Death Valley Deep Dive 2024

[edward]

Spectacular! That is now on my to-do list. One has to work to get views of Eureka Dunes and Hidden Dunes at the same time.

[Beardilocks]

I'll never tired of seeing Eureka Valley.  Thanks for those gorgeous shots.

BTW, is that some leftover snow in the last photo ?

There’s small amounts of snow on north facing slopes around 7000ft but not much.  

Last Chance was looking snow free on the south slope (I’m sure Brice will update us on that one eventually).  Marble Peak was looking quite snowy still from here.

[Brice]

Last Chance was looking snow free on the south slope (I’m sure Brice will update us on that one eventually). 

My shoes and insoles are currently separated and drying out on my hood. 

Turns out the Gaia snow layer was not lying.  I just had to be on a northern facing slope to see that.

[Beardilocks]

Ah f**k. Makes it that much harder to sure about the validity of the Gaia snow layer. Damn.

[DVexile]

Did Sandy a bit over 20 years ago, it is an awesome one! Peak log still an ammo box with China Lake stickers?

[Beardilocks]

I had seen one photo of this strange rock many years ago and have been searching for it since.  Last year I found one other pic that showed a bit more background and was able to do some Google earth magic (with some help from Brice) to narrow down the location. 

I still managed to end up walking a full mile in circles looking for it.  Lol. 

I can only imagine that this was someone's inside joke.  And it must have been a powerful one for the amount of time and effort it must have taken to carve out.  Very strange.

If anyone ever stumbles across info on it LET ME KNOW!

The rock was smaller than I expected.  Which was part of my problem in the search.





It reads “Well This Looks Like The Stockyard”.  The spacing is horrible…  haha.  The “RD” at the bottom is the end of “Stockyard”. 


What a strange thing to say.  And the not most economical way to get the point across, with how time consuming it must have been to chip out. 


The wash right in front of the rock looked like a terrible place for a stockyard of any kind. But in an area about 500-1000ft to the south (rock stage left) there was some debris and signs of activity near an old disused road. 

A can dump of course.


A couple of deeply imbedded but broken off railroad-tie sized posts.


More posts.





More modern can than the posts.


Pull-tab area Coors Can.


Same very recognizable font still used today.


I did a little puzzle work on this to figure out it was a Diet Rite Cola. 


Just a really random rock and I'm dying to know more of the story.  It reminds me a bit of the odd sign on Tucki Mountain that lists odd (and wrong) GPS coordinates.

[Beardilocks]

Hanaupah Canyon, off West Side Rd, opened up this last week so I decided to go check it out.  I haven't been all the way up the canyon in about 6 years and I was curious what it would be like after the flooding and road repairs. 

The road up the fan on the bench was in good shape.  A bit more heavily bulldozed than I think was necessary. 

The only warning that I would give about the road is that you can (as of today) get most of the way up the road in an AWD SUV with decent clearance.  Right up until about where Middle Fork splits off and the road continues down the South Fork.  After that it is HC 4WD only.  The gravel get loosers, the holes and rocks much larger. 

Here's the road dropping into the wash.  It's still steep!  Haha. 


Here's a big chunk of the bank that is freshly cut, about 15-20ft high. 


You can really see how much of the vegetation in the wash is just gone.  I remember the wash being full of creosote and other plant life. 


The road used to end right about here at these narrows.  Flooding over the years had washed this out and completely destroyed the wash further up canyon from here.  I was quite surprised to see that they pushed the road up further.  But looking at my USGS maps, I can see where the old right away from 1994 ended and they pushed the road right up to there.


To here actually.  Which is complete folly IMHO, as it will be washed out again as soon as the next solid storm comes through. 


I took a short walk up canyon to see how things were further up.  It was kind of shocking how much the wash was rearranged in the flooding.  Here is a shot of the confluence just past where Shorty's road comes up out of the wash.  This used to be all vegetation, not bare gravel like this.  And those are 2-4ft cuts at the bank on the left.  Crazy.


It was a real mess trying to hike up to main part of the spring.  Smashed vegetation which was covered in gravel, causing me to punch through knee deep a few times in unseen pockets.  The main flow of water is in a completely different place now. 


Heading up Shorty's road. 


The old supply shed or workshop is still about the same as ever. 








Overall an interesting trip up one of my favorite canyons in the park.  On the way out the next morning I ran into two kids (early 20's) that had somehow driven a Honda Civic up from the South entrance of West Side Rd and slept overnight at the intersection of Hanaupah and WSR.  You're only making that drive with either commitment & skill or stupidity & luck.  The first words out of their mouths when I pulled up was “Did you summit?!”  My immediate thought was “Summit what??” Followed almost immediately by “Y'all are crazy”.  Yep, they were starting out to summit Telescope from WSR.  Only about 11,250ft up.  And covered in many many feet of snow.  When I asked if they were really prepared for the snow and the climb (and mentioned the two guys getting choppered off the slopes of Telescope last winter) they turned around to show me their helmets, ice axes, and rope.  Alright guys.  I guess my thoughts on the drive in apply to summiting a snowy Telescope as well.  Good luck.

[netllama]

Hanaupah Canyon, off West Side Rd, opened up this last week so I decided to go check it out.  I haven't been all the way up the canyon in about 6 years and I was curious what it would be like after the flooding and road repairs. 

Overall an interesting trip up one of my favorite canyons in the park.  On the way out the next morning I ran into two kids (early 20's) that had somehow driven a Honda Civic up from the South entrance of West Side Rd and slept overnight at the intersection of Hanaupah and WSR.  You're only making that drive with either commitment & skill or stupidity & luck.  The first words out of their mouths when I pulled up was “Did you summit?!”  My immediate thought was “Summit what??” Followed almost immediately by “Y'all are crazy”.  Yep, they were starting out to summit Telescope from WSR.  Only about 11,250ft up.  And covered in many many feet of snow.  When I asked if they were really prepared for the snow and the climb (and mentioned the two guys getting choppered off the slopes of Telescope last winter) they turned around to show me their helmets, ice axes, and rope.  Alright guys.  I guess my thoughts on the drive in apply to summiting a snowy Telescope as well.  Good luck.

holy jebus. you might want to call them into the rangers now. those kids are going to need to be rescued eventually, and if the rangers at least know wtf is going on, it'll save time trying to locate them (as they prolly never told anyone where they were going).

[Beardilocks]

The next morning I headed back up Johnson Canyon to take another crack at the Sandstone Dome that overlooks what I've found is called White Tanks Wash, between Johnson & Starvation Canyons. 

Alice Hunt's archeological papers from the 1950 mentioned several Native American “campsites” in the area (a loose category that is not elaborated on) and, having found one that I don't think she had found on my last trip out here, thought I'd see what else I could find.  All the tinajas (natural potholes that hold water) would mean that it must have been a great stopping point for many travelers over the millennia.  Plus, I have never seen any trip reports or heard any tales of this fantastic feature that can be seen from all over the valley, and thought that the area needed further exploration.  Let me be clear:  I'm not “discovering” anything out here or “pioneering” any routes.  Just exploring an area that sees criminally (or delightfully!) few visitors.  Haha. 

But first: Tragedy. 


Somewhere in the first mile or so of Johnson Canyon Rd I DESTROYED a tire.  I still can't quite believe it.  Tires were set @ 20psi for rough road touring and I was in 1st gear puttering along at about 12mph on a freshly graded road.


But I somehow still managed to get a 3in long gash in my sidewall.  It happened so fast I heard my rim hit the gravel.  The only thing I could find walking back down the road was a rock that the bulldozer had shattered into several knife blades.  So there's a fun new danger to watch out for out here.  Not that you can see them from the cockpit. 

After a tire change that would definitely get me fired from Nascar, I continued up the road and set out on my hike despite the rain/snow I could see hanging to the Panamints nearby and occasionally peppering me with drops.  I wondered how the kids trying to summit the cloud and snow wrapped Telescope Peak were fairing. 

White Tanks Wash definitely lives up it's name on the East side of the Dome. 




It is a wild place to hike because it feels more like Utah than Death Valley.  Until you turn around and see the salt pan glittering behind you. 


I spotted a nice cave to check out.


It turned out to be quite spacious.  I couldn't tell if ALL the black residue was packrat feces or if some of it was soot from fires.  I quickly decided that a taste test was out of the question. 


Great view though.  I would be finding out shortly if I could get up into those bowls/hidden grottos up there. 




There are quite a number of white-ish pink slots and dryfalls, all with very full tinajas this year.  I probably could have made it up this one, but one slip meant wet (and stinky) boots/pants in the funky tanks.


The bypass was sketchy but went through.  The decomposing sandstone was mostly covered in chunky marbles of itself.  Not round but round-ish with sharpish corners.  Which meant it had some grip in thin layers but was ball-bearings-on-glass in thicker layers.  I ended up on my ass easily over 20x.  Which was fine with me as long as I didn't slide off a cliff or dryfall.  A few of tumble/slides were 10-20ft down the face.








Oddly shaped rock.  Looks vaguely familiar….


So incredibly un-DV looking.  That white slot canyon was next destination. 


Such a cool canyon.  And one I wouldn't be going straight up.  The bypass is STEEP but the footing was good. 


This cave on the other side of the canyon caught my eye.  Mainly because the flat rock on the right would have had to been brought there.  All the other rock in the immediate vicinity is the decomposing sandstone and not in slab form.  Possibly a mortero again. 


Finally at the top!  And on the cusp of a passage further into the Dome if I could get over the larger white bathtub of a dryfall...


There's the salt pan of Death Valley, but the sandstone cliffs made it a very odd spectacle indeed. 


The Ivory Bathtub.





I couldn't get over the strange view. 


I found a safe (ish) way around the Bathtub and found that a white slot that continued at a 90deg angle to the previous falls. 


A double slot actually going in both directions. 


I think with two people I could have gotten over the dryfall in the left slot and gotten up ito the grotto.  But alone it was a bit much for me.  Next time...


View from the top of the Bathtub. 


Some very interesting sedimentary layers in the area. 


I decided to follow the cliff edge as far as I could.  With the possibility of getting cliffed-out and having to backtrack for miles very clear in my mind. 


More caves/alcoves/overhangs that were potentially utilized in the past.  This one was full of fresh sheep scat and what looked suspiscously like mountain lion scat.  Luckily the later was much older. 


I eventually made it to the largest grotto, the one I had been hoping to get into since my first hike out here. 


It's killer.  And extremely lush right now.  Walking on loose boulders covered to invisibility by thick greenery is a new challenge in Death Valley. 


 


I had to check out this odd feature.


I can't tell if this is like foam bubble residue or insect related.


This looks deliberately placed.  More on these types of features at the end of this post….


Eventually I made my way out of the sandstone maze with several more falls and a few extremely sketchy downclimbs on decomposing granite faces.  This place is certainly not boring!

On the way out, down by the spring that I showed on my visit here (where there was a lot of destroyed barbed wire fencing around it), I found someone's collection of oddities on a shelf.  A horseshoe and a cool rock among other things. 


I had been booking it on the way out as the wind was picking up and the snow/rain was starting to descend off the mountain and chase me to my truck finally, as it had been threatening all day. 


I'm tacking these photos to the end of the post to disguise the location that I found them at.  Yeah, it just looks like a stick.  But I think it's my favorite “find” out here in many years.  Alice Hunt describes several previously inhabited caves in Death Valley having this feature on a back wall, but (to my memory) she didn't speculate as to purpose.  (I could be wrong but I don't have time at the moment to re-read her dense several hundred page report).  But Meighan stated in his paper on the Coville Rock Shelter (which details the excavations of nearly a hundred previously occupied caves near the Racetrack Valley) that a stick wedged into the back of a cave was meant as something of a ward or a blessing of the habitation site.  It was imbued with a kind of magic or spirit that would protect the dwelling or the items/people in it in some fashion.  It's a subject that I definitely need to do more research on now. 


This one is very obviously not only wedged into the back wall but also held in place by several stones that were used to make sure it was wedged tightly.  There is no way of knowing whether it's been for a hundred years or several thousand years.  As unassuming as it looks, it is the only item of spiritual or religious significance that I have ever come across in the wild like this.  Something that a human soul imbued with a type of magic and that a human hand placed in the same spot that it still sits today, likely thousands of years later.  Without a doubt the coolest stick I've ever found. 

[netllama]

The next morning I headed back up Johnson Canyon to take another crack at the Sandstone Dome that overlooks what I've found is called White Tanks Wash, between Johnson & Starvation Canyons. 

Alice Hunt's archeological papers from the 1950 mentioned several Native American “campsites” in the area (a loose category that is not elaborated on) and, having found one that I don't think she had found on my last trip out here, thought I'd see what else I could find.  All the tinajas (natural potholes that hold water) would mean that it must have been a great stopping point for many travelers over the millennia.  Plus, I have never seen any trip reports or heard any tales of this fantastic feature that can be seen from all over the valley, and thought that the area needed further exploration.  Let me be clear:  I'm not “discovering” anything out here or “pioneering” any routes.  Just exploring an area that sees criminally (or delightfully!) few visitors.  Haha. 

But first: Tragedy. 


Somewhere in the first mile or so of Johnson Canyon Rd I DESTROYED a tire.  I still can't quite believe it.  Tires were set @ 20psi for rough road touring and I was in 1st gear puttering along at about 12mph on a freshly graded road.


But I somehow still managed to get a 3in long gash in my sidewall.  It happened so fast I heard my rim hit the gravel.  The only thing I could find walking back down the road was a rock that the bulldozer had shattered into several knife blades.  So there's a fun new danger to watch out for out here.  Not that you can see them from the cockpit. 


This one is very obviously not only wedged into the back wall but also held in place by several stones that were used to make sure it was wedged tightly.  There is no way of knowing whether it's been for a hundred years or several thousand years.  As unassuming as it looks, it is the only item of spiritual or religious significance that I have ever come across in the wild like this.  Something that a human soul imbued with a type of magic and that a human hand placed in the same spot that it still sits today, likely thousands of years later.  Without a doubt the coolest stick I've ever found. 

You've posted some truly amazing stuff, but this one, in my unqualified opinion, takes the cake. Never did I expect to see scenery and rock formations like this in Death Valley. You nailed it, its like Utah (or some other far more distant corners of the world).

That flat tire reminds me of the time I experienced something very similar several hundred kilometers from civilization on the Gibb River Road (outback Australia). I was looking for somewhere to pull off the "road" to make lunch, and after an hour, couldn't find anything, when I came upon a very rocky dry wash forking off. I figured why not, and drove very slowly, but huge bushes closed in fast and I noticed they were full of huge spiders. I noped out of there, and reversed back out. Less than a quarter mile further up the road there was a nice, flat clearing and I pulled in. As soon as I opened the door and got out, I heard the dreaded hissing sound. Rear passenger tire was completely shredded. My best guess was that stupid spider infested wash had a sharp rock.