Death Valley National Park, CA | sampler
Checking off the area bucket list items - Death Valley ✔️. Would highly recommend using freecampsites.net - definitely some hit or miss, but boy did we hit with this one (won’t link, you’ll have to find it yourselves 😉). This one was a bit outside of the national park.
We drove in from the north-west entrance and our first stop was Father Crowley Vista Point. This is the canyon where Top Gun pilots do their high speed, low altitude training. It’s been used since the 1930s as a training ground. This part of the national park was added under the condition that the Air Force could continue using this ground for training. No planes this time! Would love to return just to see some fast planes fly by.
The next stop was Mosaic Canyon - just outside of Panamint Springs. Panamint Springs has the best NP souvenirs in the park.
Mosaic Canyon was a beautiful stroll through a canyon created by regular flash floods. We walked through canyons of polished marble, breccia, dry falls, and narrows.
The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes were next. Smaller than the Colorado Sand Dunes, but still lots of fun to play in. We saw the slithery patterns of sidewinder rattlesnake tracks and the hops of kangaroo rats.
We also spent some time running down the dunes and talking about the angle of repose of sand vs snow.
Up next was taking the truck up some fun off roading tracks up to Inyo Mine. I was not pleased when Justin decided to crawl into a mine.
On the drive out, we had to pull over to take some sick pictures of the truck by the two arches on the road. We kept accidentally nailing the sunlight timing this trip.
We camped for free in the national park the following evening (camping is free 1 mile off the main roads in the park)! In the morning, we drove to Dante’s View for sunrise - would highly recommend.
The first activity of the day was a hike up Golden Canyon. It was cool to see where the canyon used to be paved for cars, and where the canyon used to have ladders before flooding washing away the road and the canyon filling with sediment.
The next stop was Devils Golf Course - a large area of rock salt eroded by the elements. We saw a small group of older friends pull up to the parking lot with their golf clubs for a photo shoot.
After seeing the jagged salt, we drove over to the smoother salt at Badwater Basin. We learned that the name “badwater” came from a story about an early surveyor’s mule who refused to drink the water by the basin.
My first time below sea level on dry land!
On our way back to camp, we took three more scenic pitstops. The first was Natural Bridge - a very short hike to an arch.
The second was the infamous Artist’s Palette. The colors come from volcanic deposits - iron oxides (red, pink, yellow), manganese (purple), volcanic tuff/chlorite (green).
The last little detour was Twenty Mule Team Canyon. Easily one of our favorite drives on the trip.
On our final day, we picked up a very expensive coffee from Furnace Creek (hope you aren’t hoping for a sandwich under $12! but can you blame them, they’re literally in the middle of the desert). The small town is truly an oasis filled with palm trees and fountains.
We then drove far north to Little Hebe and Ubehebe Craters. Super cool to see all of the varied terrain and views in the area. The NP has a lot more going on than just a desert.
We decided to make our drive home extra long by taking a 60mi detour on a dirt road to check out the Racetrack Rocks. We equivocated for some time about whether it was worth adding an extra 3 hours to our day. It was!
Finally, we took a secret (not on google maps) road out north from the crater. We drove an extra 40 miles on a smooth dirt road through some of the best terrain in the park. Joshua trees!
