After a long day hiking Lemoigne Canyon, it might seem that we'd be glad that the next trailhead was less than 12 miles away. Unfortunately - despite all the birdseed I've fed the green machine over the years - the Tacoma has yet to grow wings. Forced to use the Death Valley road system - up and over Towne Pass and through Panamint Valley along CA-190, out Saline Valley Road to Hunter Mountain Road, and a few more miles toward Goldbelt Spring - it would take us the better part of three hours to reach camp, high in the Cottonwood Mountains.
The only flat spot around was dramatic enough to justify the effort.
it was 8:30pm - but felt like midnight - when we backed the truck into position and deployed the tent under the Milky Way. Having already eaten dinner - opting to do so while we enjoyed a sunset along Lemoigne Canyon Rd - a bathroom break and quick brush of our teeth were the only things between us and horizontal bliss. We were both sound asleep by 9:00pm.
The following morning...
Sand Flat sunrise.
As usual, we were up before sunrise to get an early start on the ever-shorter - at least, until the winter solstice - day. Our main objective was hiking the upper five miles of Marble Canyon, but before working our way down - and back up - there were old mines and mining towns to explore.
As @mrs.turbodb set about prepping the rotisserie chicken sandwiches that we'd be eating for lunch, I wandered around the remnants of the historic Quackenbush Mine.
From the 1940s to the 1960s several small talc and other mineral claims were located and exploited [near the head of Marble Canyon]. The Quackenbush Mine was one of them. A small steatite-grade talc deposit first claimed by Beveridge Hunter and Shorty Borden in June 1944, it produced only about 750 tons by 1955, and probably not much more in the 1960s when it was reactivated for a short time. After talc it was mined for wollastonite, discovered in 1959. Known as the Calmet claims, these deposits were worked as late as 1976, which was the final mining activity in the area.
Near our campsite, a collapsed headframe once stood above this still-timbered vertical shaft.
Two timbered workings: a 100-foot deep adit on the left, and an inclined stope on the right.
I always love exploring talc deposits because the talc itself is so soft and slippery in hand; such a contrast to the rough rocks we usually find in the desert. However, talc also seems to be rather crumbly, and it's rare to find a working that hasn't collapsed or that appears to want to collapse. At the very least, the workings do not exude a feeling of stability and safe passage. So, after a few seconds of photographing the timber-supported stope - and a big "nope" from @mrs.turbodb when I invited her inside - we were out of the mine and on our way to the next exciting location: Goldbelt.
Inside the stope. Seems safe?
I've made it no secret to anyone I've chatted to about the various cool things that we find when we're out exploring, that should I find a baseball-sized gold nugget - even in a National Park or other place where rock collection is not allowed - it is coming home with me. Where better to find such a thing that a historic town known as Goldbelt?
Pretty much anywhere, it turns out.
Despite its name, Goldbelt, near the head of Marble Canyon, never produced much gold, but it did hold a large number of precious metals and minerals. Several generations of miners discovered gold and silver, then copper, later tungsten and talc, and finally wollastonite, each discovery triggering a small strike. It was Shorty Harris - perhaps the most popular single-blanket jackass prospector in Death Valley - who was said to have first discovered free-milling gold, at the end of 1904. During his long career, he was credited with no less than five major gold strikes, including Bullfrog and Harrisburg, although it has been suggested that he just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and later took undue credit. After his discovery, the Goldbelt Mining District was organized, which stretched east to Death Valley and down to Cottonwood Canyon. The deposits did assay a fair value in gold, with a little silver to boot. Until at least 1910, efforts were made to develop a few gold claims, then copper claims. For a short time there was enough activity that a camp was established, probably around the spring. But as usual, remoteness and the lack of capital stifled development.
The area was then relatively quiet for a few years, until the war-induced increase in metal prices spurred renewed mining interest. In 1916 tungsten was discovered, again by Shorty Harris. By the next spring he had managed to ship out a few hundred pounds of tungsten ore worth about $1,500. He and others subsequently developed other small tungsten mines a few miles south, but they probably produced only an occasional sack of ore.
Today, only ruins - of structures and vehicles - are found in Goldbelt, and we spent a few minutes checking them out.
What I thought was an old cabin on satellite was actually only a roof on the ground.
These miners wasted water on showers? In Death Valley?
There wasn't anything all that special about this old refrigerator, but I liked the cooling elements inside.
Anyone need a dump truck? Needs some new tires and has a nice patina.
@mrs.turbodb also followed the old road - now for foot traffic only - up to Goldbelt Spring, but at this time of year, the roses were anything but colorful, a gray mass of stems haphazardly arranged above any hint of moisture.
And with that, we could delay no longer. Half a mile further down the road, we reached the trailhead and quickly gathered up our food, camera gear, and sunscreen that would sustain us throughout the day.
A very nice - but illegal given the year-round burn ban outside of campgrounds - fire ring at the start of the trail.
Unlike Lower Marble Canyon - accessible with a 4WD vehicle capable of navigating deep sand - which is one of the most popular backpacking trails in the park, Upper Marble Canyon is infrequently visited by mammals of the two-legged variety. This is due to both its remote location - hours from the nearest paved road - and the fact that it contains none of the rock art that decorates the walls of the lower canyon, and a single narrows, instead of three.
Still, I'm a stubborn beast... and having hiked the lower canyon, there was no way I wasn't going to complete that meandering gorge, even if it was a lot of work and boring as hell. Still, given Digonnet's description, we hoped for the best.
[With so few visitors,] the wash is thickly vegetated with rabbitbrush, blackbrush, Mormon tea, big sagebrush, and many other high desert plants. Walking along the wash, and on higher ground [when the brush gets thick] around the springs, is simplified by a nearly continuous trail, courtesy of the wild burros - trust these lazy animals to have plodded the optimum path.
Almost immediately after skirting the first of five springs we'd pass on the way to the narrows, we ran into this old rock wall at a sharp bend in the wash. It didn't seem that there was ever a road through Upper Marble Canyon, so perhaps this was a Native American hunting blind?
Inexplicable alignment.
Barnacles of marble.
A warm glow from the way we'd come.
For nearly the entire 4.8 miles between us and the narrows, the wash was wedged between high, steep hills. For much of the way we were able to follow faint wild burro trails or meandering sandy paths, where the occasional flow of water carried away the shrubbery. The highlights here turned out to be largely of the bone variety.
Skulls - or pieces of them - to be exact.
Still-furry coyote jaw.
Well-weathered bighorn sheep horn.
What have we here - a mountain goat skull?
(Note: There are no native goats in Death Valley.)
We also encountered a few - shall we call them vegan, except, perhaps for the fluttering one? - attractions along the way.
This little Hoary Buckwheat had a nice structure.
Another - even nicer - Buckwheat.
Water in the desert! A couple miles down canyon - and for nearly a mile - a strong stream was flowing, complete with small falls and pools.
There were dozens of these American Snout butterflies flitting around (Libytheana carinenta).
But of course the real reason we'd come on this hike - besides my stubborn proclivities, and to consume delicious rotisserie chicken sandwiches with an apple we'd brought along from Washington - was to see the narrows.
The narrows of this upper canyon were quite different from those we enjoyed in the lower. Their sinuous path was lined with sheer walls - crystallized in places - before becoming strikingly banded further down the wash, sporting a brilliant polish and streaked with wavering calcite veins. Through this striking passage, there were additionally a few monzonite chockstones, large brecciated boulders, and clumps of Panamint phacelia growing out of cracks in the walls.
Entering a world of blue and orange.
Following the flow.
Hollowed slide.
Around the bend. (left) | Reflected light. (right)
Imagine the insanity that deposited these chockstones here in the narrows. Nature's own bad parking job.
Veins of the earth.
Lower narrows.
Nearly a quarter mile in length, our time in the narrows was sublime, and we eagerly awaited our imminent return in the opposite direction. First though, we had a short stint to the confluence with Dead Horse Canyon, a rather uneventful intersection in the middle of nowhere.
An optimistic 4-mile marker; it was actually 6 miles.
Just after noon, it was time for a most enjoyable lunch before heading back up canyon on our return trip. Despite the 1,500 feet of elevation gain, this would be much quicker than our descent - primarily due to the fact that I'd neglected to pack a second battery for the camera - and significantly easier on our knees, given that it was only half of what we'd endured on each of the previous two days.
We'd arrive back at the Tacoma an hour before sunset - just enough time to work our way as far as we could along a rough trail below the Mule Tail Mine. There, after an early dinner, we'd catch our last night of blissful desert dreams before starting our final day in the park.
The Whole Story
