The Last of Death Valley

Our long-time friends from Idaho, Kathy and Bosco Bosler, joined us at Stovepipe Wells for the last few days in the park and we re-visited Titus Canyon and Rhyolite.  Bosco had a geology minor in college and provided running commentary on what we were seeing.  (Thanks, Bosco!)

The Bottle House at Rhyolite:  Built of old beer and liquor bottles as a raffle prize.

Bosco and Kathy wanted to see Scotty's Castle so we did a couple of other sites.  See photos below.

Mike decided not to play this course.

Zabriskie Point is a a much-lower viewing platform than Dante's View but it's in the same area of the park.  There are miles of hiking trails which cross the area around the viewing platform.  The retaining walls which support the platform are beginning to crumble due to old age and this area will soon be closed to the public while it's being rebuilt.

Never underestimate the public's capacity for doing dumb things.

Another view from Zabriskie's Point.

Also in the same general area of the park is a scenic drive called Artist's Drive, with a spur to another area called Artist's Palette.  This photo doesn't begin to do justice to the beauty of this area.  There are huge splotches of every color except blue, we decided.  Every possible shade of red, rose, rust, mint green, dark green, white, pale tan to brown/black, dark purple,dark gray, lavender, and any other color you can imagine.

We re-joined Kathy and Bosco for one last excursion to the charcoal kilns, located in Emigrant Canyon off Death Valley.  With all the mining operations in the valley, there was an enormous need for a source of heat for smelting the ore.  Obviously, there are no trees or coal in the valley itself.  At a much higher elevation in a side canyon are pinyon pines.  Imported Chinese workers built the kilns designed by a Swiss engineer and then worked the kilns and drove the finished charcoal to the smelters.  I can't think of a much worse job.  You can still smell the smoke when you walk into a kiln.

Our timing for Death Valley couldn't have been much better.  There had been rain several weeks earlier. Desert plants bloom when there is water, not necessarily in any season.  At the higher elevations, the wild flowers were strewn across the hillsides.  These photos aren't even close to showing how beautiful it was.

And the last full day we were there, temps hit 100 degrees.  It will only go up from there.  Late fall/winter/spring is definitely when you want to see this place.  

We left Stovepipe Wells Thursday morning, 4/10.  Getting out of Death Valley going west was a long but manageable pull up and then the downhill run to the Panamint Valley floor.  However...the pull up Hwy 190 out of Panamint Valley was very long, very steep, and very scary.  One of Bosco's friends had told him not to go in this way and he is right.  The downhill run on Hwy 190 would be extremely scary in a passenger car, let alone hauling a 7 ton RV.

To summarize:  Death Valley must be one of the most weirdly beautiful places on earth.  If it's not on your bucket list, it should be.  And plan to stay a few days as you can't possibly see even a fraction of its wonders in a drive-through.  And try to have a 4x4 with high clearance so you can get into places like Titus Canyon.  If you don't own one, you can rent one in Furnace Creek.