Back to the desert: Death Valley

We left Bakersfield, a city with much industrial traffic, in the morning, on busy Hwy. 58. Soon the landscape changed; it became more and more arid, and cacti started to reappear. 

Turning northeastward on Hwy. 14 we soon were back in canyon country. We stopped briefly at the impressive rock wall at the entrance to Red Cliffs Natural Preserve, part of Red Rock Canyon State Park – another destination to mark down for possible future hiking. There are so many …

Around noon we entered Death Valley National Park, coming in from the west on Hwy. 190. Father Crowley Vista Point gave us a great view of the magnificent Panamint Range, but since it was a weekend and also spring break time there was too much traffic, the parking lot congested, and we didn’t linger: this was not a good spot to have lunch. Another half hour or so later, however, a picnic bench at Emigrant campground offered a good place to sit down for lunch and a rest. I remembered last year's first impression of Death Valley at about this point, when everything looked so bleak that we were almost ready to keep going and not stop. What a mistake that would have been! Knowing what expected us it felt much less desolate to me this time. 

Since we didn’t have a tent with us this time, and accommodation in Death Valley itself is not only hard to come by but also exceedingly expensive, we had booked a motel just outside the park in Beatty, NV. Free from the worry to have to look for a place to stay we could spend as much time in the park as we wanted. It gave us an opportunity to show our friends one of our favourite places from last year and do our much needed daily hike at the same time. 

Right above Stovepipe Wells campground a dusty, rocky one-and-a-half mile stretch of road turned off to the Mosaic Canyon trailhead. Here, too, were a lot more vehicles than the year before, but once we entered the canyon the crowds dispersed. Many just walk a short way in, following the rocky creek bed until the walls start to move closer together. Kids climbed on the rocks – it’s a paradise for young explorers, a great place to get acquainted with the joy of making it to the top of a rock without too big a danger. I was glad to watch parents stand back and let their children be a bit daring without interfering too much. How many kids have to miss out on that kind of thing nowadays because parents are too scared to let their children be as adventurous as a child should be. 

It was still early enough in the day for the sun to burn down on us, but once we had entered the narrower part of the canyon there was enough shade to keep us cool. Braver now than I had been at the start of last year’s hike I thought nothing of climbing up the short passages of slip rock that made progress more difficult at times. Part of our group decided to stop with about four hundred metres to go at a point that looked worse than the ones before, but three of us made it to the dry waterfall at the end. 

Here and there small plants had found a hint of moisture, sometimes in places where it seemed completely impossible, and even small evergreens clung to the rock part way up the wall. That is one of the most amazing things to me in this environment. 

By the time we left the canyon it was late afternoon, and the sun’s glare had softened, the sand and rocks basking in a warmer light. We stopped briefly along the road to get a look at the Mesquite Flat sand dunes and the weird stook-like bundles of vegetation aptly named ‘Devil’s Corn Field’ before continuing northeastward on Hwy.374 to Beatty.