Rolling the Dice

For several years, we've talked about visiting Death Valley, but it always seemed the conversations revolved around the late May northbound, or August southbound time frames. Apparently August is Death Valley National Park's busiest month which just goes to show how many people are lacking sanity.

With the government 'partial' shutdown in place, we knew the experience would be impacted but we decided to go anyway. After rain most of the way, we parked for the night at the Riverside in Laughlin and enjoyed dinner with one of our dear river rat friends.

We headed from Searchlight to Baker, avoiding Las Vegas traffic, and approached the park from the south. Baker is "interesting" but I wouldn't want to live there! We'd fueled in Bullhead City at $2.20 but wanted to top off the tank because of the long distances in the park. Fuel in Baker varied between $4.25 and $4.50.

I spent some time before departure looking for places where we could get off the road with the truck and trailer so that BJ could stretch. My planning was good enough that there just happened to be a geocache at almost all of the stretch breaks.

We didn't have any rain, but it sure looked like it on the second day.

We arrived at the park boundary west of Death Valley Junction, and saw slivers of blue sky ahead of us.

Nearly all of the NPS campgrounds were closed except for Stovepipe Wells, 30 miles north of Furnace Creek. The concessionaire operated campgrounds were open, but why pay their price when there was no charge for the NPS campgrounds since they can't charge during shutdowns. (What was that about sanity?)

The sunrise the next morning through a very dirty window, looked very inviting. After breakfast, we headed back to explore the central portion of the park.

Some roads were gated off. This one had been open the day before when we went up to Stovepipe Wells, but now our first stop of the day had equipment blocking the road to the parking lot. While you couldn't drive, you could walk to visit the mill. Turk couldn't walk on the path, but he could walk on the road.

I'm old enough to remember 20 Mule Team Borax advertised on the radio so I was really looking forward to this stop. The most interesting tidbit was that they couldn't process borax during the summer since it won't crystallize at temps above 120 degrees.

We stopped at Furnace Creek and wandered a bit. These facilities were built to attract tourists by the railroad and the borax company when the borax business slowed down. Still very nice!

The museum was closed, but the yard full of equipment displays was open. This steam tractor replaced the 20 Mule teams before the railroad replaced the steam tractor. The mules pulled 30 ton wagon trains 163 miles from Death Valley.

We went as far south as Badwater Basin, just so we could say we've been to the lowest spot in the U.S. How low can you go??

After checking out the salt growth in the basin we headed back to view the Badlands. If we hadn't had Turk along, we could have been enticed into a hike through this area. Turned out the weather was perfect for hiking - highs in the mid 60's.

I'm glad we visited in the winter, and it's on my list to return. There's LOTS that we won't have time to see (or opportunity due to locked gates) this time.

Friends

Typically, I wander the desert in a solitary fashion or with BJ, but recently we've been asked to join with a group of friends to visit some rarely visited places. Thanks to limited parking, we teamed up which gave me a chance to watch as we navigated an old road.

Six of us gathered on the first trip.

We wandered past the cactus and the trees, brushing past the brittle bush as we searched for the clearest route to navigate.

Eventually we reached a point where we could see a bridge far below,

and the goal of our search was found. As we backtracked to the vehicles, we all agreed that we should do that again.

A couple weeks later found us peering under bushes - once again successfully locating the object of our wandering.

It's been lots of fun doing some geocaching with friends.

It's the time of year that friends from far and wide start to gather in the Southwest. We're heading to Death Valley for a few days before spending time in Quartzsite and Yuma. We'll be back in town just in time to head to San Diego for a few days watching our grandson pay hockey. It's going to be fun seeing friends we don't see often!

That's a Beaut!

With a couple days of lazy gluttony in the immediate past, it was well past time to go out and get some exercise. The day was grey but at least it had stopped raining. I wanted to see if I could find a rarely located geocache that was going to require some effort and some luck.

It was clear from the description that the cache was located on the top of a butte. Supposedly, you could drive within a quarter mile, but the mud was soft and I was concerned about ground clearance so I parked in a desert clearing and started to wander.

I tripped into an abandoned mine - actually, perhaps that should read "tripped upon" since I didn't fall in.

I wandered around this crazy saguaro for a bit, but gave up trying to count the arms or find the geocache that was supposed to be located nearby.

I'd spent some time with Google Earth, and decided to approach the middle layer from the southeast since there seemed to be a break at that point.

What I didn't realize until I got there was that the break was full of cholla. Picking a route through here was a bit of a challenge since I wanted to watch my feet to make sure I didn't pick up any cholla balls, but I needed to look up to make sure I could pick a path through without brushing up against them.

I was a bit dismayed when I got far enough up through the gully to see that the shoulder didn't go all the way to the top on this side like I'd hoped.

It was pretty clear that there wasn't a route I was interested in trying, at least from this side.

I worked my way around the base of the top layer, wishing the view of the Quarter Circle U ranch was bathed in sunshine, but appreciated the unique perspective.

Continuing around, I could spot the road I came in on, and where I'd parked the truck. The GPS and the view suggested it wasn't all that far away.

I finally found the stairway to heaven that others had mentioned, and made it to the top of the butte. In addition to the geocache, I also found the summit register that four others had signed this year.

I survived the exploration and after seeing lots of healthy saguaro, decided to take a selfie with one that was on it's last legs.

According to the Fitbit, it was right at 4 miles, and 52 flights of stairs to make the round trip. Could have kept the Fitbit happy in a sterile gym, but this was lots more fun!

Hope you have a wonderful New Year, where ever you may go.