Death Valley 2018

This is another view of Titus Canyon, this from one of the higher elevations in the canyon. Death valley seems a long time ago now though it was only last week. We are now further south in California and have spent the last four days at Joshua Tree National Park, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge.

After driving through the night we arrived in Beatty, Nevada, at daybreak and after a brief stop for petrol headed for Death Valley. Just outside Beatty we picked up the Titus Canyon Road a rough, unpaved road that was closed a year ago when we were in the park. We spent the morning and part of the afternoon driving through the Canyon.

This is one more shot from Titus Canyon in Death Valley and the beginning of our trip through southern California, Nevada, and Utah. The photo was taken by my wife and shows our minivan in one of the narrowest and deepest parts of the canyon. The photo was taken at noon when the light was just beginning to penetrate the canyon and gives a sense of the immensity and loneliness of the place.

In Death Valley National Park we first followed Scotty's Castle Road north to the end and to Ubehebe Crater. Then we headed back south on the Racetrack Valley Road, another rough, unpaved road. We saw a lot of cacti along the road and at higher elevations began to see Joshua Trees, whole forests of them, some of them oddly shaped.

Teakettle Junction is in Death Valley at the junction of the Racetrack Playa Road and the Hunter Valley Road and at an elevation of over 4000 feet. Visitors often leave teakettles with messages inscribed on them, but visiting the place requires some effort since the junction lies 20 miles down a very rough road that is better accessed with four-wheel drive vehicles.

A playa is a desert basin that periodically fills with water to form a shallow lake. This playa lies nearly thirty miles off the beaten track in northern Death Valley. It is called the Racetrack because stones from the surrounding mountains mysteriously move across the playa when it is wet leaving the tracks of their movement (see inset). Actually it is no longer mysterious since someone figured out that it was the wind which moved the stones across the mud. Appropriately, the rocky formation out in the playa is known as the Grandstand. We arrived here on the evening of our first day in Death Valley National Park and spent the night there sleeping in the back of our minivan. Should add that we are home again after three weeks on the road. We visited four national parks, two national wildlife refuges and several state parks, put 4000 miles on the car, and spent sixteen nights sleeping in the back of the van.

A playa is a desert basin that periodically fills with water to form a shallow lake. This playa lies nearly thirty miles off the beaten track in northern Death Valley. It is called the Racetrack because stones from the surrounding mountains mysteriously move across the playa when it is wet leaving the tracks of their movement visible in the photo. Someone figured out that it was the wind which moved the stones across the mud, but the track remain visible after the playa dries.

This was taken on the morning of the second day of our trip to the desert southwest and was taken from the spot where we parked our minivan and slept for the night. It nicely illustrates what for us is the beauty of Death Valley, the wonderful colors and patterns of the rocks.

These Barrel Cacti grow much larger than this, in some areas growing to a height of several feet. We photographed them on the second day of our stay in Death Valley National Park along the Racetrack Valley Road where we had stopped to explore a cliffside covered with these and other cacti. None were in flower at this location but we would see them in flower elsewhere.