What Did You Do in Death Valley Today?

[Brice]

I took advantage of the cooler weather this week to do some hikes at lower elevations.  The arch photo I posted last time was in a very short side canyon next to a canyon with a surprisingly productive unnamed spring in it.  There were even a couple of ~3 ft waterfalls.  But last week my progress up this canyon was stopped short due to thick vegetation.  So Tuesday I decided to hike around the canyon rim and drop in from the top.  Here's a view from the rim showing a nice horseshoe bend.



The canyon was quite deep.  This photo doesn't really capture it without anyone around for scale.



Wasn't long before I had to go underneath two obstructions, one right after the other.  The first one is impossible to get a photo of without a wide angle lens (or something better than a phone) but it looks like a collapse of the canyon wall from a long time ago.  The second one, photographed here is also hard to shoot but it's a bit easier.  It's a weird shape.  Kinda looks like a proboscis monkey's nose.  Here it is from both sides.





Both of the tunnels are large.  I'm 6 feet tall and I don't remember having to duck at all to walk under them.  Further down the canyon I spotted a possibly interesting dryfall and much to my surprise when I climbed up into its base, to the side was a rather large tunnel.  About 40 feet long and 20-30 feet to the ceiling.  I'm not sure if it eroded this way naturally, or if a shark fin section of wall collapsed to lean against the main canyon wall.  It was too dark in there to see anything very clearly.



So that was a pretty fun canyon to explore.