There was enough time left to explore the first of three canyons around Furnace Creek. Asked which canyon he'd recommend the young ranger at the visitor centre said, “I'd do them all. They are all different.”
Two of the three are south of the
visitor centre, but to get to the third, Mosaic Canyon, we had to
drive back towards Stovepipe Wells, so it was a little further. Also,
the ranger had suggested we'd choose this one for this afternoon
because it provided more shade than the other two. It was blazing
hot: 33 degrees Celsius. We slowly walked up to the mouth of the
canyon through soft sand. We encountered a few small groups of people
on their way out, but not many were on their way in, like us. For all
three of the canyons it is only about a mile to hike to the end, and
none of them is very strenuous. Only the heat makes it so, and once
we entered the narrow, winding interior of Mosaic Canyon it wasn't
very bothersome anymore. I had seen a photo of the canyon in the park
brochure, taken from above, and it almost looked like people were
walking through the spiraling chambers of a snail shell.
I stood and looked at the entrance to
the narrow part of the canyon for a moment. The walls were so
smooth that it seemed impossible to resist touching them, and indeed
that was what everyone who entered did first. It is hard to imagine
what force, and over how long a time, must have been needed to carve
these winding paths through hard rock. At times it looks like
marble, but often the walls have the most intricate patterns. Among
them are those who gave the canyon its name; no human design could
have been more elaborate than that of nature.
We had to climb up a few slip rocks on
the way, and as usual I thought about the way back while I was
carefully putting my feet into holes and on ledges providing
footholds: how would I get down again? 'Nobody ever stayed up. You
get down the same way you climb up', Johann said. Of course, I know
that, and this wasn't very difficult, let alone dangerous. Still ...
When we arrived at the first one on the way back I found the perfect
solution for my dilemma. No awkward going down the rock backward,
feeling for footholds: I would slide down on my bum. It was easy, and
it was fun, too. I wonder how many of the visitors choose to do it my
way. The smoothness of this slide, I'm sure, was not from human
abrasion, however. It took forces much stronger than that.
When we left the canyon the sun was
about to set. It was still as warm as before, and even the auditorium
in the visitor centre did not provide much coolness. This had changed
a little bit by the time the ranger talk was over shortly before
nine. We had only a short walk across the parking lot to our
campground. On the walk over I had just been able to make out Venus and Jupiter
in the afterglow of the sunset. Now, the sky was ablaze with stars. A
huge light in the western sky almost stopped me in my tracks. What was this? It took me a moment to realize that it was Venus, now
slipping slowly towards the horizon, seeming much larger than when it
was still up high. It was a magical night, and for a long time I lay
on my back on the picnic bench and just gazed up at the Milky Way.
Two shooting stars streaked across the sky in short succession, their
path still visible for a moment after they were gone.
We had decided to explore the other two
canyons in the mornings when it was not so hot yet. Golden Canyon was
our destination for Monday morning, only a short drive from our
campground. Here, it would have been possible to do a loop and extend
the hike by another couple of miles, but since we had planned a long
hike for the afternoon we felt no need to do this.
As indicated by the ranger, this canyon
is a lot different from Mosaic. The rock is much softer, and parts of
it are intense gold in colour, as the name suggests. At no point did
the canyon itself get as narrow as the one we had visited the night
before, and its walls did not invite touching: they were rough. After
about three quarters of the way a side trip into another part of the
canyon will lead to a wall of red rock aptly named Red Cathedral. We
followed one of the side valleys, yet the higher we got the narrower
it became, and in the end we could not continue. We realized we would
not get to red cathedral this way, even though we could see its top
glowing above us to the right. It didn't matter: every little canyon
here holds its own special beauty, and I was amply rewarded with the
wildflowers I found in the gravel of the wash once we had climbed a
bit higher. How anything can grow under these conditions is a mystery
to me, again and again, yet plants not only survive but even thrive.
A spider, its belly swollen with offspring to be born soon, crawled
from a beautiful blossom of the same colour, a very pale yellow.
Birds were singing, hidden somewhere in the rocks, no doubt enjoying
the relative cool of morning.
As I mentioned the afternoon was
dedicated to a longer hike, a ridge walk from Dante's Peak towards
Mount Perry. We chose this for its higher elevation which would much
reduce the heat making any activity in the valley hard during the
day.
This is a topic for a later blog
posting, however. For now, I will talk about the last of the canyon
hikes. Unfortunately we hadn't been able to stay for a second night
at Furnace Creek campground, but the one we found at Texas Spring was
not so bad either after all. We set up the tent under one of the
small trees, not bothering to put on the cover since it was so warm
and there was no chance whatsoever that it might rain.
On Tuesday morning we packed up after
breakfast and were on our way out of Death Valley by 8:30. Badwater,
the lowest point of the park and, indeed, the whole continent, was on
our way, so we would briefly stop there, but first we wanted to visit
Natural Bridge canyon. As the name indicates it features a rock arch
about half way up, carved by the eroding forces of water. We found
vertical funnels carved into the canyon wall, left over from
waterfalls gushing down with incredible force, some almost like small
chambers. Here again sliprocks formed obstacles to be overcome. The
first ones almost seemed to form the end of the canyon, but with a
bit of exploring we found a way to climb up and now could continue
through the ever narrowing canyon until we could get no further
without much effort and likely without putting ourselves in danger.
This time the slides down on the way back were longer than at Mosaic
Canyon. I was becoming quite a pro at it, while Johann still chose
the more conservative mode of getting down.
The ranger had been right: it was a
good idea to visit all three of the canyons. Each one is a small
world of its own, each has unique features that are worth exploring.
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