The Valley of the Shadow...



I had the occasion to travel to Death Valley recently (a couple winters ago now) with my 2000 Jeep Wrangler to do some exploring, camping, and hiking. I'd injured my back last summer, and the doctor agreed with me that if walking made it feel better (which it did), that I should try walking more. Winter on my side of Oregon (the eastern side) isn't exactly prime walking weather, and neither is the rainy west side, so I decided to take the bird's advice and fly south. Only in this case, flying meant driving the Jeep. I'd been researching Death Valley for some time and decided that it was a good destination. My previous travels had taken me over much of the American west, but never to Death Valley. I like the spaciousness, solitude, and silence of the desert, and Death Valley's winter weather was supposed to be relatively mild (compared to Oregon), well-suited for camping and walking. After spending a few days preparing the Jeep for extended backcountry travel, I was soon on my way. (NOTE:  if that sounded casual, it's only because I do a lot of this kind of thing and have been for a long time. Please don't attempt a trip like this on your own, especially going solo, without first thoroughly educating yourself and preparing for the inherent risks involved.)

Out of about 160 photos, I tried to select about 60 here for your entertainment. So go grab a beverage, take your time, and enjoy.




The pine woodlands of northern California near Adin in the Modoc National Forest. I'd selected a route south that avoided the fast lane and took the lesser-used "blue highways" whenever possible, preferably through country I'd never seen before. I drove from Portland down the Willamette Valley, over to Klamath Falls, across the border into California near Alturas, into Nevada at Reno, south through Carson City, back into California and into the Mono Lake-Long Valley basin, south along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada to Bishop.


Mono Lake is a beautiful blue, huge, round lake that sits on top of a volcanically active area called the Mono Lake-Long Valley caldera. The grayish rock formed when a volcanic eruption occurred underneath Mono Lake about 1700 years ago, and the pumice (which is light enough that it floats) surfaced and drifted around for awhile until it ran aground and eventually developed a "tufa" coating. In some places this tufa formed towers that are visible in the distance.


Panum Crater (technically a "rhyolitic plug-dome volcano") formed from volcanic eruptions only 650 years ago, which in geologic terms is about a flicker of an eyelash. This makes this the youngest mountain range in North America. I spent the better part of the day hiking around the rim and checking out the cool rock formations in the crater (pumice and obsidian mostly).

   
Christmas Eve camp, near Hot Creek. The rugged Sierra Nevada in the background mark the westernmost edge of the "Basin and Range" province that makes up most of Nevada and this side of California. On the other side of those mountains is Yosemite National Park, but that would have to wait for another trip. I pitched my tent under an ancient juniper tree and had a small campfire while the orange moon set over the mountains. The next morning I woke up to the sound of GUNFIRE.

 
What I thought was gunfire turned out to be the sounds of volcanic fumeroles erupting in nearby Hot Creek geologic site. Hot Creek is the bottom of Long Valley, which (much to the horror of some of the locals, who are in denial about the whole thing) is actually a volcanic caldera 20 miles long by 10 miles wide, which was formed in a colossal eruption about 760,000 years ago with a force estimated at 2,000 times greater than Mt. St. Helens in 1980. The eruption deposited ash as far east as Nebraska, and if it happened again today would "reduce the U.S. economy to that of Bolivia", to quote my old geology teacher. Currently, the magma chamber of Long Valley is only about 3 miles under the surface, as the bubbling geysers, fumeroles, and mud pots at Hot Creek advertise. People get burned up here regularly, and from one spot I could stand and count as many as 43 signs all warning visitors with the same basic message, which translated roughly to "Stay Out or Die".


Convict Lake, Sierra Nevada mountains, at the edge of the John Muir Wilderness. Convict Lake got it's name when a bunch of outlaws broke out of jail back in the wild west days and had a big shoot-out here with the posse. According to the story, the Sheriff was killed in the standoff, and the convicts escaped. Some were apparently captured later.


I made camp that night at the very end of a Forest Service road leading up to a trailhead high in the mountains, because apparently only crazy Oregonians come out to camp in the wintertime, and all the campgrounds were "closed for the season". When I inquired at the local "Visitor's Center" about any open campgrounds, they looked at me like I was nuts. Apparently, downhill skiing is the ONLY legitimate form of winter recreation in California. Don't even get me started about the difficulty I had in trying to find a spigot to fill my water jugs with...


A fierce blizzard descended on my camp that night, and the ground was frozen so hard I could barely pound in my tent stakes. The wind blew all night and kept me awake from the rasping sound of the tent fabric. It was also quite cold. Lucky for me, I'd brought along a "fire can" and so I had a portable campfire set up on the tailgate of my Jeep, beneath the shelter of my canvas awning.


Another chilly winter camp set up near the ancient Bristlecone pine groves outside of Big Pine, California. 


My latest tent purchase, a Big Agness Seedhouse 1 SL one-person ultralight tent. I'd taken it along as an experiment, a trial run. By the end of the trip, I was ready to sell it. How can they claim it is a "freestanding" tent when it requires at least 12 stakes to pitch properly? Still, once it was finally pitched it held up very well.


I'd wanted to hike up to the Bristlecone pines (the oldest trees on earth), but the wind chill from the blizzard was too intense. In the background you can see the snow being blown off the top of the Sierras. The picture may not capture it, but believe me, the wind was blowing like a typhoon and it was cold as hell. This is at about 10,000 ft. above sea level. BRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!


After topping of the gas tank one more time and making a final run through the grocery store for last-minute supplies, I drove out of Big Pine and headed for the northern end of Death Valley National Park. It would be the last chance for services for a long time, if things went as I hoped they would. I'd planned to cut a zig-zag path, connecting the dots as I went, and along with my usual equipment, tools, and recovery gear, I had enough food for a month, over 20 gallons of water, and 10 gallons of extra gas.

 
Here, looking on the north side of the road, the country reminded me a lot of central or eastern Oregon. But looking south, I was immediately reminded that I was someplace very different. The spiky green plants are Joshua trees, and they went for miles.


After a long time on bumpy dirt and gravel roads, I had finally entered Death Valley National Park (DVNP). This is the largest National Park in the lower 48, at over 3.3 MILLION acres. Death Valley is one of several enormous valleys that together comprise the DVNP. I came in on a lesser-used route that took me first to Eureka Dunes, and from there over "high-clearance, 4x4 required" roads deeper into the backcountry of the Mojave desert.

 
Eureka Dunes are the tallest sand dunes in California, at around 700 ft., with the Last Chance Range in the background. It was while hiking up the crest of one of the larger dunes that the sand slid and created the famous "sand boom" sound that happens sometimes when enough sand slides under just the right conditions. It sounded like a very deep, resonant bass tone, as if the sand dunes were farting. The silence of the desert was also occassionally broken by the roar of jets from China Lake practicing dogfighting techniques and aerial maneuvers as low as 200 ft. off the ground. These jets practice in certain portions of the DVNP that pre-dated formal National Park designation. After awhile you get used to them, but since the jets move faster than the sound did, you'd usually be taken by surprise as they zipped overhead and the sound dropped on you loud enough to loosen your bowels. I was told that in certain areas, the two-jet teams would use innocent jeep bystanders rambling along as air-to-ground target practice and "lock in" on them. I considered panting a big red target on the top of the jeep, but then thought better of it.


Camped at the dunes that night, a brutal windstorm hit the area, and with it drove sand into every nook and cranny of my tent. The "no-see-um" bug netting of the tent body acted like a flour sifter, depositing a layer of fine, powdery sand inside my tent up to an inch thick in places. Sand in the tent, sand in my sleeping bag, sand in my eyes, sand in my nose, sand in my food, and wind blowing hard, all night long. And to make matters worse, the wind blew the sand away from the tent stakes, leaving them high and dry and the walls of the tent flapping violently (and loudly) into the night. I managed to get about an hour's sleep by unzipping my sleeping bag and draping it over my head to create a "tent inside a tent", but it was not pleasant. Oh well. You know what I say:  "That which doesn't kill you, makes you feel like something tried to kill you." Nothing coffee (with a little sand in it) couldn't cure the next morning.


The storm let up in the morning and I started out around the rough track that would take me behind the dunes and south toward the Saline Valley. Although it was sunny, it was still windy, and the wind was very cold.


Dedeckera Canyon marked the beginning of the truly 4-wheel drive portion of the long, rough road. I actually disconnected my front anti-swaybar and aired down to 25 psi and engaged 4-wheel drive to maneuver up the sharp dry falls. Most of the roads required a high-clearance vehicle, but not necessarily 4-wheel drive. The really good spots (i.e., those that offered a greater degree of 4x4 challenge) I didn't get many photos of, because I was driving and trying not to get stuck or break anything.


"Who IS that masked man?" On top of Steel Pass, the temperature was already cold, but the winds were intense and cut right through 4 layers of clothing. I was head to toe in windstopper and wool and it still wasn't enough. It was while parked on this exposed high point eating lunch on the tailgate (sheltered from the wind) that, sure enough, a F-14 Tomcat jet buzzed me and made me cringe over my peanut butter sandwich.

 
The road from Steel Pass south was a continuous bed of gravel and rock that, after a rainy season and flash floods, would be a truly epic 4-wheel drive excursion of the highest order. This day, however, it was in pretty decent shape, and required 4-wheel drive in only a few places.


The closer you get to Los Angeles, the stranger the desert gets...


Camped outside of the DVNP boundary on adjacent BLM lands, I found a nice campsite where someone had left a small pile of wood for a cheery campfire. The wood was mostly smelly creosote bush, but there was also some pinyon pine and some mesquite, which smells so good you want to swim in it or put it in a pipe. Most nights the sky was clear and I was able to spread my bedroll out under the stars. No better tent in the world than the Milky Way. That's also one of the perks of winter camping in the Mojave desert: it's too cold for snakes! The only visitors I had were a few brave Kangaroo rats that scuttled out looking for scraps before it got too cold.


The Inyo Mountains Wilderness near my camp made for a great dayhike. Just what the doctor ordered.

 
Hiking up one of many canyons, I was surprised to find a small, cold, spring-fed stream that went underground just before it left the mountains. Finding fresh water in the desert is always an exciting thing, because the water is so scarce, even in winter, and is literally the "life blood" not just of the desert, but also of me, in a pinch. I followed this canyon all day, cutting deeper and deeper into the granite walls.




On a nearby rock face, I found an ancient petroglyph carved into the granite by an unknown hand a long, long time ago (petroglyphs are carved, pictographs are painted). Even the native people to this area, the Timbisha Shoshone, deny knowledge of the origin or meaning of these strange figures. At first I thought it resembled the sun with rain coming out the bottom, then I thought the bottom figure represented a bighorn and the top maybe a snake or tortoise? I don't know. Your guess is as good as anyone's.


The canyon hike ended (for me) at this sheer granite cliff with a small waterfall.


My "North Carolina Fire Can" kept my hands warm on many nights during this cold trip, and since campfires aren't allowed in DVNP proper, it was a nice substitute, offering heat, light, and a morale boost. The fire can is a simple invention, made out of a coffee can stuffed with a roll of toilet paper (cardboard tube removed), packed tight, and saturated with household rubbing alcohol. The result is a mostly odorless, hot-burning, and re-usable portable campfire. And since the vapors are what's burning, the can itself remains cool to the touch, so you can set it down on any surface. The only thing that messes with the fire can is WIND. It does require some degree of shelter from winds to burn right. This 1-lb. can version is the smaller size. A large coffee can will take 2-3 rolls of toilet paper and creates twice as much flame.


The Saline Valley road is the worse stretch of washboarding that I've ever driven on. Even these washboards, which were 6 inches tall, had washboards. Fortunately, the Old Man Emu nitrocharger shocks on the Jeep were designed for the Australian outback, which has hundreds of miles of this kind of surface, and they did great. One of those roads you either drive very, very slowly, or you floor it. All along the way I'd see little bits and pieces of broken car parts laying about. The vibrations managed to loosen my CB antenna, and the bolts on my clevis tow-points. I probably lost something else but haven't found it yet. The valley seemed to go on forever, and when I'd stop and stretch my legs, it was still and silent. I saw two burros standing off in the brush who just looked at me until I left.


The turn-off to the Lippencott Mine road, another route that warned, "high-clearance 4-wheel drive". Mostly high-clearance, this road snaked it's way in switchbacks up the mountain, and I could see where it would have been much more challenging after a good rainstorm or two.

 
On the Lippencott Mine road. Not for flatlanders or people who use their family SUV as a mall-terrain vehicle, but small potatoes for the TJ.


Sign at the top of the Lippencott Mine road reads:
LIPPENCOTT ROAD
CAUTION
ROUTE AHEAD NOT MAINTAINED
WASH OUTS AND CUT BANKS AHEAD
ROUTE NOT RECOMMENDED FOR VEHICLE TRAVEL
EXPERIENCED DRIVERS USING 4X4 HIGH CLEARANCE VEHICLES ONLY

Now why can't we have more places like that?


Racetrack Playa, one of DVNP's prime attractions, requires a very long, rough drive to get to, so it doesn't see as much traffic as it might if the road were maintained. This is the famous dry lake bed that is home to the "moving rocks", which I'd heard about for years and had always wanted to see with my own eyes.  "What do you mean, Moving rocks??" you say?  Yep.  Moving rocks...


The rocks move across the dry lake bed, leaving long tracks in the mud, but NOBODY has actually SEEN them move, and despite several scientific studies on the subject, nobody has been able to conclusively prove HOW they move. Oh sure, there are all types of theories, but the most obvious and convenient explanations, like the wind pushes them, don't seem to hold up when you consider the erratic, often contradictory paths the rocks leave behind. Magnetic anomoly perhaps? Space aliens? You tell me.

 
Some rocks are small, some are too big to pick up. Inconsiderate people have stolen some of them (yes, that is illegal). There are several dozen or so that fall out of the rocky hillside, land on the lake bed, and then rev up their engines. Some just stay put, others take off and leave tracks behind as they slide around the lake bed, pushing up burms of mud in front of them and leaving perfect, uniform grooves behind. One of nature's mysteries.

 
I spent the rest of that day just walking around Racetrack Playa looking at these strange rocks and trying to come up with a theory of my own to explain how they did it. Still thinking about that one...


Why do they call it "Teakettle Junction"?  Hmm....


I camped out under the stars for a couple of nights here, enjoying the vast open desert, the silence, and the constellations. With a full moon on the rise, it was bright enough to read and see colors by without a flashlight.


My kind of sign!


The TJ performed exceptionally well over all the highway and off-highway miles, some of which might have destroyed a normal car.


Another one of DVNP's prime tourist attractions, Scotty's Castle was built by a mining investor and his eccentric friend, "Death Valley Scotty", in the 1930's. It really is an impressive bit of architecture, and for about $12 you can get a tour led by a Park Service Ranger dressed in 1930's period attire. By the time I reached this outpost, I was more interested in a cold can of root beer from the concessionaire.


This is the Park Service's idea of a "campground":  a gravel parking lot set about 40 yards from the highway. Crazy Californians... they should hire me so I can show them how to build a proper campground. Oh well, the views of Death Valley in the background made up for the lack of ambiance and the close proximity of neighbors (who stared in envy at my "fire can" each night while they froze in the desert wind).


Echo Canyon was another one of the routes that advised "high-clearance 4-wheel drive" only. Man, I love it when they put a picture of my car on a sign! Usually means I'm going someplace that will be worth the effort.


Driving up and over the mountains toward the Abargosa Valley did include several miles of interesting scenery and a few 4-wheel drive spots.


Abandoned ruins of the old Inyo Mine, where once upon a time, hard-working men labored in the hot summer sun digging for fancy rocks. Go figure.


One of the few spots I could stop and get out to take a picture of the true 4-wheel drive sections.


Another short and steep rocky notches cut in upper Echo Canyon that actually required a high-clearance 4-wheel drive with a short wheelbase. There was a much tougher climb just out of view that cut back to the left, but again, I was too busy driving to take photos. And no, that isn't a camera trick: the rocks really were colored purple.


There was a lot of these kind of road conditions heading out of the mountains into the Amargosa Valley. Going back up the other direction, especially after flash floods, would be a lot of fun.


Preparing to head into the popular Titus Canyon, a one-way route from east to west that cuts right through the mountains and drops you out again in Death Valley.


In Titus Canyon, there were all kinds of interesting rocks and geology to wonder at, with some fantastic colors in the pale winter sunlight...


...and abandoned mines, and ghost towns...


The most impressive feature of the mountains of this part of California were not just in their intricate, layered composition, but in the way they warped and were folded as the mountains and tectonic forces pushed the land around. In Titus Canyon, the "road" followed the bottom of the seasonal creek bed, which over the ages had cut a narrow passage through the mountain.


More mysterious petroglyphs carved into a granite face, their meanings unknown.  Click HERE for an enlarged, adjusted photo to see them better.


The warping of rocks. You don't see that kind of geology much in the primarily layered basalt/volcanic geology of the upper Great Basin where I live.


Lower Titus Canyon was like a slot canyon hike for Jeeps. The walls of the canyon are so narrow, the Park Service designated it as a one-way road, and deep gravel and sand in the bottom of the "wash" warrant the need for a high-clearance vehicle with 4-wheel drive. I saw only one other car (another Jeep) all day. At the exit point, a man in a little car asked me, skeptically, if I thought the road "really needed 4-wheel drive or could a normal car make it". While I was tempted to tell him, "OH sure, no problem! Take the Corolla on up!", my conscience got the better of me and I advised him that "taking a car on that road would lead to it's destruction". He decided not to test my prediction.


Sun rising on the Argus Range beyond the impressive Panamint Valley.


End of the road for this Jeep. Homeward bound!


I hope you've enjoyed this scrapbook.
Email me with any questions or comments. Let me know if you think I should put up more scrapbooks like this, or if I should keep it to myself.
Put something relevant in the subject line so I don't junk it accidentally.
Thanks!