Death Valley Deep Dive 2024

[Beardilocks]

Today I headed up to Scruge Benchmark for the only reason anyone would really go up there:  Brice needed to check it off his list of Death Valley high-points.  There's really no other reason to battle to this rough terrain to middling viewpoint in a sea of other decent viewpoints in this part of the Grapevines.  And what with Red Wall, Palmer, Fall, and Titus Canyons all being so close there's plenty to see in the area.  However, we would end up looping in a visit to Red Wall Canyon at the end of the day.  After all, when you're already 2mi up the fan from North Rd...

We had no beta on this one and had to just wing it.  The way up was steep (about 2000ft/mile) it was pretty easy to navigate and climb.  The route we chose to go down however falls heavily into the “adventure-route” and the “do not attempt” categories. 

Nice view into what I think is Scruge Canyon here.  Which I am told is pronounced “Scrooge”. 


Looking further up Scruge Canyon.


View South.


Part of the ridge route.


Finally at the top!  The benchmark isn't the highest point on the ridge, but I wasn't complaining after 2200ft of gain in a few miles. 


Beautiful views towards Fall & Titus with Mesquite Dunes in the background.


Looking North towards Mesquite Spring.  Very suspicious solo cloud. 


Heading down the adventure route.  Notice the odd flat spot in the center. 


Here I am at the flat spot.  It's the only flat spot literally anywhere for miles (above the wash). 


Walking around it I started to notice some patterns.  I think possibly there might be some rock alignments here.  Or nature really randomly dropped some fairly apparent patterns.  Here is a circle with a bisecting straight line and a bit of a tail off the circle at the bottom. 


You are more than welcome to say that my imagination is running wild.  But several of the archeologically recognized rock alignments in the park are almost impossible to see when you're right on top of them as well.  These could go either way IMO.  View from another angle here with the circle more apparent. 


Another unlikely arrangement if natural.  Not impossible just very improbable. 





Am I the only one that sees a great white shark sphinx here?  Shark head & sphinx-like cat leg/rear?


The trip down the adventure route was starting to get spicy.  A lot of loose rocks rolling & some sections that had to be very carefully navigated, included several moderate drops that were interesting.  This section dropped 1500ft in 1/2mi. 


We came down the ridge on the right side of that canyon


One of the reasons for choosing the spicy adventure route down was that it dropped us closer to Red Wall Canyon.  But the hike up to the chockstone STILL added 800ft of gain to the day.  I was fairly exhausted at this point but I was too close not to poke my nose into Red Wall for the first time. 

Damn, Red Wall is a huge canyon.


The green adds some nice color contrast to the red. 





I love deep & twisty canyons. 





Next time I come back with more energy, I want to get up into that grotto. 


The hurricane didn't dislodge the chockstone.  Lol.  Still a slightly tricky climb as always. 


Looking back.


I think this is the cover of Digonnets first book.  I also just saw that he's added a Joshua Tree guide as well as a Mojave Desert Peaks guide coming soon.  Looks like the desert rat turned peak-bagger.






And after that it was just a bit over 2mi down a very rough and loose wash back to the trucks.  I grabbed a shower in Stovepipe, which is currently offering $5 showers in a whole motel room all to yourself.  Pretty wild for this dirtbag to have a whole motel room to shower in for $5.