The last quarter of 2025 has not been kind to Death Valley National Park. Major flooding occurred on September 19th, wiping out many roads that'd only recently reopened after hurricane Hillary went through in 2023. The September rains couldn't have happened at a worse time. The NPS - already historically underfunded in my opinion - had been gutted by asinine firings and government cutbacks. Budgets for managing and maintaining our National Treasures had been reduced dramatically. This resulted in cleanups that took longer than ever, a situation that was further exacerbated by a government shutdown - over the availability of…
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Six months earlier, I'd built our very last, late spring trip to Death Valley - with temperatures already climbing into the unbearably hot range for us Pacific Northwesterners - around Greenwater Valley, for a single purpose: to find an unusual rabbit petroglyph that I'd uncovered on the internet. We never found it. That meant that somewhere out there, a rabbit was hiding in plain sight, and while it had eluded us on our last search, we weren't going to be outsmarted a second time by some wascally wabbit! Trailhead-to-trailhead taxi. With only 90 minutes until sunset, we arrived at the…
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I have no real goal around peak bagging in Death Valley, but something fun just happened, and so now I'm keeping a list. Maybe someday it will become the basis for more. While @mrs.turbodb and I were enjoying our first Fall 2025 trip to Death Valley, I shared with her that we'd be climbing Funeral Peak on the last day of our adventure. Keen to see what Digonnet had to say about the hike, she pulled up Hiking Death Valley on her Kindle and was surprised to find that the hike wasn't listed at all. However, it did mention (highlight…
2 CommentsOn a ridge at 8,133 feet above sea level, Mahogany Flats campground is reasonably well-known for cold, windy conditions. Luckily for us, the wind wasn't too bad, but temps did drop down into the 30s for much of the night - a nice change, actually, given that we we'd brought along two down comforters and had been rather warm on the first couple nights of this trip. We'd camped here - unusual for us, given that it is a campground and we generally prefer a more secluded setting - the night before in order to set ourselves up well for…
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Thankfully, the wind tunnel that can occur through the Lost Lake valley didn't materialize overnight, and we slept reasonably well, with the entire place to ourselves. I was up - as usual - just before sunrise, and the light was fantastic. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that I'd changed the settings on the camera to capture the Milky Way the previous evening - plus I failed to notice anything in the little viewfinder on the back as I reviewed them in the moment - and so I ended up with some very soft, very noisy shots that I've done my best to…
5 Comments![In Search of Overlooks - A Fall Trip to Western Death Valley [P1]](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49072602511_82aa16d541_h.jpg)
Death Valley is not nearby, and yet - it continues to call time after time, urging us to make the 20 hour journey south to explore its wonders. And it's hard to say no. That's how - on a Wednesday morning - we found ourselves packed up in the truck and heading towards southern California, excited for the three-and-a-half days we'd have to explore. I promised myself that this trip would be different. We wouldn't attempt to squeeze everything in; I wouldn't over-schedule our time; it wouldn't be like it always is - a mad dash to not miss a…
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