Death Valley 2022/23

[DeathValleyDazed]

Loving what you're up to out and about. I agree with NPS prohibiting drones in our National Parks but a good drone on location with you might contribute some great hover above detail and context for these flat like features? Obtaining such a permit might be possible but maybe way to much hassle?

If you have not yet, you might enjoy what's left of the borax haystacks out on the playa. I hope that my footprints crossing the flats wash away as the water levels fluctuate. I would take a ten foot long Home Depot extending paint stick with my camera attached to the end to capture elevated images.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXlyKGyodII

[Beardilocks]

MG: Book was published 1960 with the work in it done around the mid-50s. Much can change in 70yrs. But I spoke with a park archeologist today and they stated that saw the poor condition of this glyph in their post-flood survey this fall. Whether that’s implies it was in better condition before the flood or that they just hadn’t had eyes on it in a while… who knows. These would not be disturbed by running water but heavy rain could potentially take a toll.

The volcano stone was worked only by wind erosion out on the desert pavement.

DVD: A permit would be impossible. The park is heavily leaning towards the ”fingers in ears yelling LALALALA“ approach to these sites. A permit to film one would be immediately denied. I can’t say that I blame them. Any site (not just in DV, but surrounding states) that’s anywhere near accessible to humans gets defaced.

I may admit to zip tie-ing a selfie stick to a hiking pole to shoot some of this stuff. Lol. Don’t need a permit for that.

I’ll be starting a new thread but the archeologist I’m in contact with is working on a project to document historical tourist attractions along the 190 corridor. So if anyone has sites they’ve wondered about or old photos to share, send them my way.

[MojaveGeek]

If you want to see the haystacks, I strongly advise looking on the sat images, where they are readily found, and setting some GPS waypoints. They don't have much elevation relief out there any more and can be pretty hard to see at ground level until you are pretty much on top of them. They are sort of cool though, but indeed, don't track the mud around them please.

[Beardilocks]

I also made a try for some previously habituated caves in a canyon in the Panamints.  But came up empty.  For caves.  Not for views tho.  Truck for scale.  If you look close enough.  

[DAW89446]

Did you run into Mr. & Mrs. Ski3pins? They were in the canyons of the Panamints for the past days.

[Beardilocks]

Did you run into Mr. & Mrs. Ski3pins? They were in the canyons of the Panamints for the past days.

Maybe I did…. ;-)

[DAW89446]

Great! I’ll be reading about your adventures in his next installment on his blog.

When they’re camping I get a nightly InReach message with their location and an occasional question or message.

[Beardilocks]

Back to adventure.   And another undisclosed location.  Closest I’ll say is “Panamints”.  

A killer collection of petroglyphs.  What impressed me the most about these was the attention to detail and the fineness of many of them.  Thin small line, very even lines, and some of the smaller detailed petroglyphs I’ve seen.  They’re all relatively small.  8-12” in most cases.  Some of the smaller ones are just a few inches across.    







I have a weird obsession with glyphs that have long lines




I LOVE it when they wrap around a corner








The squiggly line down the middle here is incredibly thin. 


Interesting that you have what may be rain/a storm (by some estimations) on the left and what seems like a shooting star.  Really intrigued by that one.  



Some have faded quite badly. 



Very cool site overall.  Most of the glyphs were on this rock outcrop, most facing up.  A few others were in the area on smaller boulders that looked older and of a slightly different style.

[Daymoth]

Oh wow those are gorgeous!

[Beardilocks]

And then back into the unknown!  Our own Kauri piqued my interest with a description of side canyon to Hellfire Canyon in an area that I was already eyeing for potential exploration.  Hellfire is in a small group of brightly colored hills at the base of a nameless peak between Artists Palette and Natural Bridge Canyon.  The crux was a ~15ft dryfall in crumbly conglomerate that they were unable bypass.  Combined with the fact that there is no published exploration of this side canyon (even amongst the trip report happy rappelling community) I was in.  Brice agreed to help me tackle it.  

Somehow I took virtually no approach shots to the canyon.  Sorry.  I think Google street view can likely supply one if you’re curious. 

In red are all the Ropewiki rappelling routes.  The section we tackled is in blue.  



Here’s our route in more detail.  




Pretty quickly the canyon gets reasonably narrow and deep.  Not show stopping but very nice.  






Gatekeeper to this major North Side Canyon 


We tested about a dozen hand and footholds each, throwing each fist sized rock that came out of the wall down into the wash as tried to find a safe route up.  The only comfort we had for the climb was that the gravel at the base of the fall is what I like to call ballpit gravel.  It’s the kind of stuff that if you jump in it, you sink to your shins and fill your shoes with stones (if you’re not wearing fancy hiking spats anyways).  So any fall would be a pretty soft landing.  Relatively.  Not that’s much comfort 15ft up.  After a few attempts, we both made it up using an uncomfortable maneuver where you sort of full torso hug a big round bulb of crumbly rock while you get a leg up into the main channel.  Not so bad once you work it out.  

Immediately following were several shorter dryfalls in a narrow but shallow canyon.  


We almost immediately came to a rather interesting side-side canyon to the east. And like children with a new toy, we abandoned our main objective to scope it out.


It was the crumbliest sh*t I’ve ever tried to climb in.  Lol.  85% of everything you touched fell apart.  Trust nothing!  Really pretty strata though.  




Several dryfalls and a severely loose bypass scramble later we’d gotten most of the way up to the ridge line.  The side-side canyon looks doable as a loop to the next northern side canyon of the main Hellfire Canyon.  Everyone got that?  Me neither.  

Back to the main side canyon. 


Which just got deep, more colorful, and more characterful. 




Almost a 1/2mi from the 15ft fall could see the next impasse coming. 


An absolutely gorgeous white grotto with two dryfalls I estimate at about 60ft.  






We were definitely not getting further without a jetpack.  Looking at the satellite imagery there may be a bypass but it would involve walking the ridge up from the fan on 190 all the way up to and quite a bit beyond here before you could *maybe* drop back in.  

So we headed back down (main) (side) canyon. 


We were also investigating some potential bridges on satellite. One was just over the top of this fall.  It was solid with good holds but the exposure was too much to feel safe. 


We decided to go back to the side-side canyon and try for a bypass up the ridge line that way.  

But on the way there there were other side-side canyons to explore.  None of which went very far.  


After a really really REALLY loose scramble up about 400 vertical feet of rubble we found the side-side canyon with potential bridge impassable from that side as well.  Some looking with binoculars and we’re 95% sure it was a false bridge.  So after taking in this amazing view (and 10min for me to catch my breath) we headed back down.  


I fell often.  Frequently.  My backside was bruised and palms were bloodied.  It’s the first time on a hike I ever wished I’d packed gloves.  We staggered our decent so as not to brain each other with the rubble kicked loose.  

That done we continued back down to the main Hellfire canyon.  Some thought & careful maneuvering and we managed to get down the 15ft fall uninjured.  I’ll never get used to that point-of-no-return stepping out to start a downclimb…

And then continued down the main canyon, which is very very pretty.  

Fun shorter dryfall


Pretty narrows 


Ending eventually in large fall and a big beautiful grotto. 








Then we strolled out back to our waiting trucks.  Pretty cool main side canyon.  I’m curious what’s above the big white double dryfall.  Maybe we’ll have to go find out…