First prints.
Every 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 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 park. Nestled up against the eastern edge the Black Mountains, Greenwater Valley wasn't a place I'd heard much about.
With none of the major attractions that Death, Saline, Eureka, or Panamint Valleys seem to hold, I knew I wanted to give it a look, but I wasn't sure how. Or when. And so, for 6 years, we've never been.
Then, a few weeks ago, I learned of a remote, rarely visited cave full of colorful pictographs. Like turning on a spigot, I then discovered a series of petroglyph sites in the valley! These - along with some of the only roads in the park I'd never driven, and a few other hikes and mines to explore - were plenty to pique my interest.
Still, I knew it was going to happen again, and it did. After four days, we'd drive every road in the valley, explore every mine we passed. Still, as always seems to be the case, the list of reasons to return dwarfs what we were able to see on our first adventure to the Backside of the Blacks.
Last of the Dunes | Blacks #1 - 27 Every 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…
Greenwater Valley has Copper! No, Silver! No, Gold! Or Not. | Blacks #2 - 16 At 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…
In Search of a Rabbit | Blacks #3 - 9 Having 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.…
Hiking the Big Bell Extension | Blacks #4 - Just 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…
With every new story of adventure you write about and share pictures of, I've come to realize my list of places to explore continues to become longer, and longer and longer. I've been poking around my local deserts for 40+ years and still haven't seen a quarter of it. Looking forward to the next series of stories, from the little teaser, it should be cool. Thanks for sharing, and providing inspiration.
As always, glad you enjoy the stories, and semi-apologies for lengthening your list, hahaha. There's no way around it - I've decided - except to live forever. Even then, I'm pretty sure we'd never be able to see it all.
Right now, I've got a bee in my bonnet about Utah and Cedar Mesa. It is another place - like Death Valley - where there is so much to see in a concentrated area - that I can never get enough of, and realize every time I visit, that I've missed more than I saw. Over the next couple years, I'm going to try to explore nearly the entire length of Grand Gluch. I'll surely get to most of it, and will realize after each segment that I should really go back to catch those dozen things I missed.
Cedar Mesa! Can't wait. Having dipped a toe into Utah a time or two, that will be another lifetime of exploration. Just about went down Imlay Canyon in Zion in the winter, having no idea what that was all about, except the yawning black abyss made me pause. Being feet wet in the Pacific and 4-5 hours from Death Valley, we spend what limited time that we have... being really curious, running out of water and stabbed by cactus.