Death Valley Fall Hiking
November 14-20, 2009 - Trip Report
Greg Smith, Guide

Saturday, November 14, 2008 - Arrival in Las Vegas / Death Valley National Park
After meeting at the airport mid-morning we made our way to the outskirts of Las Vegas to a restaurant for a quick lunch.   Italian food was the order with salads and other fare filling us for the drive to Death Valley.  It was going to be over two hours, with much to see on the drive.

From the Joshua Tree woodland, to uplifted, then tilted mountain peaks.  Seeing the land forms without their usual blanket of vegetation is an eye-opener as is driving through the small town of Amargosa and seeing an opera house!  The last thirty miles held our descent into the valley where we checked into our below sea level lodging.

We had an excellent welcome dinner at the Wrangler, after which we got ready for the next day’s adventures.

Sunday, November 15 – Twenty Mule Team / Mosaic Canyon / Salt Creek / Golden Canyon / Artist Drive  
After a quick stop at the Twenty Mule Team exhibit, we headed to Mosaic Canyon.   Our discussion along the way centered on life during historic mining times in Death Valley.  We could only image the torment of the heat and the isolation. What people d to survive. 

All that changed as we parked at the entrance to Mosaic.  Other folks had preceded us into the wine glass entrance of the canyon. A surprise awaited us as we hiked around the first boulder.  The marble walls were slick from eons of tormenting water and boulders as they cascaded down the arroyo.   Every aspect of the canyon yielded conglomerates, breccias and other geologic oddities.

This narrow canyon opens up into a smaller valley where we hiked up to a fall of rock and took a break to discuss the erosion and the formation of the canyon.  The thought of how torrents of water had to squeeze out of this watershed through the narrow canyon made us understand just how hard the “mosaic” was.

Next at Salt Creek we set off on a slow hike through the habitat of the resident endangered pupfish.  It is winter here and the numerous breeding pairs and territorial males of summer are hiding the submerged vegetation waiting out the cold season.  Two shrubs,  Distichilis and pickleweed, punctuated the landscape in this otherwise inhospitable area of Death Valley.

After lunch we headed to Golden Canyon for a late afternoon hike.  The hills and ravines literally jumped out at us as the sun taunted the gold out of every fold in the rock.  Small outcroppings of calcium carbonate blended into the subtle golds of the hills.  Slabs of former sea beds pointed skyward at 150 degrees from violent thrusts of the earth’s crust. 

Late afternoon is the best time to drive the Artist’s Palette loop.  The sun is low in the horizon which lights up the multi-colored mountains and hills with that “sweet light”.  The vivid colors of Artist Palette provided us a fitting end to an outstanding day in Death Valley!

Monday, November 16 – Zabriske Point / Ubehebe Crater / Scotty’s Castle / Titus Canyon
Early morning provides very good lighting when looking at the world from Zabriske Point.  When we got to the top, we weren’t disappointed and we were alone to take in this view without any sounds other than the birds and the breeze. This is a rarity and only made the experience that much more memorable.

Next we headed north to the Ubehebe Crater area.  These small craters were created ~6,000 years ago when super heated water (steam) caused eruptions and created these small craters.  We hiked around Ubehebe and passed numerous arch sites while being treated to rare images of a land still changing, what a treat!

Lunch time was spent at Scotty’s Castle where the cottonwoods were in full fall yellow and ravens were sizing up our lunch.  Perfect lunch temps of around 65 degrees made it a very easy place to linger.  But, we had to go as there was a male tarantula down the road waiting for us to take a peek.

After a short drive we turned up Titus Canyon and parked at the entrance for our hike.  We slowly hiked our way into the canyon marveling at the vertical cliff walls.  Some areas had huge sheets of dolomite-infused breccias, while other areas were eroding at a much faster pace.  We took a break after about 2.5 miles and lay back on boulders and listened to the silence.  Death Valley has so many opportunities to feel what silence is like.

We headed back down the canyon to our van and drove back to Furnace Creek where dinner and a good night’s sleep awaited us.

Tuesday, November 17 – Wildrose Canyon / Aguereberry Point
Today we headed into the Panamint mountain range on the west side of the park.  The further west (and the higher) you go the effects of more precipitation become apparent.  High mountain meadows are filled with perennials and elevations above 6000-feet have a mixed juniper/pinyon pine forest.

We parked at the trailhead for Wildrose Peak which is also at the location where Swiss-designed charcoal kilns had been constructed by Chinese laborers.  The well constructed beehive kilns belie the fact that most of these hillsides were stripped of their forest to create charcoal for local smelting operations.

After kilning about for a short time we headed off to our destination, the saddle below the peak that allowed us to view Death Valley to the east and the Sierra to the west.

Winding our way through the forest we would come upon small flocks of Common Bushtits and their hangers-on flock allies: kinglets, nuthatches and more.  It is a steep climb through switchbacks to the saddle where we were rewarded with a different perspective of the valley.  Again, the silence was deafening…

After our descent it was time to have lunch and it was decided that Aguereberry Point was the place to be.  We drove up another canyon to the end where the best mountain view of the park exists.  The point offers you the opportunity to view the valley from north to south, but also has the hidden view of a canyon directly to the south that can’t be seen from any other point.  An exquisite view that we had to ourselves – again!

On our drive back we stop at Pete Ageueberry’s home site and looked at another level of surviving these harsh climates.  Pete mined for gold in this area until his death in 1945.  The buildings are preserved in a state of arrested decay by the parks so folks can get a feeling of life prior to WW II.

Wednesday, November 18 – Mesquite Dunes / Natural Bridge / Badwater / Nevada
We packed up our bags as our day would end up in Nevada, but first we had a couple of stops we wanted to make while still in Death Valley. 

Walking out on the Mesquite Dunes at Stovepipe Wells in the early morning gave us another treat.  We stopped intermittently to interpret the previous evening’s tracks in the sand.  Beetles moving methodically up the face of a dune. Kangaroo Rats leaving trails of last night’s dance.  Both Spotted and Striped Skunks ambling through the dune valleys that were now covered in the dark shadows of the low winter sun.   It is always a treat to visit the dunes to inspect morning news on last night’s activities.

Further south we stopped at Natural Bridge where a short two mile round trip hike showed us smooth pour-offs on the canyon walls.  As we exited the mouth of the canyon the lighting gave us excellent views o the thrust fault that was helping to shape this area of the park.

Our final stop was at Badwater, where the name says it all.  At 282’ below sea level, it is the lowest point in the continental U.S.  Reflections of the mountains bounced off of the pool of water, while we looked for signs of life.  Algae and some water beetles were all we could find, but you walked away knowing this was dramatic and impressive, but not the most hospitable site around.

After lunch in Shoshone, we made our way into Nevada where we would spend the night prior to our visiting the Red Dock National Conservation Area.

Thursday, November 19 – Red Rock
Red Rock National Conservation Area hosts a set of stunning canyons and mountain faces cloaked in red Aztec sandstone.  The contrast with adjoining layers of rock set off the red and the proximity to Las Vegas makes this one of BLM’s premier sites.  We set off to hike a couple of their trails for the day.

After our stop at the five-week old Visitor Center (it is a stunning Visitor Center!) we started our drive along the 13-mile loop.  Our destination was the La Madre Spring Trailhead.  After about eight miles we came to the canyon for the start of our morning hike.

La Madre spring winds through desert scrub alive with oaks, agaves and numerous bunch grasses.  All part of ideal habitat for the desert bighorn sheep we wouldn’t see.  But the anticipation of rounding every corner hoping to catch a glimpse of these intriguing, desert- adapted animals was always on our mind.

The spring did have a check dam where we sat and were able to view numerous birds coming into water.  The highlight was a Townsend’s Solitaire that was seen just before we headed back down slope to our lunch at the picnic area.

After lunch we headed back onto the loop to hike the Sandstone Quarry Trail.  The trailhead has large blocks of sandstone that had been quarried early in the 20th century for various construction projects.  Huge blocks of sandstone rested where they had been placed decades ago awaiting some unknown and never to be fulfilled use.

The hike took us though Aztec sandstone, through narrow canyons and then up step-sided canyons.  The present at the end was a view of the valley and Las Vegas in the distance.  The weather was perfect as we hiked down canyon just prior to sunset.  The shadows lengthened as we drove the remainder of the loop and headed back to our lodging.  We all enjoyed a farewell dinner prior to getting our last night’s sleep prior to our morning flights.  An exciting trip with wonderful weather and friends!

Photo Credits: Dunes hiker and Greg Smith at A. Point by Peg Abbott and other photos by Greg Smith

 

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