Soggy Adventures in Death Valley

Day 1: Friday 2/6/09  I decided to join Teresa in Death Valley while she ran the Death Valley marathon.  We met in Vegas around lunchtime on Friday.  First we stopped by the car rental counter to pick up our car...we told the woman at the counter that we were going down to Death Valley and then over into Utah and asked if they offered chains or if they thought we'd need them, and she said no they didn't have them and that you never need chains around here.  So we headed on out of the airport...we were hungry so we decided to head down the Strip in search of lunch--got about halfway down and were thoroughly unimpressed so we turned around and went to the Chipotle that we'd spotted as we were leaving the airport.

Then we embarked on the 2 hour drive to Death Valley--rather uneventful although we were disappointed to see that it was starting to rain.  I of course reassured Teresa that this was the desert where they only get 2 inches of rain a year so chances are the weather would clear up before her race the next day.

We arrived at our hotel--the Furnace Creek Ranch.  Here's a shot of the front area of the hotel where they have a couple of restaurants as well as a general store (Death Valley is many miles from anywhere so it's helpful to have things like this around!)  When we checked in, apparently they'd gotten a little rain already which had closed the road to where the marathon course was supposed to be (plus there was a foot or so of snow in the higher elevations of the course) so they let her know that they were moving the race to an alternate course.

Here's the view from our room (at least on the days when it wasn't all cloudy and rainy!)

And here's a picture of the hills across the street from the hotel:

We quickly discovered the down side to the park...next to no cell phone service!  My phone and my Blackberry had no signal at all, and her phone could only manage a bar or two for a few seconds if she sat in exactly the right place in the hotel room.  Fortunately this was enough to call Jamie and give him the number to the hotel so that he could call her back and she didn't have to pay an arm and a leg for a long distance call from the hotel phone.  I was a bit worried because my cell phone is the only number that the kennel has to reach me if something happened to Kirby, but I figured since the kennel and the vet are at the same place he'd probably be alright.

Teresa had read that there were nice views at Zabriskie Point, so we decided to drive up there and check it out (sunrise and sunset are supposed to be especially nice, but given the clouds and rain we didn't bother waiting around for sunset)

Some really cool rock formations

And here's Teresa posing in front of the tiny, tiny wall that's supposed to keep you from falling off the edge and down 20 ft or so (Mom would have really loved looking over the edge!)

We spent the rest of the evening figuring out what we wanted to do over the next couple days--fortunately we both agreed that we like nature better than manmade stuff, ghost towns, abandoned mines, etc so the hardest part was figuring out what I should do while Teresa was racing so that I didn't go to all the places that we both wanted to see!

Day 1 rainfall total: 0.2 inches (1/10 of DV's typical annual rainfall)

Day 2--Saturday 2/7.  We woke up to clouds and some drizzle as Teresa got ready for the marathon--I once again reassured Teresa that here in California it tends to rain mostly overnight and then clear up during the day, and combined with the fact that this is the desert and they only get 2 inches of rain a year, chances are she'd have OK weather for the race and probably even see some sunshine.

I hung out with Teresa until they loaded up the shuttle buses to go to the race, then I had breakfast and headed out on my own for some adventures.  Teresa and I had looked at the park info the night before and talked about what we were going to do on Sunday, so I had a few options to consider that sounded interesting but we likely wouldn't have time to get to on Sunday.  I was planning to head up to Scotty's Castle, which is a mansion that was built in the park many years ago (before it was a national park of course), and there's also a huge crater up in the same area that sounded interesting.  Second choice was a place called Darwin Falls that actually has year-round water and is sort of a little oasis.  

Since it had been raining, I figured I better stop by the visitor's center and find out what I could get to.  Turns out the road to Scotty's Castle had suffered some pretty bad damage from the rain that had already fallen, so it was closed and they weren't sure when it was going to reopen.  Then I asked about Darwin Falls which was over on the west side of the park, and the ranger told me there was snow heading over there so she recommended going to the Stovepipe Wells area and checking out the dunes.  That sounded OK to me, but I was a little worried because I figured that would only take me an hour or two at most, and Teresa wouldn't be back for quite a while.

So I headed over to the dunes...here are some assorted pictures that I took along the way.   There were some huge puddles in the road from yesterday's rain--in many places one of the lanes looked deep enough that I didn't want to drive through it and crossed into the other lane so that I could get by.

Here is a picture of a lake that had formed from the rain the day before:

And some snow-covered peaks in the distance:

This is near an area called Devil's Cornfield.  The shrubby things that grow here look a bit like corn shocks which is why it got its name.  These are not the best examples of the corn-looking shrubs but I liked the view.  Note the standing water--not typical for Death Valley!

A better shot of the water in the "cornfield":

Here are the Mesquite Flat Dunes--I liked the contrast between the dunes and the snow-covered mountains in the background.  It was drizzling a bit and I really didn't want to get sand in my shoes so I decided not to go hiking.  (As an aside--one of the interesting things about Death Valley is that there aren't a ton of trails, and you're pretty much allowed to hike wherever you want even if there's not a trail there, so it's much less restricted than I was expecting)

The dunes were very nice, but I still had several hours to kill before Teresa would be back, so I decided to find out what the snow thing was all about and see if I could get over to the other side of the park.  I figured if I got to a point where the roads got bad or they required chains then I could always turn around.  And it was only drizzling a little at this point so I figured not much new snow would be falling.  Plus all the reports were saying that the snow level was at 5000 ft and the pass I had to go through to get to the other side was only at 4900 ft, so I figured there couldn't be much of a problem.

I was very glad that I hadn't let the ranger scare me out of trying to get to the other side of the park--there was snow up on Towne Pass but it wasn't even sticking to the road at all (and they'd cindered up the road too so there was no trouble at all).  Here's a shot of the snow at the top of the pass:

As I came down off the pass, the weather improved considerably--still a bit cloudy but much less so than the east side of the park and it was barely even drizzling anymore.  Here's a pretty shot of the view coming down the other side:

I was looking for the road to Darwin Falls--I knew from looking at the map that it was just outside a town called Panamint Springs, but I didn't see any signs.  I did see a dirt road that went off in the right direction, but since there wasn't a sign I wasn't sure if that was it or not.  So I continued a little way, climbing back up higher into the mountains again.  There was a vista point called Father Crowley Point a few miles up the road where the views were supposed to be gorgeous, so I figured I'd go see that and then turn around and try the dirt road.

Here's the view from near Father Crowley Point (I think there are better views to be had if you hike a little farther, but it was chilly and windy and I wanted to save my energy for Darwin Falls so I settled for this view)

This is at the parking lot for Father Crowley Point--I loved the red color in the rocks.

And some partially blackened rocks...you see these black rocks quite a lot in the park, I think they're remnants of old volcanic activity.

Then I turned around and headed back toward Panamint Springs hoping to find Darwin Falls along the way.  I decided to give the unmarked dirt road a shot since it was in the right place and went in the right direction.  The road was OK for a dirt road, but it was a bit rocky and bumpy--if I'd been in my own car instead of a rental I probably wouldn't have tackled it.  But I figured if anything happened, the road was only 2.5 miles and then another mile back to Panamint Springs to find help, so I felt comfortable giving it a try.  I got more comfortable with the whole off-road experience as I went along, and soon found myself at the Darwin Falls parking lot.

As I got out of the car to start my 1 mile hike to the first waterfall, I realized the first problem with this whole off-trail-hike-wherever-you-want approach to life...which way are the falls?  No signs of course, and at this point there's still a possibility I might not even be at Darwin Falls since the road hadn't been marked.  Luckily in this case, it was a fairly narrow canyon, so I could either go forward, or I could backtrack parallel to the road I came in on.  Since I hadn't seen anything remotely resembling a waterfall on the drive in, I figured going forward past the parking lot was the best bet.

The canyon initially started off looking like many areas of Death Valley, but as I hiked farther in the canyon kept getting narrower and the vegetation became more interesting as I ran into the stream coming down from the waterfall.  Here's a shot of some of the vegetation growing along the waterway (you can't see the water--it's down in the middle of all the green plants)

And something more typical of Death Valley--a cute little cactus sitting on some rocks.

As I continued hiking, there were a few places where I had to cross a small stream using slippery rocks as stepping stones...on one of them my foot slipped and I went almost ankle deep in the water, but it turns out my tennis shoes were surprisingly water resistant and my foot didn't get wet at all (thank goodness--I still had a mile hike back to the car and that would not have been fun with wet feet!)  After a few more minutes I found what I thought at the time might have been Darwin Falls (it wasn't a super impressive waterfall, but I figured this is the desert so maybe this counts!).

It looked like the trail continued on the other side of the falls, but because of the amount of water it wasn't really passable even in my semi-waterproof tennis shoes, and I didn't know if I'd find anything better on the other side, so I decided to turn around and head back.  Turns out I should have tried to go on--when I got home and googled for pictures of Darwin Falls, it turns out there actually is a really pretty waterfall which probably would have been extra-spectacular from all the rain.  Darwin Falls picture

Even though I didn't see the real falls, I'm still glad I did the hike--this was one of the most peaceful places I've ever been--I loved being the only person there, if I stopped walking and listened, it was completely quiet (except for the sound of the water).  No noise from other people, roads, no electric lines or any other signs of people

I made my way back down the dirt road, then headed back towards the hotel, figuring by the time I got back Teresa might be done with the race.  As I drove, the rain picked up again and started getting harder and harder and I started to worry about Teresa out there running the marathon, and also given how poorly the roads seem to handle rain judging by the huge puddles I'd had to drive through earlier and the snowy pass I had to get through, I started to worry that I might be stuck and not able to get back to the hotel, and not able to get in touch with Teresa because my cell phone didn't work.  So needless to say I didn't stop to do any more sightseeing, just hurried back to the hotel.

The rain was coming down pretty steadily by the time I got back, so I hung out in the room and watched a little TV while I waited for Teresa--I was hoping that the rain would die down and if she felt up to it once she got back maybe we could go try and do something.  About an hour later, she made it back in rather soggy shape--it had been raining pretty hard and because the road they were running on was a bit wet she'd had to run through ankle deep puddles.  She said it was the coldest, wettest marathon she'd run...not exactly what she'd signed up for!  

I showed Teresa my pictures and pointed out on the map where I'd been that day...and it was at this point that I noticed that the Darwin Falls road had been coded as one where you're supposed to need a high clearance vehicle to drive on it.  Had I known that in advance I'm not sure I would have taken the Mazda3 rental car down it, but it handled things just fine!

That night when we went down to dinner, it was still raining, and there was this giant river of water flowing down from the road and through the hotel parking lot.  Fortunately our room and the restaurant were on the same side of the river so we were able to get to dinner!  I wish I would have had my camera with me, but unfortunately I didn't.  As we were eating, we could overhear bits and pieces of conversations about roads being closed because of flooding--it sounded like the main road which we were on was closed and people couldn't get out of the park.  We were a little worried about what would happen if the road stayed closed--we still had one more day in the park, but then I had a Monday flight back home and Teresa was supposed to pick Jamie up in Vegas.  Plus we weren't looking forward to the prospect of being stuck in the hotel all day if all the roads were closed and we couldn't get anywhere.

Day 2 rainfall total: 0.96 inches (almost 1/2 of DV's total annual rainfall)

Day 3: Sunday 2/8  Sunday morning we got up and had breakfast--rain was still coming down a bit but not as bad as the day before so we were hopeful that we might not be stuck in the hotel all day.  We went to check on the status of the roads--the road to get to all the places we'd planned on seeing was closed, but the people at the hotel told us that the main road was open and that there was a back way to get to the Scotty's Castle area to avoid the road that was closed.  Even though the detour made it a 2 hr drive instead of ~30 min or so, we didn't really have many other options so we set out to give it a try (plus we'd seen a TV program on the hotel TV station about some of the attractions in Death Valley, and the Ubehebe Crater that was near the castle looked really gorgeous so we wanted to see it)

As we drove down the main road which was supposedly open, we passed a place where they had a road closed sign blocking our lane...but since the people at the hotel had said it was open and the road didn't look bad so we sort of drove around it and continued on our way, not sure if it was really closed or not.  The puddles actually weren't even as bad as they had been the day before, but the roads were a bit muddy in spots.  We even saw a couple "mud plows" out there trying to scrape the mud off the road to make it more passable.  We passed a couple park rangers too and they didn't try to stop us so we figured we were allowed to be there.

We stopped by the Mesquite Flat dunes that I had seen the day before since Teresa hadn't seen them and they were right on the way to the Scotty's Castle detour.  We saw another car there and a couple guys, so we started to feel better that maybe the road was actually open...but then they stopped to ask us how the road was in the direction we'd come from, and it turned out they had come from the other direction but had done the same thing we did driving past a road closed sign.  So now we figured the road really was closed...but the road to Scotty's was within the "closed road" area that we were already in, so we figured we might as well give it a shot.  

All was going well for a while, but by the time we spent 20 minutes or so on the road we got to a point where the road was completely blocked off (this was a park entry/exit that we had to get through in order to get to the "back road" to the castle).  Since the way out of the park was blocked as well as the way in, we had no choice but to turn around.  By this point the rain was also coming down a bit more steadily, and we were starting to think our best bet might be to gather up our stuff and high-tail it back to Vegas before the roads got worse.  And we were both developing headaches, so we decided a bit of a rest at the hotel might not be a bad thing.

So we went to the hotel and enjoyed some snacks while watching part of Forrest Gump...then to our great excitement the headaches went away and the rain started to taper off and it looked like it might even get sunny!  We had noticed a place called Mustard Canyon on our side of the Road Closed sign, so we figured we'd go see if there was anything interesting there.  As we approached it though, we saw that the road that had been closed was now open, so we figured now would be our chance to head back up to the Scotty's Castle area.  This time fortunately the park entry/exit was open, so we were free & clear on our way to Beatty, Nevada (where there might actually be cell phone service!)

Just before Beatty, we got to the ghost town of Rhyolite.  Neither of us had been particularly interested in ghost towns, but we'd seen pictures of this one on the TV program and it actually looked sort of interesting.  Plus it was only a mile off the main road so we figured we had nothing to lose by stopping there.  It turned out to be well worth the quick detour--it had some quite nice ruins, plus an un-smelly bathroom.  It was a bit scary though how bad shape the buildings were in--the city wasn't even all that old (was built in the early 1900's and abandoned in 1919) so I'm not sure how everything got in such bad shape so quickly!

Here's a picture of the Cook Bank where I guess they were planning to stash all the gold they never found:

And here's what's left of the schoolhouse:

We then headed out to cover the remaining hour plus of our long detour to Scotty's and the crater.  We passed through the wonderful town of Beatty...the highlight of which was the hot pink brothel (we should have stopped to get a picture!).  The rest of the trip was uneventful (and rather boring...except for the snow-capped mountains that were sometimes in the background the Nevada high desert is one of the least exciting areas of the country to drive through).  

We decided to pass Scotty's Castle and head to the crater first since we were both much more interested in it than we were in the castle.  We got to the turnoff road to the crater, and found most of the road blocked by "flooded" signs.  We'd seen these all over the main road near the hotel too used to mark the giant puddles across the road, so we figured this would be no big deal at all.  I did wonder briefly if they had maybe run out of road closed signs and figured the blockade of flooded signs would discourage people from going down there.  For a while the road was fine though--not even too many huge puddles.  Unfortunately, as we got closer to the crater we found that the "mud plow" hadn't made it down this road yet and there were some decent sized mud flows across the road. (and the scary part about the mud flows is you can't see if there's actually still road underneath it--we'd seen some pictures in a book in the hotel room of previous flood damage where chunks of the road had been torn away by rocks that were carried by the water).  I still didn't think much of it until we went through one and the car skidded a bit because the mud was getting on the deep side.  We cruised through a few more like that, and then I started to think about the fact that we had to come back through all of these and there was a real chance that we could get stuck!  Teresa was confident in her ability to hike back up the road and over to Scotty's Castle to find help if we did get too stuck and we really wanted to see the crater, so we continued on!  (at this point I figured that the road really should have been closed even if it wasn't...the "closed" roads that we'd driven on earlier were in WAY better shape than this one!)

A few more mud flows later, we finally started to go uphill again on the approach to the crater.  It was definitely worth the drive and the possibility of having to push the car out of the mud on the way back...I'd have to say this was one of my favorite places that we saw.  The crater was absolutely huge and very cool looking.  There were some smaller craters that you could hike to, but there was a really strong and bitter cold wind blowing so we didn't feel like hiking much (brought back memories of Hurricane Point and being sandblasted in Big Sur the last time Mom & Dad visited!).

Here's a picture of Ubehebe crater.  The crater itself is only about 2000 years old (the other smaller ones we could have hiked to are older).  It was caused by a hydrovolcanic explosion where hot magma came in contact with wet bedrock and sediment, instantly turning the water to steam.

And here's a picture on the other side of the road--all very fine black volcanic rock everywhere.  

Here's  a picture on the way back--I was trying to capture the pretty hills in the background but got a nice shot of one of the mud flows that we had to drive through too.

I decided the mud flows were best handled in low gear on the way back, and we made it out of there without incident.  We decided to stop briefly at Scotty's Castle--even though we didn't think it would be that exciting we were right there so figured it was worth a 5 minute stop.

Here's a nice shot of the outside of the castle.  Scotty was an old Death Valley resident who conned rich people out of money saying that he was going to find gold (which of course he never did).  He struck up a friendship with one of his rich benefactors (who knew Scotty was a con man, but Scotty made him laugh so he humored him and kept him around).  The rich guy built this huge mansion in the middle of Death Valley, and Scotty pretended it was his castle even though it really wasn't.

We couldn't go in the house without paying to take a guided tour--we didn't object to the cost but we both hate guided tours like that so we decided to head on back towards the hotel--there was one more place we wanted to hike and then we were hoping to catch sunset at Zabriskie Point.

As we headed back into the park and down from the mountains, the weather cleared up and we had a GORGEOUS view of the valley.  Here's a shot looking back at the mountains:

And a panoramic shot of the valley--so beautiful!  I think it was here that we both fell in love with Death Valley and really appreciated its beauty for the first time.

Now it was off to Salt Creek...home of the Pupfish!  I was obsessed with seeing the pupfish--they are really cool little fish who've adapted to living in really hot, really salty water.  Plus they were called pupfish, so they must be great!  The road to get to Salt Creek was another little dirt road and it was closed from the flooding, but we figured even if the car couldn't go down there it was only a mile long so we could easily hike it.

The area was really pretty--and once we got to the end of the road it turns out this one was an "interpretive trail" which means there are actually signs.  They have a nice boardwalk going along the creek--this is another one of the few areas where this is year-round water in the park (although it's very salty, so I'm not sure it does anyone any good except for the pupfish!) I  have a feeling there was a lot more creek than there normally is though!

A couple shots from the boardwalk:

And some pictures showing the large amount of water in this area from the rains:

These plants are normally growing on dry land:

A muddy river:

And a closeup shot of the mud itself--we thought this was really interesting looking mud.  And you could walk on it pretty easily in most areas without sinking in too far, so it wasn't nearly as bad of a hike as it could have been!

Needless to say all the rain had churned up so much mud that there was no way we were going to be able to see any pupfish, plus they don't like cold water so they were probably hiding in their warm pools upstream.  But it was a nice hike anyway!

We finished the pupfish hike and had to race over to Zabriskie Point--it looked like the sun was already starting to go down and we were afraid we were going to miss the show.  Fortunately we made it in plenty of time (although Teresa still sprinted up the hill to make sure she didn't miss anything!) 

Here's a picture of the sunset starting:

And at the peak color--it was much more spectacular in person but the picture still turned out decent!  It was a bit chilly so we didn't stay for long

Day 3 rainfall total: ~0.05 inches or so (not so bad!)

Day 4: Monday 2/9  We finally woke up to some nice weather--unfortunately it was our last day in the park and we were going to have to head out shortly after breakfast, so we wouldn't get to enjoy it.  But there was another round of storms due to come in around noon, so we weren't about to take any chances on getting trapped!

We went over to Zabriskie Point to see the sunrise--didn't look too impressive from there, but when we got back to the hotel and headed over for breakfast, there was a pretty impressive view from the front of the hotel:

On the way out of the restaurant after breakfast, I noticed on the road condition board that they listed chains as being required to get from Pahrump to Las Vegas...along the road that we'd been planning to take back!  (so much for the Enterprise lady who said you never need chains in the area!).  Our rental car of course did not come with chains and we didn't want to have to deal with finding some, having someone put them on for us, etc so we went over to the front desk to find out if there were other ways to get back to Vegas that didn't require chains.  Fortunately there were a couple other routes, but they were longer so we had to make a quicker getaway than we had originally planned.

Everything went smoothly though, and we showed up at the Vegas airport just in time for Teresa to pick Jamie up to head out to Best Friends.  So that's the end of our soggy adventures in Death Valley!  I am anxious to hear what Enterprise thinks of the horribly muddy condition of our rental car when Teresa & Jamie return it--maybe there will have been some rain to wash it off a bit!  It was pretty thoroughly coated in mud from splashing through all the puddles on Sunday (too bad I forgot to take a picture!)

(As a side note, when I got back home I checked the Death Valley website, and it turns out the Ubehebe Crater road was listed as closed on Monday morning...and since there hadn't been any more rain since Sunday afternoon when we were there, I'm going to assume that we had been breaking rules again and driving on yet another closed road!)