Wednesday
This morning, I went in search of a Verizon cellular data signal. I hated being disconnected so soon after our Full-Time Freedom Week interview on Monday, and we had hoped to watch more of the videos. At a minimum, we needed to view and check emails.
Across the road from the Sunset Campground, the Ranch at Death Valley (part of the Oasis at Death Valley private enterprise) offered paid Wi-Fi for an hour, a day, or for three days. But I wasn't convinced their internet was all that good for the price as the signal was weak.
I drove on Hwy 190 toward Death Valley Junction, taking the opportunity for an early morning stop at Zabriskie Point, one of the most visted overlooks in Death Valley (for good reason).
There is a short, wide, paved trail up to the overlook.
Near the parking lot, off to the right as you walk toward the viewpoint, is a trailhead for the Badlands Loop, a 2.7-mile trail through the colorful landscape.
There weren't many people at Zabriskie at 8:00 a.m., and the morning light illuminated the moguls and the big yellow pointed rock known as Manly Beacon.
After that brief stop, I drove all the way to Death Valley Junction where I found a 4G Verizon signal at the south entrance to Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge which we visited in the Spring after our last Rally.
After getting some things done, I drove from Death Valley Junction to the Armagosa Valley where I found the Longstreet Inn, Casino, and RV Resort right at the Nevada/California border. I got a 4G signal there, and while their RV park is just a bunch of side-by-side gravel parking sites, the utilities all looked new and they had full hook-ups for $22/night with a Good Sam Discount.
That was certainly a good back-up plan, and we might consider moving.
Back at the campground in Furnace Creek, Linda was ready to go.
Since the water was still not back on at the Sunset Campground, we took a couple gallon jugs over to the Furnace Creek Visitors Center to fill them up to have drinking water with us.
The temperature topped out at around 75, and we weren't as concerned about dehydration or overheating as we might have been in the summer, but it's always a good idea to have plenty of water on hand as you drive around Death Valley. While there, we watched the park movie, and then did an afternoon drive.
We drove the 13 miles out to Badwater Basin and then worked our way back. Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level.
In wet winters, a lake appears, but right now there is just the small, shallow pond above. One of the signs says an early prospector's donkey wouldn't drink the briny water, so that's where the "Badwater" name came from.
On the small boardwalk area, we got the obligatory photo by the sign.
There is a wide path out to the huge expanse of salt flats, and we walked a little ways before turning back.
It's a long walk and, in our opinion, not really worth it. You can see all you need to see near the parking lot. You can learn from the informational signs and see the salt creeping up through the cracks in the ground without a long, unnecessary walk.
Leaving Badwater Basin and heading back toward Furnace Creek, we skipped the Natural Bridge hike and left it for another day. But we did drive down the gravel, dusty road to the Devil's Golf Course.
From the park website:
An immense area of rock salt eroded by wind and rain into jagged spires. So incredibly serrated that "only the devil could play golf on such rough links". Listen carefully and you'll hear sounds like tiny pops and pings. Bend your ear to the ground and the sound grows louder. The sound is literally billions of tiny salt crystals bursting apart as they expand and contract in the heat.
We did get down, and we really could hear the pops of the salt crystals exploding.
The mountains were beautiful in the afternoon light as we drove back to the main road.
Next, we turned onto Artist's Drive, a 9-mile, one-way, paved, half-loop drive through colorful mountains.
Badwater Basin is the most visited site in Death Valley, but the Artist's Drive shouldn't be missed. In fact, if possible, I would recommend both a morning drive and a late afternoon drive to get the full effect of the different lighting.
Artist's Palette.
Though there are a couple of places to park and get out, it's not really necessary to leave your vehicle. However, there are some really good photo opportunities that are worth pulling over and stepping out for a moment.
The drive begins off of Badwater Basin Road and at the end you are deposited back onto that main road in a different location, closer to Furnace Creek.
That was enough for the day. We made a brief stop to get a photo of this unusual rock formation, known as Mushroom Rock.
We continued past the Desolation Canyon access road and the very full Golden Canyon trailhead parking lot, making note of those for another day.
Later that evening, we got a knock on the door. The camphost told us that the campground water was back on. And then he asked "Are you Howard?" I replied "Yes", and he said he thought so. He knew we were in the area and he recognized the Winnebago Aspect. Dale, and his wife, Denise, are camphosting here at the Sunset Campground, and he told us they came to see us speak twice at the Chattanooga RV Show. Cool. They are now full-timers and said we were a big part of their decision - always nice to hear ... as long as it is working out well.
We wished each other a Happy Thanksgiving, and he continued going to each campsite to let everyone know the water was back on.
Speaking of the water, when we were in Lone Pine, I purchased a six-gallon hard-sided container ....
and a five-gallon collapsible container. Rather than using our 45-gallon water bladder, I just filled up the smaller containers and poured them into our gravity fill on our fresh water tank. The two of those together equal a third of our fresh tank. That's much easier than using the bladder and a pump.
Earlier today, before I got back from my morning drive, I had found the water on at one of the other campgrounds and filled our new containers up and added to our fresh water. So, though we were glad the water was back on here at Sunset, we were good to go for a couple more days.
And thus ended our first full day at Death Valley.
Thursday - Happy Thanksgiving!
This morning, after a couple of family phone calls, we headed out to another section of the park.
We drove toward the town of Beatty.
A couple miles outside the park boundary is the entrance to the 27-mile, one-way Titus Canyon Road which courses back into the park. It's a high-clearance vehicle road, so that eliminates a good number of folks from traversing it. Still, it is the most popular back-country road, so we were told not to expect solitide.
The first eight miles or so are not all that inspiring. That section is gravel and quite dusty and though rough, you can still make some good time.
Then, it gets interesting. We started climbing up through the rock formations and the road got a little rougher.
Looking back behind us, the road twisted through the mountains and along the side of a cliff.
The higher we went, the rougher the road became. We didn't need 4WD, but high clearance was certainly necessary. It's definitely not a road for a Corvette or a Prius.
Eventually, we got to the top of the pass and had this view down the other side.
We slowly descended the curvy road where it flattened for a short time before continuing its downward path.
We drove past the remnants of the town of Leadfield which once had about 300 people, but folded soon after it was established as fraudulent advertising brought people here seeking mining riches that they never acquired.
Continuing, the road twisted as it also became less rough.
We passed a petroglyph rock.
The last third of the drive was different as it wound through the canyon eventually coming to an area where the canyon walls closed in.
Linda said it was like a "slot canyon for cars."
Near the end, we started encountering hikers coming up-canyon. The last three miles of the road are two-way, so people can drive up to a parking lot just outside the canyon and hike in.
The rangers said it would take about three hours to do the Titus Canyon Drive, but without walking around the Leadfield ghost town, we finished in a little over two hours even stopping to take a lot of pictures.
The road spit us out on Scotty's Castle Road. Driving toward Scotty's Castle, the mountain colors were stunning.
We knew Scotty's Castle was closed, but we had another destination in that area.
For those that don't know, "Scotty's Castle" is the name given for a ranch house (Death Valley Ranch) built in the Grapevine Mountains by the Chicago millionaire, Albert Johnson in the late 1920s. It was a vacation home for he and his wife after they made several visits to the area.
Scotty's Castle is the tongue-in-cheek name given to the house, because the Johnsons were lured to the area by a prospector/con man named Walter Scott (aka Death Valley Scotty). Scott toured in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show seasonally, but returned to Death Valley often where he convinced investors to put up money to extract ore from his non-existent gold mine. Johnson was one of those investors.
Though he was swindled, Johnson developed a friendship with Scott, and came to love Death Valley in no small part because his poor health improved in the dry, sunny conditions. Scott was allowed to reside at the ranch, and the Johnson's provided that Scott could live out his life at the ranch, and it became known as Scotty's Castle.
The National Park Service purchased the property in 1970 and offers tours for a fee. This photo is from the Death Valley National Park website.
Unfortunately, the support buildings around Scotty's Castle were heavily damaged by a flash flood in October of 2015, and the access road was destroyed. Everything is undergoing restoration, and the Park Service is estimating it will re-open in 2020.
Since we were already out that way, we drove past the closed access road and continued on to Ubehebe Crater. That's Yu-bee-Hee-bee.
You can drive right to the rim of the volcanic crater and it has a nice "wow" factor when you walk up to the edge.
You can walk down into the crater ....
or you can hike the 1.5-mile trail around the rim. There is also a smaller crater called Little Hebe above Ubehebe which is a 1-mile out-and-back roundtrip hike on loose rock and sand. Linda started up with me, but determined she didn't need to go any farther.
So, I checked out Little Hebe .....
and walked on around the big crater taking in the wonderful views.
That was a fun little trip around the crater.
Near the Ubehebe Crater parking lot is a gravel/dirt road that leads out to what is known as The Racetrack Playa, a place where rocks move by themselves across a dry lake bed. From Ubehebe, it's a 27-mile drive on a rough, tire-shredding road (according to the ranger at the Visitors Center). She said it takes two hours out and two hours back and many people have been "popping tires".
Also, we heard that people have been stealing the iconic rocks and/or moving them and otherwise vandalizing the playa and the rocks. Though this is a place we've wanted to see for years, we determined in wasn't worth the effort and we would end up quite angry if we went out there on a day we were enjoying so much. Perhaps, someday, probably long after we are gone, the nature will heal and it will once again be a place of mystery and reverence if the idiot humans don't destroy it forever.
Near the Scotty's Castle access road and the Grapevine entrance to the park, is the Mesquite Springs Campground. We stopped by and determined it was the best of the campgrounds that could handle RVs. It's known for having the darkest sky of the campgrounds, and the setting and sites were much more to our liking. However, especially with Scotty's Castle and the facilities there closed, it's really isolated. It's 42 miles from Stovepipe Wells and 52 miles from Furnace Creek. But, for a pure camping experience, that's where I'd go.
We made our way back to Furnace Creek, and while I was happy just to treat this as a normal day food-wise, Linda was thinking some turkey and a traditional Thanksgiving meal sounded really good and she was starving. We checked at "The Ranch" and their prices for a plated dinner or the buffet were a bit steep.
I knew that the Longstreet Inn, Casino & RV Resort had a full Thanksgiving dinner for $18, and while the quality may not equal "The Ranch" or "The Inn" at Death Valley, we decided to go the cheaper route. And after a few minutes of discussion, we also decided that we would just pack up and take the RV with us.
It was about 2:45 and Linda said she would be ready by 3:00. We pulled out and stopped by the camphost site to say goodbye to Dale & Denise. Then we made the 38-mile drive to the Armagosa Valley.
We paid our $24/night for two nights (Good Sam discount plus tax), and got set up in one of the sites. They're all the same, much like Sunset at Furnace Creek, but they have full hook-ups, Wi-Fi, and a 4G Verizon signal for $10 more.
Within minutes we were set up, and we walked over to the restaurant. We ordered the Thanksgiving special, and our server delivered a huge plate of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, yams, and rolls. After we demolished that, we had our choice of pumpkin or pecan pie. The food was actually better than expected and Linda was quite happy with our first Thanksgiving at a casino.
Back at the rig, I went through photos and got them uploaded. Then we streamed a new series on our recently acquired unlimited data plan (see Switched Our JetPack To Verizon's New Prepaid Unlimited Plan).
Oh, by the way, we're using the new plan and our Amazon Prime membership to stream music now. So, we canceled our Sirius/XM satellite radio saving us another $15/month. We had the music only package, and we listened to four or five channels, but the repetition of the songs on each channel became annoying. It was lazy programming and we tired of it quickly.
So, it was an unusual Thanksgiving Day, but we enjoyed it.
Friday
I didn't quite get to do everything I wanted to do in Death Valley, but Linda was content. So, I got up early and made the drive back this morning with a loose plan.
Since the turnoff was just inside the park entrance coming from Death Valley Junction, I drove the 13 miles out to the parking area at Dante's View. The viewpoint underwent a facelift at the beginning of this year. By the way, the last half mile is a 25% grade up hairpin turns.
At the top (5,476 feet), it was cold and windy as I looked out over Badwater Basin (-282 feet) that was directly below and Telescope Peak, the highest point in the park at 11,043 feet, across the valley.
I'm glad a drove up there as there was some nice scenery along the way, and it's an iconic viewpoint. But, in my opinion, there are better ways to spend time in Death Valley.
After that, I had a decision to make. I could do the 2.7-mile Badlands Loop from Zabriskie Point, or I could drive around to the Golden Canyon trailhead and do the 4.3-mile Golden Canyon - Gower Gulch Loop or combine trails for a 5.4-mile loop.
I opted for the longer loop starting from the Golden Canyon trailhead.
There is a half-mile side trail to the big red rock formation called Red Cathedral, but I didn't see the need to add that extra mile. However, a lot of people do an easy 1.5-mile out-and-back (3-mile roundtrip) from the parking lot to Red Cathedral.
From the Badlands Loop you can access Zabriskie Point, adding another mile for an out-and-back detour there. So, you could easily add two more miles to the 5.4-mile loop.
As I got to the Golden Canyon trailhead, a coyote walked right in front of me and then continued down the road behind me.
The parking lot was already full, so I parked out on the road shoulder with several others. The Golden Canyon trail is well-marked, and I headed in.
A ranger was doing a guided walk which seemed to account for most of the vehicles at the trailhead.
I took this nice little side trail where there were no people.
Back on the main trail, the hikers spread out.
Most people continued on to Red Cathedral, ....
but I followed the signs to the right and then the trail started up the steepest section to Manly Beacon.
That was the toughest section of the trail, but the views back toward the valley were worth it.
On the other side of Manly Beacon .....
the badlands stretched out toward Zabriskie Point.
Eventually, I connected with the Badlands Loop and there were a few ups and downs and more terrific views.
This is a nice view approaching Zabriskie Point where I took some photos Wednesday morning.
Just short of Zabriskie Point, I started the loop back down Gower Gulch.
That side of the trail wasn't marked quite as well, but it was easy enough to just follow the gulch through the formations as it wound back down toward the valley.
There were far fewer people in Gower Gulch, and I enjoyed the easy walk. At one point, the walls closed in a bit and there was some minor scrambling which made it a little more entertaining.
Eventually, the trail opened out to the valley.
The trail, rather than staying in the gulch, hugged the rocks on the right ....
and turned along the foot of the mountains for the last half to three quarters of a mile back to the parking lot.
That was a really nice hike. If you have time, do the 5.4 miles, but the 4.3-mile loop or even the 2.7-mile Badlands Loop offer immersion in the landscape and great views. You won't be alone, and the section from the trailhead to Red Cathedral will have the most people, but you can spread out nicely after that.
Next, I debated doing the Desolation Canyon hike, a 3.6-mile roundtrip out-and-back. It wasn't in my plan for the day, but it's a much less popular hike and there's not a sign for it on the main Badwater Basin Road, so I thought it might be worth checking out to get a little more solitude.
What the heck. I drove in on the dirt access road (which is about two miles from Golden Canyon) and parked. There were a half dozen cars there as opposed to the 50 or more at the Golden Canyon trailhead.
I headed out and only saw one person as I made my way to the mouth of the canyon.
That first half-mile wasn't the most interesting, but it got better as I entered the more narrow part of the canyon.
I remembered reading about a couple of scrambles, and I soon came to the largest one. This was about a 10-foot high wall, but there were enough good footholds to make it up fairly easily.
Going back down might be another story.
I continued on and came to another shorter scramble.
Then the walls opened up a bit showing me some of their pastel colors.
This trail is all uphill, though it's fairly gradual. Except for about the last tenth of a mile or so. That last section is quite steep and on a deep rocky/sandy mix making it more difficult. You'll definitely know it when you get there.
After trudging up the last bit, the views were worth it.
After a brief rest and taking in the scenery, I headed back down.
I saw maybe a dozen people on that nice mid-range, moderate hike. Glad I huffed and puffed through it.
From there, I drove on out to the Natural Bridge access road. That short road was absolutely terrible, especially the right side. I drove on the left most of the way getting over only to let others coming out get by.
This is another very popular stop as the Natural Bridge hike is listed as an easy 1-mile roundtrip. It's actually 0.3 miles one-way, so it's slightly over a half-mile. That was fine by me, as I was almost hiked out.
There were a lot of people on this hike as I expected.
I was very fortunate that the sun was shining right into the canyon and lighting up the bridge when I arrived.
You can continue hiking up the canyon to a dead end and a dry waterfall chute, but I'd had enough. I took one more shot from the other side of the bridge, ....
and headed back to the Jeep.
Ten miles of hiking on the day was quite enough, but it was a great day of hiking and photography, and I enjoyed all of it.
I learned that Thanksgiving is a very popular time in Death Valley. And it seemed that every country outside the U.S. told its citizens that Thanksgiving was a good week to hit the U.S. National Parks. It was like the United Nations in the park this week, and sometimes I think that foreigners appreciate our parks more than a lot of U.S. citizens; however, they don't always know what they are doing.
I got some personal satisfaction from helping a few of our foreign friends out.
One walked into the campground and used Google translator so I could give him directions to the entrance. It was rather confusing.
One couple was having trouble pumping gas, so I walked over and showed them how the pump worked. Having just struggled with this in Iceland a few months ago, I understood their frustration.
One fellow was at the dump station in our campground and trying to stretch the sewer rinsing hose to his fresh water tank gravity fill after I had just seen someone stick that hose all the way down into their sewer hose. I had to hustle a bit on that one, but got there in time to show him he just needed to drive forward a bit to the potable water filling station.
We watched as another couple helped out one other young man. He was getting ready to wash his stack of breakfast dishes with that same disgusting sewer rinse hose. They pointed out the several dish-washing stations that had recently been installed in the campground.
So, Death Valley National Park was busy this week, but it is still a wild, beautiful place. The colors that change throughout the day with the movement of the sun, the contours, and the diversity of the landscape all make it very special.
Of course, there is a ton of history as well. I recently read The Other Side of the Mountain, The Forgotten Pioneers of California's Owens Valley
It includes over 30 stories of the history of the eastern side of the Sierras including much of the U.S. 395 corridor and Death Valley. It doesn't necessarily flow well, but it was quite informative and "free" with our Kindle Unlimited plan.
So, there you have it. We packed quite a bit into our three days exploring Death Valley, the 44th National Park we've visited. It, like most of the National Parks, is a very special place, and though there is much more to see, we're pleased with the time we spent and, though it wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving, it is one we'll remember .... and it was a great reminder of how thankful we are for our National Parks.
About driving on the left side of dirt road for a smoother drive. I do that alot. However for some reason, on the way back out, the left side, again, seems to be smoother. Strange how that works out. :)
Posted by: Al & Sharon Florida | Monday, November 26, 2018 at 07:48 AM
Thanks for the tour. We went to Joshua Park last Christmas and it was super packed with people. We thought going on Christmas day we would have it to ourselves. We ran out of time and didn't get to Death Valley. I too am very Thankful for our National Parks and hope they can survive homo sapiens. I've followed you from the beginning of your journey. I don't comment often but do look forward to your journal entries.
Posted by: Rhonda Norman | Monday, November 26, 2018 at 08:48 AM
What a great Thanksgiving. I love natural bridges and they are tough to photograph. Nice job!
Posted by: Tracy Perkins | Monday, November 26, 2018 at 10:32 AM
Looks like you did Death Valley justice - it is a magical place full of so many surprises. Great pics of all the variety. We stayed at Longstreet and were really happy with everything from the utilities to the views.
Posted by: Jodee Gravel | Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at 02:05 PM
Thanks for views of the park..The last time we were there we camped @ Mesquite Springs, the best campground of all the others.
I hope to head back down in the next couple of months from Washington. Your pictures showed me more places I can look forward to visiting..
Thanks,
Upriverdavid
Posted by: Upriverdavid | Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 01:32 AM