Death Valley 2022/23

[Beardilocks]

Follow up email today RE: parking on permitted roads:

“You are correct, there are no new restrictions hikers.

Leaving a note in your windshield can be helpful for our employees driving that road!”

So I guess I’m making a “I’m not parked illegally officer” sign for my window…

[GowerGulch42]

I've always done that, but more for the reason of "if this car is still parked in a week, find my body here". One day, they will get their act together.

[jkpaulsen]

Are the Cottonwood campsites clearly marked on the ground? I know there's that map of Echo and HITW. Is there one for Cottonwood, too? When I called a back in December, there was no map or anything available.

[Beardilocks]

The campsites are clearly marked. The NPS map of the sites was ruined by a flood again at some point. They had to redo the sites.

[Beardilocks]

I’ve been in the valley proper with crap reception for the last week, so apologies on the late postings that will follow here for a few days. 

Last week I took a trip to Brice’s as-yet-unnamed-bridge at its Top Secret location somewhere in California.  Aim was to see what I’d missed and get some wider angle photos as requested. 

It’s a really fantastic bridge.  I would lean towards calling it major but I’m not the one that makes such decisions.  










It’s really a fun tight canyon.  I didn’t find any of the dryfalls really challenging.  Nothing over about 8ft?  


Huge false bridge further up canyon

[Brice]

It's amazing what a better camera and like, actual photography abilities can do.  Thanks for getting those.

And I've settled on name with the aid of Beardilocks' artistic ability. Dragon bridge.  

[Kauri]

Dragon Bridge sounds like a great name! I was thinking the 5th photo down in Beardilocks' post, of the bridge from the other side, looked sort of like a burro, but I wasn't sure. I definitely see the dragon head once it's pointed out!

[Beardilocks]

I spent a good portion of the week doing about 7-8 hikes in the Furnace Creek Wash (or as Google maps calls it further up in Greenwater Valley: Furnace Creek Washington hahaha).  Most of these will be obscured.  They're just too close to the population center.  But then, the best way into Death Valley 10,000yrs ago is the still the best way in today.  Its mind boggling how little of the landscape has changed in the last 10k years.  

So the next couple of post will be obfuscated, out of order, and generally mixed up.  But all these hikes took place btw Travertine Springs and Navel Spring.  

Let's start with the oldest.  This is one of the few DV I occupation sites in the park that is pure DV I.  Meaning not mixed with other eras.  Interestingly there is a pure DV II site on the next bench south of this one.  Interesting in that that they didn't intermingle.  Usually pure DV I sites are only so because the spring dried up and there was no further reason to visit the area.  So why are these two eras so close but not shared?

There is a fair amount of debate about when exactly DV I is, partially due to there being nothing to radio carbon date in the desert environment.  I generally see it listed as 5000-10,000BC.  Most of the surrounding occupations that have been dated (Owens Lake, Soda Lake, Lake Mojave) circa 7000BC.  I use the generalization of 10,000yrs ago as it's an easy round number.  And it has a certain weight and impact on the psyche.  Especially when you're standing there on the same gravel.  

The site mainly consists of about 17 of what the archeologists refer to as "hearths (?)".  They do not expand on the meaning of that other than to state that no charcoal or other evidence of fire was found.  So who knows what they were actually used for?  
Most artifacts and shards were found around these structures.  All artifacts were collected by the survey team in the 50s, but consisted of 4 projectile points and all manner of scrappers, knives, choppers, and drills.  Very interesting just how much was left behind.  AND continued to sit more or less where it was placed for nearly 10,000yrs.  Pfffffffffff.  Also found at the site are a single hunting blind, a couple of fallen rock walls, and a couple of cleared circles.  

Even though I can't show it, I will say that the view from here is quite nice.  Not a bad place to camp.

One of the "hearth (?)"s






I found several pieces of lithic scatter that I'm almost certain were worked 10,000yrs ago. It's hard to be 100% sure as I've never handled anything that was worked and then left to sit for that long.  Really hard to photograph the chips and impact markings as well.  But beyond insane to hold something like this that was probably worked by human hands that far back.  Or by 15ft tall blue eyed giants.  Whatever.  Lol.






Sleeping circle of some kind.  


Only large rock alignment or ring.  Not sure what to make of it.  



Overall a massively cool site if only for the confirmed age of it.  Not a whole lot left after 10,000yrs.  And being scrubbed of artifacts by archeologists.  I wonder where this stuff ended up?  Probably forgotten in a box in a basement somewhere.

[GowerGulch42]

Some collected artifacts are in the Park archives, some are in the Maturango Museum, some are in the anthropology collection at UCLA collections, and there's a few in the San Diego Museum of Us (formerly Museum of Man) and even some in the American Museum of Natural History.

[Beardilocks]

Here is a cool rock.  Lol.  I actually hiked out multiple times looking for this one and it's brethren.  Actually just one that I know of that I really wanted to find.  But its brethren remain hidden from me.  Needles in a pile of needles.   Just rocks in a wash.  

Hunt lists a "map stone" at this location.  I'm not sure if it was this one or the one I couldn't find.  I would like to make a study of all the "map stones" in DV, noting cardinal direction, direction of nearest spring, etc etc and try to see if any symbols repeat or are similar.  Do they only work for one direction of travel?  Or would the site of the "map" be central to the design, showing the directions to more than one thing from that location?  I have not heard of anyone doing anything similar.  But there may not be enough such stone surviving for that to be feasible.  











 Tried running it through DStretch, which I have never done with petroglyphs.  Surprisingly useful.  




Only other glyph I saw:  A single moccasin on the side of a rock.  There may have been more but the rest of the rock is poorly preserved.