Death Valley Day 3

On the third and last day of our trip to Death Valley we spent most of our time exploring the Southern end of the park.

We started off by filling up the gas tank...and it wasn't pretty. Death Valley is in California and the gas prices there are ridiculous anyway...add to that the fact that we were in a very remote location, so of course they could be outrageous with their prices!

We started off the morning by driving on another dirt road to find some VERY remote mines that Ramin had read about online. He knew there was a mine that you could actually walk into and explore. We ended up driving for quite a long time and pulled off the road when we think we found what we were looking for. After hiking up a hill we found the entrance to the cave and this is what it looked like inside!

It was a talc mining operation so everything was white everywhere! The cave itself was cool and creepy, but honestly, we didn't get to go in too far because it looked like it had been purposely closed off (designed to look like a cave in)....but beyond the cave in we could see that the cave didn't go far back anyway. I'd guess we could only walk about 100 feet inside the cave.

This was what the operation looked like on the outside.

There was a rusted up steam roller on the top of the hill and I decided to write our initials on it with some of the chalk...since it was everywhere! Now, if we ever go back there someday, we can see if our initials are still there :P 

After out mine exploring we did some more driving and headed to Badwater Basin. This is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere- it was 282 feet BELOW sea level...how weird is that to think about?  All of the whiteness behind us is a salt flat.

Ramin in the middle of the salt flat

The next stop on the list was Natural Bridge. We weren't expecting much out of this since we've been to Arches National Park many times, and those arches can't be beat.  But this bridge was cool and it was a nice cool shady hike.

Ramin did some extra climbing while I stayed below.

Here I am further up in the hike with a dry waterfall. You can just imagine the water that rushes down that shoot when there's runoff!

The next step was Devil's Golf Course. They call it that because it's a very rock porous looking landscape shaped by salt. It's definitely a cool picture setting...in fact, while we were there a bridge and groom in their full outfits were having their pictures taken with this as the backdrop.

 The next stop (keep in mind that all of these places are fairly close in proximity so it didn't take us long to get from one to the next) was Artist's Drive. They call it that because of the spectacular colors of the hills due to all of the minerals in the land (hence all of the stuff to mine).  Here I am hiking up  a hill that ended up being a bust. All of these people had stopped to hike this hill and we though we'd following in case we missed something cool - we didn't. There wasn't nothing grand at the top :P

This is the main point of attraction on this little loop. It's called Artist's Palette. If you make the picture bigger you can see all of the various colors within the rolling hills. Kinda neat.

Next stop was Harmony Borax Works next Furnace Creek resort area. This was a cool historical exhibit about the mining days. It was also the original site of the old processing plant.

They call this the 20-mule team train. Basically, they'd fill up the large box cars with borax and the barrel car was filled with water to feed the 20 mules it took to haul the whole thing up wherever it had to go. Mules are a big deal in Death Valley.

Our final hike of the day was Golden Canyon. It was supposed to be a good 4-mile hike but after 1.5 miles in I had wasted all of our water by pouring it on me (it was 90 degrees outside at 3pm) and this hike had absolutely NO SHADE at all. I wasn't prepared for this type of hike at all and so we decided to turn around. We did get to see the Beacon though...which is that cool monument in the picture below.

There was a point on our drive out of the park called Zabriske Point and everyone stopped. We did another very short hike up a steep hill to overall Golden Canyon...so in the end I got to see where we just were from above. It was EXTREMELY windy though...everyone was getting dust in their eyes and it was very weird. Here I am in the wind!

Finally, we made our way back to Death Valley Junction and stopped one last time at the Amargosa Opera House because we wanted to see the inside of the actual opera house because we knew the owner, Marta Becket, had painted it back in the 1970s. Here's what we found...along with a cool older gentleman playing the piano when we walked in.

 

And that was our trip! After this stop we headed to Las Vegas and spent the night in a hotel there. The next day we stopped by Ramin's boss' house in St. George and visited for a few hours and then we headed home. Overall it was a great trip and I'm glad we got away. I love the trips we get to do.

Our next trip will be in June when we'll head to Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest when Ramin's parents will be visiting up there as well!

Death Valley Day 2

Our second day of touring Death Valley started early as usual. We needed to gas up first thing since we would be driving A LOT!

This was the gas station that we filled up at - Area 51 Alien Center :P I didn't snap a picture of it but there was a legit brothel attached to this place. Very odd....but the workers inside were nice.

Our first adventure of the day was Titus Canyon within the park. It was VERY rough and bumpy dirt road but extremely fun to drive on! This picture gives you an idea of how long our drive was...and this was only a small portion of it!

View of that same road looking back from where we just drove from!

Along the way we made a stop and found another mine - they are literally everywhere!

The ghost town of Leadfield was also along the drive. You can read the sign for yourself about the history of the place :P

 

We had to stop so Ramin could take a picture of the crazy cactus growing out of the side of the rock face. He was fascinated with this thing!

We decided we needed to document some pictures of us driving through the canyon with our truck. Our truck was an integral part of our trip because without it, we literally could not have gone to the places we did. It did such a great job and we were so thankful we didn't get any flat tires along the way (although we were prepared if we did).

 

 

After we were done with Titus Canyon we headed Soutwest through the park and made our way past the sand dunes on our way through Stovepipe Wells (a little resort area within the park). These dunes were cool but they were crowded and we've seen sand before of course so we didn't stay long.

The next stop was Mosaic Canyon near Stovepipe Wells. They call it Mosaic Canyon because of all the cool rock swirls everywhere. Here I am sitting in a little seat...this canyon was carved out by water of course. It looks like a luge course or something

Ramin hiked up higher than me at this point.

We hiked the trail farther than most people did and climbed along this ridge. When we realized it wouldn't really lead us anywhere we turned around.

After Mosaic Canyon we traveled west a bit more to Panamint Springs (on the very very edge of the park) and had lunch and rested. After lunch we made our way to another trailhead and took a very peaceful hike to Darwin Falls. Who knew such a lovely place would be in Death Valley! It was one of the prettiest water falls I've been too. Another couple arrived at the falls a bit after we did and took our picture for us.

 

After that hike we headed outside of the park to look for a ghost town called Ballarat...we took the road to find it because it was a shortcut to the rest of the places we wanted to see that day.

Up Rose Canyon we found the charcoal kilns. You'd think these things were really old and built by Native Americans, but they weren't. They were actually built by Chinese workers during the 1920s to help with the processing of mining ore (I don't remember the exact details). They were still cool to stop and visit though!

The final stop of the night was a place called Eureka Mine. This was probably one of the largest mining operations in Death Valley and so it had a LOT of leftover structures. Of course we tried to find a way to actually get in, but of course, the main entrance was blocked. Lots of random stuff here.

I liked this car cause it had tons of bullet holes in it. :-P

Blocked mine entrance

Largest structure at the mine

The mine was essentially located within a large mountain. We hiked up the mountain because it had mining stuff all up throughout it. We took a picture of the truck all the way down there! It goes to show you how remote everything is in Death Valley. I don't recall seeing anyone on the road during this portion of our trip. It was dusk by this time of the day.

Ramin found this cyanide barrel...obviously part of the mining operation.

After this was headed back to the hotel after eating dinner.