This year for spring break I told Natalie I am making an executive decision and we are heading to Nevada, then Death Valley. She looked at me like I'm crazy and wasn't happy with the idea. My response was short and to the point, "I've never taking you somewhere that sucked". I mean what doesn't sound appealing about a place with names like; Furnace Creek, Devil's Golf Course, Bad Water, and The Funeral Mountains? All located in a park named "Death Valley"! Side note, Death Valley is rated one of the best National Parks to take kids.
Originally we were going to go to Monument Valley but Natalie hasn't seen here sisters in a year so I though we would go to Nevada instead. I saw something about Valley of Fire State Park and thought it looked really cool.
I've wanted to go to Death Valley since I was a kid. I missed my calling in life and should have been a climatologist. Death Valley is a land of extremes and has the title of hottest place on the planet. So what person that is obsessed with weather wouldn't want to go there? Then in 2006-2007, when I lived in San Diego, California, we had record rainfall. It rained 30 inches in San Diego and Riverside that year, the normal is just 10 inches. I forgot how much rain Death Valley got that year but it was a lot more than their normal <2 inch annual average. Death Valley had wild flowers blooming that had bloomed in a century (no exaggeration, remember land of extremes). Everyone was heading up there to see the wild flowers but I was too busy working and missed out. Since then I've wanted to go even more. I don't remember what it was that I saw a few months ago but whatever it was I said it's finally time, we're going. Las Vegas is on the way so after visiting her sisters we would head west to Commiefornia, AKA Dumbf***istan.
Twenty years ago if I went I would have just gone to Furnace Creek and Bad Water. But I've learned to plan ahead so I found all kinds of cool stuff to check out. I only made it to half the places I wanted to go to but Natalie changed her mind about Death Valley being a boring, hot, desolate, hell hole and decided she wants to go back. Maybe in summer next time? Just kidding, I'm not that crazy. Every day during the drives Natalie kept talking about how it looks like stuff you only see on TV. Fourteen years, you would have thought she would have had a little more faith in me when I threw that idea out there 🤣.
Overall the trip was pretty awesome. However, dealing with people sucks. I thought things sucked here in Arizona, well it's far worse in both Nevada in Dumbf***istan. Friggin masks Nazis everywhere. Dean couldn't go into the General Store because they require masks on all kids 2 and over. Yeah, try keeping a mask on a 2 year old. F*** you Governor Newsom. The old Karen at the counter kept telling Adri to put her mask over her nose. I made it a point to get what I needed, nothing else, then get the eff out of there. If I had known how dumb California was before I made my reservations I would have held off a couple years. That is how much I despise their stupid masks mandates. Then there's the people at the pool, in a public pool, in their swimsuits, wearing a mask (AKA face diaper). I have a low tolerance for stupid people and I was surrounded by them. They can throw out the word science all they want but they clearly don't understand science vs politically funded $cience and tyranny. The stupidity was enough to make me decide I'm avoiding these states until they get new governors that don't have their heads up Fauci's ass. FYI, if you missed it, previous post destroys the idea that face masks actually do something besides give a bunch of irrational people a false sense of security. What is it they left likes to say? Science doesn't care about your feelings? They love to use that quote when talking about religion but how is government funded $cience any different that religion? Science doesn't care about your feelings so I don't need to wear a face diaper to make some irrational person feel safe. These people would literally walk around with their thumbs in their asses if Fauci told them it would keep them safe.
Red Rock Canyon - Calico Hills 1 Trail
I wanted to do a couple days of hiking here but we only got one day in. I decided not to push everyone too hard. We go to Nevada every year so why try and push too much in one trip? We ended up doing the first trail in Red Rock Canyon, which is also the most popular. There was a bit of stupidity getting into the park.
The park is a national preserve. I thought it was a state park, but it's not. So we get to the booth and they tell us we need a reservation to enter the park Friday-Sunday. Not to hike, but even to drive in. Covid BS! There is no signal there and you can't make a reservation at the booth, it has to be by internet. They didn't ask me any questions about my National Park pass or provide any more useful information. So we drive 10 minutes down the road and make a reservation which cost $17 bucks through recreation.gov. BTW, we made the reservation at 4:11PM for the 4-5 time slot and there was still 111 open slots. So all we did is waste our gas and contribute to global warming to enter a park that had low occupancy. We get back at the gate and I asked about upgrading to an annual pass thinking it's a state park. She tells me it's a national preserve and the upgrade is the national park annual pass, which I already have. So I wasted $17 bucks for nothing and am still waiting for a refund which got kicked around from recreation.gov to the local manager at the park. FYI, yes even with the National Park pass you need the reservation. It's absolute stupidity.
Then there is the cone stupidity. They had cones setup to separate traffic going in and out. But in front of the cones is a sign saying to move left if you don't have a reservation. They wanted people to move left after passing the cones but put the sign in front of the cones which was making people turn into the traffic coming out. This is what happens when government tries to make solutions to simple problems, they screw it all up.
After all the fun of getting turned away, raped, then let back in, we stopped at the first stop on the scenic loop. I've seen pictures from others that have gone here and thought the trails were a lot flatter. It was a lot of rock climbing down the canyon and a lot better than I was expecting. Once the stupidity ends I'll definitely want to go back and do another trail.
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Valley Of Fire State Park
Valley of Fire is about 45 minutes of out Vegas, close to the Arizona/Utah borders. My original plan was to stay here instead of in Vegas but they don't allow reservations. It's really dumb. Who wants to show up from out of state to a park that doesn't allow reservations, just to get turned around? The campground is about 15 minutes from the park entrance too. So if they're full you end up spending the day looking for somewhere else to park. No thanks. One of many reasons I'm about to give up the trailer for a hotel. Due to that stupidity we only spend one day in the park. I will say that the park was everything I was expecting and more and it was even better than Red Rock Canyon.
Our first stop, the Beehives.
Life with a pre-teen. Grumpy faces and laying around like a slug.
After the beehives we drove over to the petroglyphs and had lunch. Someone discovered a sandy hill when I was eating lunch so the kids had to go over there and play in it.
Jasmine and Danny mocking the grumpy butt.
Mouse's Wash
Dean refusing to hike.
Driving to White Dome.
Ash Meadows
A friend of mine from high school lives in Vegas. One day he posted pictures of a trip he took to Ash Meadows, which is close to Death Valley Junction. Since seeing those pictures it's been on my bucket list and just happened to be on the way to our next stop.
From the parking lot. From here it just looks like desert. There's a spring close by but you'd never know it until you get much closer. It was cold and really windy here. It got less windy by the spring. All the trees were still hibernating so I'd like to go back when all the trees are green and it's not so cold. The elevation is around 2,700 ft above sea level here. Jasmine's car couldn't handle the dirt road coming in so she had to park and ride in the trailer to the visitor's center. She compared it to a roller coaster.
That is supposed to be a smile. Don't know why it looks like he's crying.
Death Valley Junction
Death Valley
Between Death Valley Junction and Furnace Creek. Natalie said this hill looks like a single rock.
Titus Canyon
Our first day we drove up to Titus Canyon. We were also going to go to Ubehebe Crater but that didn't happen. That will have to wait for our next trip.
As much as I thought I prepared for this trip, I didn't. I thought Death Valley was flatter. Death Valley is in a bowl with mountains on all four sides. Everywhere we went out of the Furnace Creek and Bad Water areas required driving up mountains. We only had light sweaters but then we got snowed on 3 times (just outside of Vegas, at Titus Canyon, and again at Father Crowley Lookout).
The drive through Titus Canyon starts in Nevada. At first it's an ugly flat drive through the desert. At first we were having regrets and the first hour was nothing but complaining from everyone. It's not like I could even turn around though, it's a one way road. I keep thinking about what if we get a flat or something and need to get towed, there goes a whole day with kids complaining. My own anxiety plus the kids complaining was miserable. Once you're on this road you're committed. The road is really rough. Not a lot of dips but just really small waves so we could only go 10 mph. The sign says the average drive time is 3 hours for the 27 miles. So the first 12-15ish miles really sucked.
Eventually we went over a pass, up to about 5,000 feet. The road got smoother and it started snowing. Just after the pass we had to stop so Adri could go to the bathroom and there was a truck that pulled out just in front of us. I started talking to the guy and he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He was pulling a work trailer. He said he had driven the road before and it's not that bad so he brought his trailer. Well he broke a leaf spring. So he pulled out a saw he had in the trailer and cut and wedged a 2X4 between the leaf springs. He waited until Adri was done and we could pass him to start driving again.
Leadfield, 5 minutes later. Snow!
After Leadfield the driving got really easy. I was able to drive anywhere between 20-40 mph the rest of the way.
Around the 20 mile mark we finally got to the part we were waiting for. Was it worth it? Definitely. This was the best part of the drive and made up for the first hour of suck. At some parts the canyon is probably less than 20 feet wide. The only canyon this narrow I have ever seen that you can drive through.
We ended up doing the 27 miles in 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Stovepipe Wells
After Titus Canyon we made a stop at Stovepipe Wells, the monument, not the city a couple miles away on the other side of the dunes.
I believe the story here is that this was the only water in the area but the sand kept making it hard to find the water so they shoved a stovepipe in the ground to mark it.
Mesquite Sand Dunes
My kids are crazy. You can see the dunes from Stovepipe Wells and they wanted to walk there. It's a couple miles. Told them to stop being crazy and get in the truck and we'll drive over. There are two big dunes in Death Valley. The Eureka Dunes are bigger and apparently they sing when the sand hits them. They are way up north by the crater, an hour or so away. The Mesquite Dunes are easier to get to and you can board on them. We only did the Mesquite Dunes on this trip.
This was by far Dean's favorite stop. He didn't want to hike though. He just wanted to sit in the sand and make sand castles. Lots of tantrums when we made him hike. Zach proved to be my best hiker on this trip. Everywhere we went he was happy to hike.
Every day out there we saw fighter jets flying over the dunes. It was always 2 of them and they were about two miles up. It was raining all around the edges of the valley that day but we didn't get a single drop of rain at the dunes. We did get some rain later that night at Furnace Creek.
Borax Works
This is just a couple miles from Furnace Creek. Here we learned about borax. Apparently they had to stop operations in summer because the borax won't crystalize when it's over 120 degrees. Death Valley problems! Despite people's claims, this is one of the only places on earth that regularly gets over 120 and the only place on Earth to hit 130. I've heard a lot of people tell me it was 140 in Iraq or make other outrageous claims. Thermometers in the sun can pick up crazy readings and they aren't offical.
Nowhere on Earth has an official temperature higher than Death Valley. Some parts of Death Valley have an average temperature of 117 in July! The hottest city in the Middle East is Kuwait City with an average high of 111 in July. Basra, Iraq has an average high of 108 in July, the same as Palm Springs, California. Point is, the Borax problem is a Death Valley problem.
Another fun fact, Death Valley also has the highest overnight low on earth, 107 degrees! The world record for highest temperature was accepted as 134 at Greenland Ranch (I believe is now the Furnace Creek Ranch). It's now been disputed and the sign was removed, or I couldn't find it but I think I was looking at the right place. Evidence suggest the equipment was faulty and it was only 129.2 that day in 1913. However, last August (2020) Death Valley hit 130, setting a new world record.
The Borax was refined here so they wouldn't have to ship everything to San Francisco. Instead they refined it here and got rid of the waste. I believe they said the yellow hills are from the borates.
Two miles away at the Furnace Creek Resort is another Borax Museum. A lot of cool stuff here. A steam tractor, the old Death Valley Railroad train, a train with a scoop on the end followed by a couple sets of conveyor belts and a train car and engine, an old safe, all sorts of mining cars, engines, etc.
Artist Drive
Going into Artist Drive I thought I was being an ambulance so I gave them their space despite the fact they were driving really slow. Well once I got closer I could see it wasn't an ambulance, it was hippies. The windows have some hippy wall covering on it and it says "Emergency Musical Support" not "Medical".
The first stop is not Artist's Palette. We were taking all these pictures here but it's not even the main attraction.
The kids were tired but Natalie got out and took a short hike. She wants to come back and do the full hike.
Father Crowley Lookout - AKA - Star Wars Canyon
Star Wars IV - A New Hope was filmed here. Until 2019 they used to fly jets through here for training and people would get some really close up pictures of fighter jets. In 2019 they had an accident and I don't know when they'll resume training here. When they do fly in they don't announce it though. People would sit here all weekend waiting for a flyby. We did hear jets close by but nothing in the canyon.
It was very cold here and the wind was howling. The wind coming out of the canyon was making a sound I have never heard before. I tried to catch it in a video but it didn't pick up the sound I was hearing. The canyon was singing.
This day we were heading to Darwin Falls but missed our turn. There isn't a sign from the direction we were coming so we drove up to Father Crowley Lookout and then tried to figure out where we missed the trail. We had no signal though so I was unsure how exactly to get there. We were going to just go back to town but then on the way back I spotted the cars parked at the trailhead from the top of the mountain. We found the turn we missed and had to drive two miles into the trailhead. This was a pretty smooth dirt road and I was able to drive it going 40mph no problem.
Darwin Falls
This hike is 1 mile from the trailhead to the waterfall. It's a fairly easy hike with a little bit of scrambling over rocks at the end. Dean made the hike a little bit of hell though.
Driving back down the 190 towards Stove Pipe Wells. Driving through Death Valley is so different than anywhere else. Like I said, it's in a bowl. There are landslides coming in at different angles from all sides. Here we were going down a steep hill. But at other times I couldn't tell if we were driving down a hill or on level ground.
A cold day in Furnace Creek 🤣
Bad Water
This is the one spot I just had to go. Bad Water used to be accepted as the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. Since then a lower point was discovered in Argentina, but Bad Water is still the lowest spot in North America and second in the Western Hemisphere. The hottest temperature recorded in Death Valley is around Furnace Creek at Greenland Ranch but Bad Water is 90+ feet lower and most certainly had hotter temperatures that weren't captured.
I thought the water pool at the beginning of the trail here was the lowest point. It certainly is for the area, it only makes sense, water is going to find the lowest point, the kids learned that watching Goonies. However there is a lower point a couple miles away, which shifts due to rain and evaporation stages.
I think Natalie thought this would be the most boring part of the trip. What sounds fun about hiking on a barren salt plane. Well once we got out there she changed her mind. The salt polygons were every bit as cool as I was expecting, and more. We hiked a little more than a half mile out on the salt. I took off my sun glasses and don't know how the kids were able to see anything. I was blinded by reflective light.
Note the circle I made of the sign on the mountain.
If you can't read it that sign is the marker for sea level.
The small pool of water. There are a few species endemic to Death Valley like the Death Valley Snail and the pupfish. Furthermore there are five species of pupfish each one endemic to it's own water hole. Evolution.
Looking back towards the parking lot.
Well then there is this sign. First off the marking for the Dominican Republic is over Haiti. Move that thing 100 miles to the east! Then there's the so called lowest point in Argentina which is not accurate. The lowest point in Argentina is Laguna Del Carbon which is 340ft below sea level.
On the hill you can see where the land slid during a massive earthquake. According to the signs there, which I question, Death Valley is full of 9,000 feet of earth from landslides. The valley floor is dropping faster than it is filling though and will continue to get lower. So without landslides Bad Water would be 9,000 feet below sea level.
Devil's Golfcourse
This is just a few miles from Bad Water. The pictures don't do it justice. I wanted to hike there but it's too dangerous for Dean. The rocks are really sharp and any fall could results in serious injuries. If you look really closely at the rocks there are some really cool formations. The sign had a picture of one that looks like a hollowed out cone. Those formations are extremely fragile so I couldn't find any that close to the parking lot. From what I have seen online there is a small pool out there too.
The parking lot is a mile or so down a dirt road but it's really smooth. I was able to drive 50mph down this dirt road no problem and went flying past some guy crawling in his Tesla.
Zabriski Point
Between Artist Drive and the 190 is a trail we didn't get to hike at Golden Canyon. There are several trails there and one of them leads to Zabriski Point. Next time we are there I am definitely going to hike Golden Canyon to Zabriski Point.
Death Valley used to be a couple really deep lakes. Some volcanoes spewed ash into the lakes and the lakes eventually evaporated. All settled in spots like Zabriski Point and then a lot of erosion kicked in and this is what is left. Natalie really liked Artist's Palette but I was more impressed with Zabriski Point and Golden Canyon.
One of the lessons learned from Death Valley, reception sucks! I read that it is spotty. That's halfway accurate. Yes it is spotty but I was expecting good signal around Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells. There is strong signal in both areas but it is 3G so anything requiring data will fail. Don't count on GPS! Download your maps before you go.
Another lesson learned, the elevation varies a lot. I knew that the peaks were high but wasn't expecting to have to drive over so many passes to get through Titus Canyon and to get to Darwin Falls. If you are going to Death Valley plan on the temperature varying at least 20-40 degrees between locations. The Bad Water Basin, Furnace Creek, Mesquite Sand Dunes, and Stove Pipe Wells are all below sea level. But if you are planning on going outside of those areas plan on going over some mountain passes.
Overall the trip was pretty awesome. I didn't plan enough time for all the stuff I wanted to see but we'll be back in a few years, when Dean is bigger and can hike. We definitely picked a good time to go. It was in the 60s and 70s in Furnace Creek that week. This week is 80s and 90s are coming next week.
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