Death Valley 2022/23

[Beardilocks]

This week in “Where the Hell are We and Why are We Here?” 

Brice had some “low probability bridges” he had spotted on satellite research to hunt down in the poorly named “Talc Hills” area of the southern black mountains, down Confidence Wash.  I was down for the punishment.  Attempts were made to get up this as-far-as-I-know unnamed canyon from Harry Wade were thwarted by high dry falls.  So we went in from the top this time.



Obviously the area was heavily prospected for minerals.  Insane amounts of labor were poured into… finding very little apparently in the areas we were in.  Loads of short shafts in hard tick less than 6ft deep.  

Very oddly the area is LITTERED with cairns.  I have never seen this many cairns.  Every tiny ridge line had multiple cairns on it. Every minor peak.  Every undulation of landscape.  I can only guess that a group of miners was prospecting and marking off every bit of real estate with a cairn as they checked it.  

Some signs that certain areas were deemed being worth more than a couple shovels full of checking 




Along with other evidence


Thickest glass I’ve ever seen 



Target:

After being stymied by several dryfalls we found a way down.  One of said dryfalls from the bottom


That one was probably 15-20ft

Cool canyon.  Definitely correct geology for bridge making. 









After a very long, very exhausting scramble back out of the hole (for me anyway), I hiked back down to Confidence Wash to check out something listed on my old topo as “Ruins”.


Hmmmm



Interesting little “cabin”.  Likely very pleasant in the summer.  

After that it was a rather excruciating hike back out up the wash because, contrary to normal operations in DEVA, we were headed uphill for the last ~3mi of the day.  I much prefer it the other way.  

Overall a very cool hike into an area rarely if ever visited.  Perhaps a hike only for the most dedicated desert rats who are absolutely allergic to other people.  I don’t think it’ll be featured in any guidebooks anytime soon.  But Worth it for me to see such an obscure part of the park and a cool deep hidden canyon.