With only 4 miles between us and a hot shower, we strolled right past the mouth of Kane Gulch on our way to check out Junction Ruin. Then, the plan was to tick off another mile - or so - of the trail out, in search of a nice slickrock camp site for the night. But oh, how plans change. High above the wash, there was no way we were going to get ourselves up to this gem of a ruin. As we approached the enormous alcove in which Junction Ruin sat, it began to rain. The storm we'd expected…
11 CommentsCategory: Big Adventures
Get out, go big, an explore. This is the stuff we live for!
After hiking 24 miles through Shangri-la Canyon - a few more miles of Grand Gulch than a sane person should in a day - cool temperatures made for one of the best night's sleep we've had in a long time. And, even waking up an hour before sunrise to "do it all over again, only in Water Canyon," we were well-rested, having fallen asleep just after 8:00pm, and only a few minutes after climbing up our ladder. All ready to go, no shadows yet playing across the land. From the little I'd been able to find about Water Canyon, it…
11 CommentsJust out of the park. Setup on an old mining road just east of Furnace Creek, our flight home was a little later than usual, so we planned to get a hike in before heading back to Las Vegas. This meant a third morning in a row of awake-before-sunrise, but with early sunsets and bedtimes around 7:30pm, we were still getting more sleep we generally get at home! It'd been a windy night, but our spot - between a hillside and a road berm - had been chosen carefully to reduce wind noise on the tent, and as we shoveled…
21 CommentsHaving discovered the existence of a few rock art sites in the Greenwater Valley area, I put on my best Sherlock Holmes hat (note: it is strikingly similar to the Cal Poly baseball cap I always wear) to scour the interwebs for clues. Of the three sites, I was able to pinpoint one reasonably quickly, and reached out to a few fellow rock art enthusiasts for hints on another. The third - somewhere on the hike up Funeral Peak - was out of the question on this particular trip, though I'll surely return to find those in the future. Mostly,…
12 CommentsAt first glance, Greenwater Valley seems - especially compared to the other valleys of Death Valley National Park - downright boring. In fact, it is. Even its most-visited attraction - Dante's View - is what I would describe as "just OK," if someone asked my opinion, before volunteering several alternative views in the park that I feel are significantly more amazing. Thankfully, few people ask - and even fewer care - for my opinion, and the world continues to spin. Still, it was with great excitement that we entered the southern end of Greenwater Valley on the first evening of…
36 CommentsEvery time I visit Death Valley, I cover some amount of ground. I know this because I fill every daylight hour with hiking, driving, climbing, and poking my head into places that a younger, smarter me would certainly avoid. Somehow, though, at the end of each trip, I realize that my list of places to explore has inexplicably gotten longer. It happens without fail. Every. Single. Time. In 2018 - when @mrs.turbodb and I were exploring the Ibex Dunes and the talc mines near Saratoga and Ibex Spring - I noticed a little valley on the eastern flank of the…
20 CommentsBack at the Tacoma, and after consuming breakfast a smidge late, I packed up the tent and hit the road immediately. I'd hoped to tackle a top-secret hike - to some allegedly amazing rock art - for much of the afternoon, but my late arrival back at camp left no time for such activities. Instead, I needed to turn on the afterburners to reach my next camp site; even then, I'd was almost certain I'd be arriving in the dark. Rolling out of Snake Gulch. Amazing how places can look so different from the air. It took a couple hours…
9 CommentsThere's almost nowhere I like to camp more than on the edge of a cliff or on the top of a mountain. The expansive views and feeling of being on the edge - literally, I suppose - are the reason I love to explore. So, it was with a good dose of hesitation that I made the decision to leave my campsite on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon less than two hours before sunset, opting instead to camp at a trailhead parking area. At least it would allow me to get an early start on the following day's…
7 CommentsAfter spending two weeks (one) (two) in Death Valley, and a week in the Mojave Preserve before that, I figured it was time to get out of the Mojave Desert for a bit. My first inclination was to head east towards Cedar Mesa to continue my search for the Juniper Tree ruin. This, I figured, would be a relatively straightforward affair, since I'm confident that I've narrowed down its location, so I knew I'd need more to fill a trip. Pouring over my usual sources of inspiration, I came upon a reference to the Shamans Gallery along the North Rim…
11 CommentsA few weeks earlier - as we'd thoroughly enjoyed our hike through the upper 7 miles of Bighorn Gorge - we'd known that a return trip through O'Brien Canyon was an option. In fact, based on a description I'd found in what we lovingly refer to as the Death Valley Bible, I'd planned for us to return via this alternate route. The thrilling part of this little-known place is its superb narrows about 2 miles down from the [Silver Crown] mine. For several hundred yards the canyon squeezes through a series of tight passages, shaded underworlds of slick bedrock, faceted…
7 CommentsThe last time we drove White Top Mountain Road - in fact, the only time we've driven White Top Mountain Road - we did so under the cover of darkness. This was no problem - it is, for the most part well-graded - but it did mean that we were unable to experience the surroundings of this unfamiliar part of the park. Having just completed our hike to Ubehebe Peak, we had just about an hour of daylight as we took full advantage of the skinny pedal, a long trail of dust glowing in the evening sun, as we sped…
6 CommentsFrom the edge of the Racetrack, an old mining trail climbs to the stark heights of Ubehebe Peak, across rocky slopes sparkling with heavily varnished plutonic rocks. The summit views are awesome, encompassing the Racetrack's eerie mud flats on one side, Saline Valley's deep sink on the other, and many ranges all around. You might find it more difficult to leave than to get there. Hiking Death Valley Depending on who's telling it, Lippincott Pass is either a treacherous, near-death experience or a straightforward shortcut between Saline and Racetrack Valley's, hardly worth a second thought. For us, it has always…
16 CommentsThere's a first time for everything. In all of our adventures, it seems like we're always on the go. I've never really given it much thought - probably because I know there's so much more to see than we ever can - always trying to utilize as many daylight minutes as possible, wherever we happen to be. This trip wasn't going to be any different. I'd planned six hikes over seven days, sure that - even with an extra day - we had more than we could possibly accomplish. Then, our butts were thoroughly cooked on our hike up Tucki…
4 CommentsOn a dark, cold night in January 1952, a distress call went out over Death Valley. “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is Air Force 001 bailing out north of Barstow, California,” the official crash report would later read. Soon after, the crew of six jumped out of the CIA's 16-ton, dual-engine, SA-16 Albatross plane into total darkness. The plane - under power of only a single engine and its backdoor hanging open - continued on course for several minutes before scraping a couple of summits. Then, against all odds, landed on its own - with surprisingly little damage - on an…
11 Comments