It was on the final night of our very first trip to Death Valley that we rushed through Cottonwood and Marble canyons, and we haven't been back since. It was largely the popularity of these places that kept me from returning, our preference to spend time in more remote places of the park outweighing the draw of narrows and rock art that Marble Canyon is known for.
Still, it was tough to ignore the description of Marble Canyon that constantly caught our attention in Digonnet's Hiking Death Valley, and when we found ourselves with an extra afternoon at the beginning of our trip, we decided that there would be no better opportunity to wander our way through the maze of narrows than this.
Marble Canyon is a long, varied, and imposing drainage. A dusty track leads to its periphery, circling Mesquite Flat to the lower canyon. From here lies nearly 11 miles of pristine canyon, and an even greater mileage of side canyons radiating like the veins on a leaf. This tentacular network holds many narrows, springs of wild rose and mountain mahogany, fossils, mines, historical inscriptions, and one of the region's largest collection of petroglyphs. The narrows and springs make wonderful goals for day hikes. But knowing this canyon well demands multiple visits and a generous gift of time.
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It was midnight when we landed in Las Vegas. With nowhere open for provisioning, we zipped our way to the outskirts of Pahrump and quickly set up camp, climbing into bed a few minutes after 1:00am.
As the moon set a few hours later, we climbed down from the tent to start our first day.
Provisioning in Pahrump worked fantastically better than we'd imagined. The Albertsons was even better than the one we frequent in Las Vegas, and some breakfast burritos - from Roberto's Taco Shop in Pahrump - hit the spot before we raced our way west towards the Death Valley Visitor Center at Furnace Creek.
Most dispersed camping in Death Valley is free, but two years ago the National Park Service (NPS) implemented a permit system for a few of the more popular canyons - Cottonwood, Marble, Echo, and Hole-in-the-Wall - in order to prevent overcrowding. Camping in these locations was still free, but required anyone who wanted a spot to stop by the visitor center during business hours on the same day in order to reserve a spot and fill out the paperwork for the permit.
It was extremely inconvenient given the size of the park and the (un)likelihood of being by Furnace Creek before it closed for the evening, but the stars happened to align on this particular trip, so when I walked up to the information counter at 10:30am and asked to reserve a site in Marble Canyon for the night, I was surprised to hear that permits were now $10/night, but with the convenience of being issued through recreation.gov up to a week in advance!
Unfortunately, one still must stop at the visitor center to pick up the permit itself, but being able to reserve them online is a huge step forward, and hopefully the first step towards a completely self-serve model that can be taken care of at any time and from anywhere in the park!
So close to convenient.
After grabbing our permits, we made a quick stop to admire Mesquite Dunes.
Working our way through deep sand towards the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon.
Thrilled that the road from Stovepipe Wells to Cottonwood Canyon seemed to be much smoother than our first visit - when we'd felt it was perhaps the worst washboard we'd ever experienced - it was one minute after noon when the road surface transitioned from sand to rock, and we entered the wash.
Dwarfed.
Popping out for a photo here turned out to be a lucky accident, and as I walked back to the Tacoma, I thought to myself, "This is the type of place where I'd expect to see some petroglyphs." A few seconds later - as my eyes scanned the polished rock walls - I found them.
Familiar shapes and patterns.
Not all - in fact, by now, not most - of the art was historical.
After a few minutes of inspection, we continued onward toward the trailhead.
With our designated camp site only a few hundred feet from the wilderness boundary that marks the start of the hike into Marble Canyon, we opted to park the Tacoma there and eat a quick lunch - we'd brought an extra breakfast burrito - before wandering our way up the canyon in search of the rock art that had eluded us on our last visit.
An inviting entrance.
For the first mile or so, Marble Canyon is a colorful corridor, with high walls reminiscent of those in Titus Canyon. Massive strata shoot skyward at awkward angles to the distant rim, and thick limestone beds loaded with black inclusions (chert nodules) decorate the lower elevations. Walking towards the sun, we craned our necks through these first narrows, but - like the first time we visited - we never found the petroglyphs that hide in this tantalizing tapestry.
Working our way into the first narrows, I was thrilled to see pockets of shade, since the best canyon shots are those with little-to-no direct sunlight.
Let the reflected light games begin.
Limestone blackheads. (Technically, chert nodules.)
Strata.
Splashes of color pulled us around each bend.
Geological boundary.
So caught up were we in the oranges and blacks of the canyon walls, that the end of the first narrows - at a giant chockstone wedged between the narrow walls - caught us off guard. This quartz monzonite monster - a bit of Hunter Mountain, carried more than 20 miles by rushing water - was impassable, requiring us to backtrack a bit in order to find a bypass.
We had no idea that around this bend, we'd be stopped in our tracks.
Canyon plug.
The bypass around the chockstone turned out to be both simple and obvious once we realized it's necessity, but as we descended back into the wash toward the second set of narrows, we wondered how many people never realized that there was more to see, simply turning around when they couldn't continue up the winding wash. It was a mistake we likely might have made - not being experienced at the time - back when we first visited Marble Canyon.
Beginning as a narrow passage in gray dolomite, the second narrows were some of the most dramatic we've seen in the park. The leaning walls - polished high above the wash - fold and unfold into a smooth, contorted passage. Blues and grays dominate here, the cool colors accentuating a world closed off from light. Still, even in this mysteriously dim place, bright splashes of orange light the way.
Entering the second narrows.
Drawn toward the light.
Cramped caverns.
Towering walls.
I loved how the orange strata offset the polished dolomite in places.
Three angles through a single passage.
The narrowest of slots, polished smooth by the mountains of rock that have pushed their way past.
In addition to the display put on by the canyon walls, the second narrows were where we spotted rock art for the first time. Most of what we found here was created not by Native American Indians, but by miners working this area in the early 1900s. Still, it was unfortunate to see that many of these same walls had the scratching's and pecking's of much more contemporary visitors, a reminder that it's each of our responsibility to be good stewards, and respectful of what we find as we explore our world.
When visiting rock art and ruin sites, be respectful.
This is most easily done by following the Leave No Trace principles; leaving the place exactly as you found it and taking with you only photographs and memories. In case that is not clear enough for some reason, here are examples of respectful behaviors:
A sierpinskys triangle, according to my hiking companion.
When water is life.
I really appreciated the penmanship and effort that C.D. Ruiz from Rhyolite put into his signature, on Oct. 13, 1906.
We did not make fast progress through the second narrows, as every step seemed to present several new photo opportunities that I just couldn't pass up. Eventually however, the walls opened up and we emerged into the mid-canyon where a few nice exposures of fossilized shells dotted the wash.
Prehistoric sea creatures.
It was here, too, that we found the bulk of the petroglyphs for which we'd originally set out in search of, and for which Marble Canyon is known.
These prehistoric figures, pecked on smooth rock surfaces centuries ago, are fairly common across the Southwest, but the sites found in Death Valley are generally smaller, perhaps a reflection of its harsher climate and lower prehistoric populations. Marble Canyon, however, was blessed with more petroglyph sites than most canyons in the park. Often reminiscent of the style of the Coso Range further west, Marble Canyon's petroglyphs are remarkably varied in subject matter, size, and level of detail. To anyone who enjoys searching every nook and cranny for rock art, this is a special place. There are beautiful figures to be found, from abstract drawings and pregnant bighorn sheep to lizards, desert foxes, human figures, and finely crafted birds. The antiquity of these figures covers centuries. While many of them are quite prominent, others are faint and much older.
A large panel, high above the water line.
Handy-man.
Three desert lizards.
Now keenly aware that we were running out of daylight - but still with a mile of canyon to cover before I wanted to turn back toward camp - I holstered the camera in order to make better time up the wash. Or at least, I holstered it momentarily.
This sandy ledge caught my eye as we raced toward our turnaround point.
Goldbelt - some 7 miles beyond our current location - never produced much gold, but several generations of miners made discoveries there - first of gold and silver, then copper, tungsten and talc, and finally wollastonite. Each discovery triggered a flurry of activity, with the first lasting from 1904-1910 when Shorty Harris established a mining camp near the head of Marble Canyon, likely at Goldbelt Spring.
As usual, remoteness and the lack of capital stifled development and the area was 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.
From the 1940s to the 1960s several small talc and other mineral claims were located and exploited, delivering more than 750 tons of ore by 1955, after which wollastonite - discovered in 1959 - was worked as late as 1976, the final mining activity in the area.
When we reached this rock, we were nearly ready to turn around.
It was 3:45pm - three hours after we'd left, and 45 minutes before sunset - as we began to retrace the four miles we'd hiked into Marble Canyon. Hoping to turn the tide in our favor - or at least get back before it was pitch black - I once again put away the camera as we raced down the wash.
Back through a much darker second narrows.
At least we weren't going to get lost.
Ultimately, we made great time on the way down, and it was only a few minutes after 5:00pm when we strolled into camp. Tired from a lack of sleep the previous night, we quickly deployed the tent and made dinner before climbing into bed for a full 12 hours of shut eye.
The following morning...
My alarm woke us just before 6:30am and a few minutes before the sun would crest the horizon. Not that we would see it in camp, since our position - nestled into the folds of Marble Canyon - meant that shade would be the order of the morning. Still, only a few days from the winter solstice - thus, with only 10-hours of daylight each day - we knew every minute was precious if we were going to squeeze in some long hikes, so we quickly stowed the tent and polished off a bowl of Wheat Chex before firing up the Tacoma for the trip back to Stovepipe Wells.
If you're going to pay for dispersed camping, M4 is as good as it gets.
Back through the narrows at the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon.
We were making great time, the aired-down-to-17psi Kenda Klever RTs soaking up the uneven terrain and floating over the sand with ease, until I spotted a passenger vehicle in the road ahead of us.
Sure enough, as we rolled up on this Toyota Camry, it was clear that they'd spent a bit of time trying to get themselves unstuck, and then just walked their way back to Stovepipe Wells.
Having made it to within 6 feet of the sign, the irony was thick.
Luckily, 4wd and aired down tires made the process of driving around the Camry - even through the deep sand - a non-issue, and soon we were considering our options to hook up a tow strap and pull the car back toward Stovepipe Wells, clearing the road for other travelers.
Unfortunately, after a semi-thorough inspection of the rear end, it became clear that finding a tow point - or at least one where there was no risk of bending some seemingly lightweight component - was going to be a difficult, very sandy endeavor. Not comfortable tackling the situation without the consent of the owners, we pushed the skinny pedal and headed toward what would be the most difficult trek of our trip.
We were headed to the top of Tucki Mountain.
The Whole Story
