Death Valley 2022/23

[Beardilocks]

The next day I took a little walk almost directly across the valley from Hellfire to explore some things in Chuckwalla Canyon.  I had seen what looked like a rather large grotto in a side canyon on satellite and it has been a long time since I was out to Chuckwalla Crater.  There were also a few other things I wanted to check out on the way in & out.  

For my time above the washes, I followed these old Native American trails.  I picked this one up about 1/2mi from Hanaupah Canyon Rd.  


Here is a very interesting intersection.  The left trail heads to Tule Spring.  The right (the one I came in on) heads in the direction of either Shorty or Bennett well.  One of the water sources to the south of Tule anyway. 


This is interesting.  I’ve always just dismissed random rock circles like this as either more modern fire rings or ancient food storage rings.  But many seemed to be in improbable locations for either.  It turns out many of them (like this one) were deadfall traps for catching small game.  Makes much more sense now.  


An interesting looking side canyon of Chuckwalla.  


Pretty little canyon


Nice white marble type dryfall. 


Huge bowl with a couple of different pour-overs.  


And interesting geology 




Looking back out of the bowl.  


Having found the walk up the wash in loose gravel tedious and without a decent view I thought I’d scale the 200ft ridge to the north and hike that down to Chuckwalla Crater.  A thought that definitely wouldn’t have occurred to me before I started hanging out with dirtbag peakbaggers.     As soon as I was about 25ft above the wash I ran into a very old trail.  It switchbacked up the ridge in a very relaxed way and made the climb very easy.  


Nice trail at the top as well.  Much easier than hiking the wash.  


After a while the crater came into view.  


It is essentially unknow what created the crater.  Charles Hunt is the only person I’ve come across that offers a solution from a scientific perspective:


The only anomaly I saw that would possibly contradict Hunt’s “probable” conclusion is the presence of grey/tan volcanic tuft type rock in fist or smaller pieces surrounding the crater not found anywhere else on the bench or wash.  But what do I know.  



Trail leading towards the crater 


Trail heading back towards the salt pan 


There are quite a few of these MONSTER boulders scattered across the fan between Hanaupah and Chuckwalla, ranging btw a couple of feet tall to 7-8ft tall.  Some have huge chunks scooped out from wind erosion.  This one seems to have been used as a shelter at some point, with a rounded rock wall still partially evident in front of it.  


And an old storage pit or deadfall trap at the back.  


The trail curves and wanders in a rather unusual way compared to a lot of the pre-contact trails I’ve hiked before. 


Another huge rock.  This one has an obvious deadfall trap next to it.  Which makes sense for two reasons: first, it’s easy to find your trap from a distance when it’s next to a huge rock. And two, there’s ample evidence of critters still living under the rock to this day. 




It’s really inspiring to walk these old trails and see the evidence of lives lived out here with such an amazing view.