Death Valley 2022/23

[Beardilocks]

Just when I thought my biggest adventures were behind me...

I have been wanting to hike the Virginia Dry Lakes off of Racetrack Rd... well, since I got my Nat Geo DV map 6-7yrs ago.  For one reason or another it's just never happened.  I was tired from many days in a row of hiking but decided to make a go of it anyway.  The hike is only a few miles one way up to the lakes but gains almost 1000ft from Racetrack Rd in that short distance.

My apologies for the lack of photos to go with this story, but it all unfolded very quickly.  I have a couple of crappy videos that I will try to upload.  

About halfway up the wash I was scrambling up to get to the first dry lake I spooked an owl out of the wash.  It landed in the rocks on the side of the wash.  Odd, I thought.  I've seen owls in the daytime in Death Valley but it's certainly not super common.


It was a light tan Great Horned Owl, fairly large.  I'd estimate it was btw 18-24" tall.  After staring at each other for a few moments it flew off.

I continued walking/scrambling up the wash and after a minute I could see another bird of prey in the sky up ahead.  It turned and did a pass lower over me, obviously checking me out.  It as a huge Golden Eagle.  "Wow", I thought, "There must be a fresh kill up ahead in the wash to have two birds of prey in the area.  Very strange."  And then I thought "man, I hope it's not a mountain lion kill with the lion still in the area."

As I scrambled up over the next pile off rocks in the wash I heard a commotion.  There, in the middle of the wash, was a SECOND Golden Eagle with a SECOND Great Horned Owl pinned to the ground.  I was frozen in shock.  Both species mate for life.  Both mates not involved in the fracas were watching on, the lighter of the two owls on some rocks a bit away and the other eagle circling above.  The eagle noticed me and flipped the owl up and body slammed it behind some rocks. I quickly got my phone out and started a video.  Which is of course terrible.  I have MUCH more respect for the crappy videos of Big Foot where you're cursing the redneck that can't hold the camera still on the blurry something in the distance.  My eyes caught everything so much better.  

I had no intention of getting involved.  Nature is being nature.  My name is Paul and this is between y'all.  I took one step to maybe get a better a view and the eagle flipped out from behind the rocks and body slammed the owl again before deciding that this human was maybe dangerous and flying straight at me and off down the mountain.  Bloody hell.  

I still had to continue up the damn wash at this point.  I could see... well now I could see nothing.  The mates that weren't in the fight had also flown off out of sight and the owl on the ground had... where the hell was it?  Jesus these things are perfectly camouflaged out here.  So I continued up the wash until I was past the owl on the ground (finally seeing its but not stopping to scare it) and took a short video of it trying to look big and tough so I wouldn't attack it.  Then I continued on my way.  I will say that it smelled... very strongly and odd near the fight scene.  I'm not sure which bird secreted what, but it was a very interesting smell that I have never experienced before.

That kind of tinted the rest of my hike a bit, which I will get on with shortly.  

About 45min later I summited a ridgeline to get a better view of the lakes and I could see at least one of the eagles flying low over the wash back in that direction.  I figured they had finished off the owl and were snacking on it.

About 2hrs later I was headed back out and was a bit concerned about what kind of carnage I would find in my path.  Or worse, that the eagles weren't done with dinner and might be displeased about seeing me a second time.  As I got closer to the spot I saw 3-4 what I call "snack birds" (those tiny 3" tall tiny birds of various species) flitting around the canyon and thought that if they were there, the eagles were gone.  So I relaxed.  I relaxed just in time to take about 4 more steps and then get the ever loving crap scared out of me by the owl.  Damned thing was hiding under a boulder nearby praying to its owl god that the eagles would think it was gone.  It flew away down the canyon looking completely normal, both wings working anyway.  I surveyed the area and couldn't find any traces of blood.  

No clue what the fight was about.  I know that Horned Owls will kill smaller raptors for food.  But these eagles were easily twice the size of the owls.  Predation the other way?  Or a territorial dispute?  I don't speak Bird so I couldn't ask.  

Anyway, here's my crappy videos.  




So....
Continuing up to the Dry Lakes with that all fresh in my mind.

It's a very idyllic spot and I can only imagine what these hanging valleys looked like when they had water in them.  In order for the water to spill down the deep wash that I climbed up, the lake would need to be about 20ft deep.  A very beautiful, quiet, area that feels completely cut off from the world.  And I was curious if any ancient peoples had thought so as well.  











On one end of the lake, at the mouth of a straight that connects it with the smaller dry lake, I found several pieces of lithic scatter.  They looked unusually old and weathered for DV.  One had a bit of that green sort of algae or mineralization that you see in fractured quartz in the area.  Which made me think that they may have flowed over to the straight back when this was actually a lake.  So I headed to the high end of the lake, and the large rock outcropping there.  BINGO.  As I got within 100ft of it I started to see lithic scatter in the lakebed, most of it partially buried.  The LS was mostly an opaque white stone I see frequently and obsidian.  And, whoa, lots of obsidian.  Dang.  


These 3 bits were all sitting like that.  Each was about 3/4".  Virtually all of the volcanic glass scatter that I've found in the park is pretty small flakes because its as all DV 3-4 in age (something like 0CE to historic times) and were used for hunting small game like birds and rabbits.  ie: Tiny arrowheads so you have tiny flakes.  

These were more larger chips in the area, NOT the kind of flakes you throw away when making small game points.  Not when it's a resource that's rare in the park and was often traded for at great distance.  (There is one small VG quarry in the park and I'm still waiting for the freaking weather to dry out enough for me to check it out.)  These kinds of scrap or cast off only make sense to me if you're making larger spear points. 

Either way, I could trace all the obsidian back to the exact spot where someone once sat, possibly on the beach at the edge of an ancient lake, and worked the glass into tools that would help feed their people.  

Interestingly, around the corner of the rock outcrop from this spot, was another spot where someone worked the white stone (along with more colorful varieties) into points.  Completely different spot with all the other material scrap leading to it.  I just thought that was kind of fascinating.