After a spectacular hike up King Midas Canyon, I'd planned to camp somewhere near the mouth of Monarch Wash - which I've visited the upper end of in the past - so I could hike to a mine accessible from the lower end of the drainage. However, as I was driving up the Beatty Cutoff, I started to have second thoughts. I knew I had to be out of the park and on my way back to Las Vegas no later than 9:30am. The hike - some 6 miles roundtrip, plus the inevitable stopping for pictures - would take me…
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I've found no place in all my exploration of Death Valley National Park that I like more than waking up to a view of Striped Butte. You can imagine then - sleeping in our tents less than a mile away - that I had more than one alarm set in order to ensure my alertness when as the sun began to illuminate the sky. With the skies clear after an evening of rain, and before the sun even crested the horizon, I soaked in one of my favorite sights in the world. I spent nearly an hour hopping around behind,…
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We were glad to have battened down the hatches on the tent, because the heavy winds continued all night, literally shaking the entire truck as though we were in a series of mini-accidents. Needless to say, our sleep wasn’t as great as it'd been the previous night when we were sheltered in Racetrack Valley. And then, around 1:00am, the wind got significantly colder, and we started to feel moisture in the air. We didn't realize it at the time as we zipped up the remaining windows, but the moisture we were feeling was snow. By the time I rolled out…
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