Death Valley Deep Dive 2024

[Beardilocks]

I was looking for a place to escape the crowds on Easter Sunday but found myself in the main valley.  Not the best idea.  But I decided to check off an old set of pins on my list in what I'm calling Mini Artists Palette.  It a colorful area jutting out of the Black Mountains, South of Artists Drive and North of Natural Bridge.  I had explored Hellfire Canyon last year on the southern edge of this feature.  This time I headed around the northern end of hump to see if I could get into the interior. 

Gorgeous hike up the extremely flat fan for the first 1/2mi.  The non-stop stream of traffic behind me reminded me more of Yellowstone than Death Valley.  Especially the absolute MESS where everyone is parking on the road at the closed entrance to Devils Golf Course. 


Accidental pastels on Easter.  Amazing colors here just like Artists Palette in miniature. 





The first main side canyon is a beautiful (if impassable) purple dryfall.  This feature has always been visible to me from Badwater Rd and it was awesome to get up close to it. 


Second canyon is also gorgeous but features a series of dryfalls that looked unclimbable (bypass looks possible through).


Third canyon and the one I was heading up.  It looked like it had a couple of dryfalls further up on satellite, but I didn't know if they would be bad. 


I made it up this one even though the rock in this area is quite loose. 


Salt pan in my rear view.


The wash got a bit more… hectic. 


This looked like a huge dryfall on the satellite imagery.  But it was just an overhang. 


The wash got more chaotic as I got higher. 


This 15ft dryfall looked climbable, but it was garbage rock.  That special kind that will hold ½ of your body weight before it lets go.  Maybe I'm just getting fat.  I was about 1/3 of the way up and a foot hold let go on me.  My hand hold held however, just about yanking my shoulder out of socket.  So I decided for a bypass (behind me in this photo) where the rock was even worse but the exposure was less. 


Looking up canyon I decided not to try to drop back in.  There was very little canyon left before it hit the mountain and it was chock full of more dryfalls.  This eliminated my hopes of finding a bypass on the east side of the canyon to look for some ULPBs (ultra low probability bridges) in the next canyon east. 


I was definitely not complaining about my view for lunch from up here...





How freaking weird are the clouds here?  I'm not sure I've seen this before.  God's goggles. 


The lake was an absolutely gorgeous turquoise today until the wind picked up. 


I had a great view of…. this.  I've had my eyes on this on satellite for a couple of years now, but have never made it out to it.  This is a ways south of the parking lot for Devil's Golf Course.  There's a hint of a road heading out that way and I've wondered if it was the old parking lot for Devils Golf Course from many years ago.  I've also heard rumors of a geoglyph out in the salt pan somewhere, but this is not that.  Intruiging though.


Looking back towards the majestic 3730T.  And yes, most of the rest of my day was spent on scree in varying degrees of lubricity.  I think I fell about 5 or 6 times all told.  4 times WITH poles. 





Cool balancing rocks creating a weird gateway. 


The top of that purple fall. 


Looking south vaguely towards Hellfire Canyon. 











The top of this feature is criss-crossed with canyons, making navigation interesting.  But I was aiming for the Adventure Route out:  Heading for the blindingly bright off-whiteWest slope of this hump and hoping like hell I could find a way down the 1200ft from here to the valley floor. 


Over the first ridge between me and my house was a cute pair of mini-dry lakes. 


Looking back towards 3730T.


It was a an absolutely GORGEOUS day to be out here.  Between the amazing color of the lake and of the volcanic rocks in this area…  Damn. 


The splash of color from the flowers didn't hurt. 


A different kind of sailing stone here.  Lol.  This one was 3-4ft long. 


After several sketchy dryfall bypasses in the incredibly loose scree, this view was giving me palpitations.  Several of the bypasses should have been easy downclimbs but  the rock is absolute garbage.  One way or another I had a lot of elevation to scrub off. 


Somehow this was the end of my photos.  There were about 8 or 9 more dryfalls on the way down.  A large one in this off-white rock had to be bypassed with a butt-slide down some steep scree.  It would be rough going up it.  There were several tall ones in purple rock below this white section, but the rock was better there and they were downclimbed easily. 

Just below here I took my worst fall.  I went up a short ridge to see if I could get a look at up coming dryfalls.  On the top of the scree ridge I suddenly had my left foot shoot out on me, somewhere between Looney Tunes and David Lee Roth and landed on one butt cheek with my whole body weight.  On an oddly shaped pointy rock.  First time in my life I've landed on my butt hard enough to draw blood.  I definitely rolled around in the dirt for a solid minute cursing every God I could think of.  It wasn't a comfortable walk the rest of the way out, but it would have been a lot worse if I'd landed on my tailbone. 

Overall this is a really really cool, colorful, moderately challenging, fun area to explore.  With gorgeous views.  I would recommend gloves (forgot mine), poles, and possibly some of Kauri's patented scree-ice axes if you're planning on going up any of these scree slopes.