Category Archives: Death Valley

A roundabout trip to Death Valley and back: post 3

Per our plan – such as it was – we left the road just outside of Trona. We drove on an historic route used by the Bennett- Arcane party, led by William Manly, as they escaped from Death Valley in 1849.

As an aside; after the Bennett-Arcane party stalled out in Death Valley – which they had sort of wandered into by mistake, but were unwilling to head south to get out of – William Manly made a 500 mile round trip across the unexplored desert to get help and then came back to save their lives. Years later, Manly came back with Bennett to look for silver and, after splitting up, Manly failed to meet Bennett at the rendezvous. Even though Manly had saved his life once, Bennett left him to die. But Manly got out again, and returned to his farm near San Jose; end aside.

Almost all roads that transverse a mountain range in the desert, start by going up an alluvial fan to a canyon into the mountains. The Escape Trail, as this road is sometimes called, is no exception.  Gaining elevation as we drove up the alluvial fan; we started to run into more flowers, and get better views back into the Searles Valley and the town of Trona. There were several side roads, but we had no problem finding our way with all the great signage.

Escape Trail 1-3572
Escape Trail 2-3571
Escape Trail 3-3575
Escape Trail 4-3577

As we continued to climb towards the ridgeline of the Slate Range, we started seeing more flowers. We drove by a  blooming creosote – the creosote, Creosote larrea, is a nasty plant and a worse mother: the plant secretes creosote juice, or what ever it is called, which is the same stuff used to protect telephone poles, and it drizzles to the ground; killing anything, like baby plants, that is near the mother plant – next to a gorgeous, purple desert lupine Lupinus sparsiflorus.

Escape Trail summit 1-3582
Escape Trail summit 2-3586

Higher, when we looked back, the Searles Valley had finally disappeared
but we were now high enough to see the Mojave Aster Xylorhiza
tortifolia
.  As the road got higher, it got steeper and rockier. As
we got to the pass through the Slates and started down, we could see
11,049 foot high Telescope Peak in the background with a dusting of snow
on top.

Escape Trail summit 3-3589

Escape Trail summit 6-3593
Almost all  the way down to where we are going to camp, we have a great view!  And warm weather with no wind. (Be sure to stop and double click on the panorama below.) At camp, we barbecued chicken thighs, potato slices and fresh asparagus. A very nice day.

Escape Trail down 1-3616
Fish Canyon - Escape Trail down 2-3652
To be continued here

 

A roundabout trip to Death Valley and back: post 2

Mojave sign-3515

We turned left towards Trona and, after a few minutes, passed a recreation vehicle area. This is an area where people who want to come to the desert to rip the shit out of it with their motorcycles and 4x4s – known as off road vehicles (ORV) – can just drive around. I don’t know the details, but the rules seem to be that you can drive anywhere with anything.

Mojave vehical rec area-3520

Giving both the TreeHuggers and ORVs separate playgrounds is one of those things that the government really seems to do well. Everybody is pretty happy playing in the desert. Speaking of which, when people think desert plants, they think cactus, but most plants in the desert are not cactus. The preferred survival strategy seems to be Wait around for rain, bloom and produce seeds as soon as possible, get the seeds dispersed, and wait around for the next rain. Which is why, after a couple of well timed rains, the desert will be filled with carpets of flowers. Cactus, and alot of other plants, honker down and sort of hibernate between rains. So, while they can take harsh conditions, they can’t take really harsh conditions like annuals.

Mojave vehical rec area Opuntia-3522
But, when the conditions are right, they can be very happy, like this Opuntia basilaris living between tracks at the Wagon Wheel ORV Area.

Further down the road, on the way to Trona, is the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake at Ridgecrest. China Lake is a misnomer, there is no lake there – atleast not what we would call a lake. I guess it is called a lake to sort of justify having a Navy Base in the middle of the desert. I am not sure why the Navy has a base there except that it is left over from WWII when the military grabbed every piece of available land and, now, they don’t want to let go.

Trona, on the other hand is actually on a lake, Searles Lake. The lake sits in a shallow basin and is usually very shallow although it used to be over 600 feet deep. Now what is left is a couple of hundred feet deep lake bed of dried salts and minerals that are being mined by the Searles Valley Minerals Company and Trona is, more or less, it’s company town.

Searles Lake-3541

I would like to be snarky about Trona but over the years, I have become sort of protectively fond of it.  When I first saw Trona, the mine – factory? – was run by Kerr-McKee and it was, by far, the worst place I have ever seen. As an aside; I hold the position that Kerr-McGee is the most evil company in the world and that was before I saw Silkwood. Kerr-McGee sort of makes the PG&E of Erin Brockovitch look like the Red Cross; end aside.

It seemed, then, that Kerr-McGee dug up the dried salts and minerals and blew them in the air – apparently for the fun of it. The whole area was covered with a gray layer of salt and mineral fallout. Everything, the rundown buildings, the dirt football field at the highschool, the road and all the trucks on them, everything. Now, with Searles Valley Minerals Company replacing Kerr-McGee, Trona is close to infinitely better than it used to be.

Sure, the football field is still dirt but the school buildings are newly painted and, most importantly, the dust is gone. Cars are shinny, buildings are clean, and there is a nifty shinny pipey thing across the dried lake. The town looks alive.  It is also worth keeping in mind that, without the Tronas of the world, we wouldn’t have computers or iPhones or the Hubble telescope.

West end @ Searles Lake-3535

Shinny pipe @ Searles Lake-3552

The rest stop looks pretty dismal, but not if you had seen the old Trona; and the new information kiosk has a good map of the area and real information. Although, I have to admit, the Biocarb® is a little creepy.

Rest stop @ Searles Lake-3557
Info @ Searles Lake-3559
Biocarb @ Searles Lake-3562

From Trona – at the upper left of the map below – our plan was to drive to Death Valley via a couple of old, dirt – rock? – roads over, first, the Slate Range, and, then, the Panamint Range ending near the small blue square at the bottom mid-right of the Google map. Double click to get it large enough to read.

Trona to Death Valley

Continued here

 

 

Death Valley Wildflowers

According to the Desert Wildflowers website, http://www.desertusa.com/wildflo/mnp.html:

Feb. 11, 2010 Death Valley park reports: This week’s
storms have brought more rain to Death Valley, which increases the
chances of a moderate wildflower bloom this spring.

Moderate wildflowers! Cooome on. It has been raining a lot in Southern California and I expected that this was going to be a great year for wildflowers in Death Valley. Like 1982. Or 2005 when even the roads had water in them.

Road Puddle

The whole bottom of the valley was filled with water,

Lake -1

and there were flowers everywhere.

Flowers -1

Flowers -2

 


Striped Butte Valley

It is winter and it has rained every day for the last two weeks. I am a California guy and two weeks of rain and gloom seem like about ten days too much. I am starting to long for the desert and the sun. So I am starting to fantasize about going to the desert. Step one is to remember past trips, like Striped Butte Valley.

For years, I had read about the Striped Butte Valley. I had never gotten around to seeing it because it is only reached by the southernist and most remote road in Death Valley National Park.  It is not the toughest road, but, because it is far from the Visitor Center and – while it starts in Death Valley Nation Park (and Death Valley itself) – it ends outside the park in the very southern reaches of the Panamint Valley….or visa-versa; it just seemed too far out of the way. 

Last year, Howard D and I decided to finally check it out. We started in Death Valley and drove up a long, easy road up Warm Springs Canyon in the southern Panamints to the top of Striped Butte Valley.

An aside: every picture of every desert I have been to, shows the kind of warm, clear light that is only available for about an hour at dawn and dusk. But, my experience is hours of walking around in or driving in flat, washed out, glaring light. The experience is usually like this:

Striped Butte -1

Now, don't get me wrong – I love the desert and can walk in an area like this all day long. I love the air, the details when I look close, the sun in winter, I love the vastness. But – and it is a big but – it doesn't make a very good picture. A very good image. I have been on a quest to take pictures that show the desert as it is and be good images on their own. This is one of my best trys – to date. (double click to enlarge to viewing size)

Butte Valley -2 (3 of 1)-2
 
End aside.

As we climbed into the mountains, we ran into more and more wildflowers – especially in the washes where they get more water – and the sky got bluer

Butte Valley -3 

We also found more and more mine ruins and various semi-unexplainable objects.

Butte Valley -4 (3 of 1) 

But, by far the best thing we found – to use the term very loosely – was the Geologist Cabin over looking the Striped Butte of Striped Butte Valley. (double click again)

Butte Valley -cabin (3 of 1)

 

The geologist cabin is a stone cabin, long abandoned, that is open to anyone who wanders by. It is meticulously maintained by someone – or everyone. I have never seen an abandoned building so open and so well maintained; it is cleaner than the usual maintained National Park restroom. It was a great place to hang out and have lunch, looking at the view.

Butte Valley -6 (3 of 1)

Butte Valley -7 (3 of 1)

At the end of the day, after arguing with a burro over the right of way, we drove over Mengel Pass which was much rougher than we had anticipated.

Butte Valley -8 (3 of 1) 

But doable with Howard handling all the rough parts. To end the trip, we were rewarded with a great view and a giant cairn to mark the pass. 

Butte Valley -9 (3 of 1)

From the cairn, it was only 40 miles of dirt road and an ten hour drive back to the bay area where it was probably raining. That part, I don't remember.
 

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