Death Valley 2017

This was my second year at Cheryl Soshnik's annual Bob Wright Memorial Death Valley Winter Escape. Once again, I came without a bicycle, and I hiked almost every day.

The weather was a bit stormier, with grayer skies and some very windy periods. It didn't actually rain on us in Death Valley until we were on the drive out, however. The flowers that impressed us last year were absent this year. On the plus side, the Funeral Creek campground was much less busy — on many nights, there were unreserved sites available.

My friend Jerry and I visited a couple old favorites and some new places.

Sunday 2/5: Most of the other folks were arriving Sunday evening, so Jerry and I used that as an excuse to go on a long drive to see a few sights in the western part of the park, around Panamint Valley. We drove west over Towne Pass, across the northern playa and over to the northwestern spur of CA 178, the Trona-Wildrose Road. (The northeastern segment over Emigrant Pass is currently closed, hence the detour.)

We drove south on this bumpy paved road to the roadside marker for the old mining town of Ballarat, then turned east on a dirt road to cross the playa and visit Ballarat. The town is hanging on by its fingernails, with the Ballarat Trading Post the only public establishment. The post is full of collectible junk, and it has a toilet that you have to flush by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl. There are some older buildings in various states of disrepair, with the wooden ones being in somewhat better shape than the concrete ones. The local concrete appears to rot away in the desert heat and wind. Like most ghost towns, it has an interesting cemetery. The headstones have mostly been erased by the harsh weather, and the scenery is eerie and desolate.

From Ballarat, we went north along the east side Panamint Valley road, then turned east on the Surprise Canyon Road. The lower part of this road is pretty loose and bumpy where it crosses the alluvial fan; drive with care if you don't have 4WD or AWD. The road ends a couple of miles up at the former Chris Wicht camp area. The camp burned in 2006 and it's not very attractive now.

We parked and walked up a use trail in the canyon. My expectations were low, given the mess at the camp and the fact that the canyon formerly held a mining road that was used to build and supply the Panamint City camp higher up in the canyon. I had entirely the wrong idea. In fact, the canyon has few traces of a road, so much so that it's hard to imagine that there ever was a road in the canyon, except for the handful of dead vehicles at the top and bottom of the narrows. Instead, it's now a raw gorge cut into solid white rock (aplite), with a lovely running stream that will promptly get your feet wet. It was so charming that it took Jerry and me well over an hour to travel about a mile through the narrows.

Our next stop was Darwin Falls, across the valley and up a winding side canyon off CA 190. It's a charming spot and it clearly has a lot of history, but we found that the scenery a little underwhelming after Surprise Canyon. Maybe we would have been more impressed if we had done the scramble upcanyon to see the upper falls.

go to the Panamint Valley gallery

Monday 2/6: We were joined on Monday for a hike to Corkscrew Canyon by Rob, Bob, Eve and Don. This hike takes off from a GPS waypoint on the 20-Mule-Team Road, which is on the opposite side of the Black Mountains from the more famous Artists Drive. A lot of the landscape reminded me of desserts — merengue, whipped cream, fruit, cake, ice cream, strawberry sauce. We hiked for a mile and a half up a wash and then up an alluvial fan to the mouth of the canyon, and wandered up the increasingly narrow wash. At another GPS waypoint, we turned south (left) into an extremely twisty side canyon that drilled through fun narrows and a natural bridge to reach an upper basin surrounded by beautiful textured walls and topped with towers. It's hard to describe in words just how cool this area is. We also checked out the mine in the main fork of the canyon. The ore sorter is still standing and it's still very impressive, but it's not in great shape and it has been fenced off so that idiots won't climb on it.

go to the Corkscrew Canyon gallery

Monday 2/6, later in the day: Jerry and I hadn't had enough punishment, so we decided to drive up the Echo Canyon Road to the Inyo Mine. The road is fairly rough with deep gravel in the narrows; it would be somewhat challenging for a 2WD vehicle. We stopped to check out Eye of the Needle Arch before pushing on to the mine. The mine buildings are in a fairly poor state and the ones that are standing look like they may join the collapsed ones pretty soon. We got back to the paved road just as it was getting dark.

go to the Echo Canyon gallery

Tuesday 2/7: Margie had never been to Fall Canyon, so Jerry and I walked up to the fall with her. It was a warm day in a (mostly) shady canyon, which was quite appealing. Fall Canyon is (still) amazing.

go to the Fall Canyon gallery

Wednesday 2/8: Unlike last year, we had a crowd for the Funeral Slots hike. My limited goal this year was to get above the rockfall in the main fork and check out the slots above. The climb proved to be easier than I expected, and 4 of us managed to get up it. We also got everyone to the overlook in the first side slot on the right after the main right fork. This side slot is quite narrow and has a few obstacles, but nothing really major. It leads up to a nice view down into the main fork as well as an expansive view out to Death Valley. It was a warm day and we sweated up and down the alluvial fan on the way to and from the slots, but we did get a little breeze and some cloud cover in the afternoon.

I botched my directions to some folks who left the hike early and they came out on the road 2 miles north of Furnace Creek. Ouch. I highly recommend traveling with a GPS unit or GPS-equipped phone and (at the very least) taking a waypoint at your car so that you can find your way back to it. This hike has a lot of cross country travel across a wasteland that generally looks the same everywhere.

go to the Funeral Slots gallery

Thursday 2/9: The other folks wanted to go bicycling. Jerry and I were concerned about the forecast for record high temperatures and high winds, so rather than hiking, we took a tour of two ghost towns.

Cerro Gordo, the fat mountain, is located high above Owens Lake. In its heyday, it produced millions of dollars' worth of lead, zinc and silver — one of the minority of mines in the area that actually made money for the miners. At 8,000 feet the wind was stiff and cold, but we got a tour from a volunteer named Bill who showed us around the museum buildings and the old American Hotel. The site is privately owned and used to feature a B&B, but the cost of maintenance in this remote area is high and a number of structures are in need of restoration. Currently the upstairs section of the hotel is off limits due to concerns about the flooring, for example. Friends of Cerro Gordo is a 501(c)(3) that exists to raise money to maintain the site.

On the way back to Furnace Creek, we diverted to see the old site of Skidoo, a ghost town high on Tucki Mountain above Stovepipe Wells. I was surprised to discover that you get a view of Furnace Creek from the road as it winds its way up the mountain. There are no buildings remaining at all at the old town center, much to my surprise. The only substantial structure that's left is the stamping mill, located in a canyon on the far side of town. The mill is falling apart, however. It's clear that there have been some efforts to shore it up, and they are not going to be enough to save it.

Great Basin ghost towns are steadily disappearing into history...

go to the ghost town gallery

Friday 2/10: Palmer Canyon is Fall Canyon's little sister to the north. Mark and Rob accompanied Jerry and me from the Fall Canyon trailhead north across bizarre eroded terrain to the high alluvial fan at the mouth of Palmer Canyon. The lower narrows of Palmer Canyon are some of the best we've seen in the park, deep and rugged with imposing gray walls. The canyon floor is mostly walkable gravel, with a couple of excursions onto slickrock. There is one awkward 6-foot scramble around a chockstone in the second narrows, but otherwise there are no obstacles. I was obsessed with the view of crazily folded limestone beds that you get in the upper canyon (and which appear to actually be in the left fork of Fall Canyon). The uniquely strange topography of the badlands south of Palmer was also magnetically attractive and I wish we could have spent more time in there. I'll note that enough people have now visited Palmer Canyon that you can actually follow a tread for most of the way from the Fall Canyon trail, and there are multitudes of cairns when the tread disappears. Don't do this hike on a really hot day, but otherwise I recommend it highly.

go to the Palmer Canyon gallery