death Valley National Park. These ten beehive shaped stone structures, about 25 feet high, are believed to be the best known surviving example of such kilns to be found in the western states.

Mesquite Flat Dunes

Our last stop is the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.  The dunes freshly sculptured by the recent windstorm in the late afternoon light make for some great photo ops. All in all we complete a 200-mile loop with 70 plus miles of dirt roads through some of the more remote areas of the park with spectacular scenery. 

Touring off road in Death Valley without accurate maps can be dangerous.  (They don’t call it Death Valley for nothing.) Thanks to the National Parks Maps HD app by NationalGeographic we are able to navigate the unmarked dirt roads crisscrossing the desert and mountains with confidence. 

Now for our unsolicited testimonial:  With downloadable (when we have internet connections) detailed topographical maps for 20 of the top National Parks this app gives us accurate GPS positioning when we’re off the beaten track without cell service or internet.  So far we have used this app on our iPhones when hiking and iPads when driving in Yellowstone, The Arches and Death Valley.  At only $3.99 this is a Dave and Dimples top pick tool for select National Park adventure travel. 

Death Valley is beautiful (as usual) but we can’t dilly dally here for long… So it's onto Reno to visit some family.... We need to continue on northward…
k

ADVENTURES WITH DAVE AND DIMPLES VOL 1.32

DEATH VALLEY…. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE FOOD!

Trailer Trash Shanty Town

Leaving Las Vegas we head out across the desert to DeathValley.  We stay two weeks at the Furnace Creek Ranch RV Park.  This is a full hook-up park that is filled with the full time and seasonal workers in the park and a few spaces for the general public. We are parked next to an ancient trailer who’s resident seems to be a collector of the discarded.  It gives the place a trailer trash shantytown feel, but not in a bad way. After two weeks, we want to stay longer and move about a mile down the road to the NPS campground at Furnace Creek.  Here we have water and sewer, but the park service is waiting on Washington to give them the price with electric… so we rely on our solar panels and generator for power.

The ranch also boasts a couple of restaurants and the Corkscrew Saloon.  Our first night we treat ourselves to cocktails and a chorizo and jalapeno pizza. (This is by far the best dish offered in all of the Furnace Creek restaurants.) 

It's not really a Valley...

But we are not here for the food… we are here for the breathtaking scenery and the magic that is Death Valley.  We were here four years ago and discovered the joys of exploring and driving on the unpaved roads.  Then we ventured out in our BMW X5, which is not really the best choice for any serious off road adventures.  BUT NOW we have Dave with his new beefy tires and the gravel and dirt roads call to us.  Heading out on the West Side Road, we explore the side roads and eventually end up at the Queen of Sheba Mine.  Aware of the dangers, we carefully explore the abandoned buildings and peer into the blocked mine shaft and think about the people who came to this desolate basin searching for wealth and adventure.

Zabrinskie

We visit Bad Water and take in a ranger talk on the area.  The extremely salty Bad Water Pond is home to a small water snail and pickle weed and not much else.  The salt flats beyond are decorated with beautiful polygon shapes.  We also attend another ranger talk up at Dante’s View, which is directly above Bad Water.  Here we have a bird’s eye view of the entire basin:  one hundred miles to the north, eighty miles to the south and twenty miles across.  Stunning!  We tour the historic Furnace Creek Inn.  (We styed here four years ago and it is fun to learn more about the history of the inn.  We hike up Golden Canyon on a ranger-guided tour and learn about the geology of the area.  After, we continue up the canyon to the Red Cathedral and up into the badlands behind Zabrinskie point. We drive the road through the Artist’s Palette a couple of times and soak up the colors of the hills.

In the evenings we attend some of the nighttime programs at the Visitor’s Center.  We hear about the history of the early visitors to Death Valley, the boom and bust cycle of late the nineteenth and early twentieth century miners, the ghost towns and sites that are now no more than piles of rusting cans and broken glass. We also learn about the geology of the area and the night sky. A talk on the volcanos is one of the best!  All of the ranger programs and guided hikes give us a greater understanding and appreciation of our second largest National Park (3.4 million acres.)

How the Rocks move...

One of our favorite spots in the park is the Race Track Playa.  Before heading out we check the road condition and are warned by the rangers that the road was damaged in the last flash flood, it is extremely wash-boarded and it can cost thousands of dollars to have your vehicle towed if we were to break down out there.  Armed with this knowledge we head out and discover that the road is really, really bad but nothing that Dave can’t handle.  We are rewarded with perfect winter lighting to photograph the mysterious moving rocks of the Racetrack. 

Rhyolite Ghost Town

Abandoned Mine

After the road to the Racetrack, all of the other unpaved roads in the park are a piece of cake!  We drive up to Beatty, NV to pick up a few groceries and return via the one way unpaved road through Titus Canyon.  Along the way, we explore the ghost towns of Rhyolite and Leadfield see some ancient petroglyphs and marvel at the layered colors of the canyon walls. Another day we explore the back roads up to and around Greenwater.  Greenwater was a copper mine that lured investors and miners based on a small amount of high grade copper from a test hole. Unfortunately this was the only copper and the mine went bust and investors left with huge losses.  Some say that this was the first domino to fall in the crash of the great depression and all that remains is scattered rusting cans and a pile of early twentieth century trash. Visiting Ghost Towns is a really great excuse to use 4WD so we spend another day up and around Skidoo (as in 23 Skidoo.)  More abandoned mines and piles of rusty debris.

Scotty's Castle

The hike up Mosaic Canyon is an adventure in rock scrambling as we make our way to the final dry waterfall at the end.   We stop at Salt Creek and walk the boardwalks looking for pupfish that remain hidden. Up at Scotty’s Castle, we take two guided tours. First of the wonderful Spanish style villa and a second underground tour of the water and power systems that supplied this millionaire’s vacation home in the desert with the modern conveniences of indoor plumbing and air conditioning in the early twentieth century.

Dave in Titus Canyon

Yuccas in the Snow

During our third week it snows in the higher elevations and the surrounding mountains are dusted with white.  We hear that the road to the Racetrack has been graded so we head out and are treated to Yucca’s in the snow. We also head up to Beatty to refuel since diesel is $2.00 per gallon cheaper than in the park and return again via Titus Canyon. 

Click for More Photos...

With the holidaze rapidly approaching, we reluctantly leave this magical desert experience and head to southern CA to spend some time with our families before heading off once more, into the sunset. 

Checking our Mayan Calendar, we see that December 21^st is the end of the world… and what better way to celebrate…

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD… AND WE’RE GOING TO DISNEYLAND!

We wish everyone a wonderful holiday season!

k

THE ADVENTURES OF DAVE AND DIMPLES VOL 1.25