Death Valley Deep Dive 2024

[Beardilocks]

I thought this was a fire-ring.  But it's about 8ft deep and full of water.  Well-head?

I'd think if it were a well that it would show up on a USGS topo map. If its purpose was for something else, would you think that the storms of the past years have provided enough water to fill it?

There were some pipe fittings around and it’s likely the closest possible water source to the mill.  Which is also not on any map I can find.  Concentration of wood debris around this hole.  

But no idea it’s real purpose.

[edward]

Here's one more oddity out in that part of the park that was too far for me to reach coming from the North like I did:

Interesting. How far away is it from these things: 35°43'23.0"N 116°28'09.6"W and 35°43'22.9"N 116°28'03.7"W ?

I enjoyed the photos and report. Nice to get away from people!

[Beardilocks]

I spotted those “keyholes” as well. Guessing they’re the brute force of bulldozer prospecting.

They’re about halfway btw the mill I explored and the odd square I didn’t get to.

It seems every area out here holds some secrets.

[Beardilocks]

Here's a relic of a different kind that I found in Death Valley: The remains of a pair of B-24 Liberator WWII Bombers. 

On August 1st, 1944 during a night training run 20,000ft over Death Valley, six B24 Liberators were flying in tight formations.  Most of the crews at the time were extremely green, most only aged 18 to their early 20's.  For reasons that will never be known Consolidated B-24J #42-78532 and B-24D #42-7286 collided, one cutting off the tail of the other.  18 crew members were on board and only one had a parachute on (likely a belly gunner).  Somehow the one man with a parachute was thrown free of the plummeting wreckage.  He was the only survivor.  He was found dazedly wandering the Death Valley salt pan in 120 degree heat the next day. 

For “logistical reasons” the military decided to dynamite the larger parts of the wreckages and bury them in the salt pan.  That plan only kind of worked.  And many of the pieces were either left unburied or have since resurfaced.  The debris field covers many miles, but due the small nature of the pieces and the small bushes in the area, finding any of them is more a matter of luck and perseverance than anything else.

If you do manage to find this site or any of the pieces, please remember the sacrifices of the young men that never even made it to the war before perishing, and treat this site as a memorial to them. 

I did manage to track down one of the propellers.  From my research, I think there are 3 or 4 propellers still on the ground in the salt pan from this crash. 


Quite an odd sight out here on the salt pan. 


One has to look at this and winder how much of these markings came from the collision, the crash into the ground, or the planes being dynamited.


Interestingly there is a high water mark on both blades.  I wonder if it was buried deeper at one time.  Some photos I've seen from 2008 show it more or less in the same position.  But the heavier corrosion on the lower parts would suggest it was more heavily buried at one point.








Nearby I found a cache of live rounds. 





While I'm sure the ravages of time and salt have made the powder inert, I also didn't disturb any of them just in case. 


Completely off the subject, but I did also find a footprint from the mysterious Death Valley Dinosaur.  It is over a foot wide. 


Random debris.


Further exploration was hampered by how wet it still is out here.  Things can turn into a sloppy muddy mess at any moment.  But the true nature of the soil, whether wet or dry, is disguised by the salt crush, which all looks the same.  Adding a whole new level of anxiety to your steps. 


I did find some random bits of substructure.








Overall I expected to find a bit more wreckage.  I'm not sure how much was maybe buried or moved further out in the last several years of floods.  Or if I was just looking in the wrong places, happered a bit by the muddy salt crust.  I'll have to try again when it's a bit drier!

[Beardilocks]

With West Side Road having just opened up 48hrs before, after being closed since Hurricane Hilary in August, I had to run in and take a look.  The road is still closed on the north end making the typical 5 mile drive off pavement to Trail Canyon now 35 miles of pavement to the southern entrance and then 30mi or rough dirt road back north.  But that's just keeping the riff-raff and the lookie-loos out.  As well as ALL the campers but me!

The road is very nice up the fan right now.  I think a few good rainstorms will change that, but they did a nice job for now on this section.  Fair warning though if you wish to camp out here:  If you are in an even moderate clearance vehicle, bring a shovel and a strong back!  When they bulldozed the road, they left the 1-2ft berms along it's entirety.  So getting off the road to camp will take a bit of shovel work unless you're in something ridiculous like my 80-series. 


Up in the canyon itself, the road has defaulted back to where it was many decades ago.  Previous flood evens had created a trail up the wash that crossed the wash in a few places, sometimes holding to the left, right, or even center of the wash in recent years.  It was odd driving up and seeing myself actually driving on the “road” as it is shown on USGS.  When they rebuilt it they stuck to the old right of way that is still seen on the maps.  I was surprised by how clearly my memories came back when I was driving up the “wrong” side of the canyon. 


I did drive all the way to the top at the old mining camp (the name of which escapes me at the moment for some reason).  I didn't take any pics up there.  The road does take a… uh interesting route up & over a VERY steep bit of bank.  Even in the big 80 with tire pressure at 20psi I got a bit of wheel spin (unlocked) and it won't be long before that is a dug out mess.  The mine camp itself is… still there.  I didn't have time to explore much.

Again though, finding anywhere to camp past the mouth of the canyon will be tricky.  The berms are high and the road passes very few flat spots or even spots where you could pull off into the wash to turn around. 





The lake peeking through the gap on the way down. 


This MONSTER of a log.  It had to be at least 3ft around. 


I had the whole fan to myself for I think the first time ever.  I'm pretty sure that I had the whole eastern slope of the Panamints to myself actually...

[Beardilocks]

Keeping up with my Road Condition Report from my last post, here's Johnson Canyon.  (Hanuapah is still closed for some reason.)  Johnson is quite a bit rougher than Trail Canyon but not bad.  The biggest issue slowing progress up Johnson Canyon is that the operator maybe had too much float on his blade?  Every time it hit a decent sized rock it skipped the whole blade up & down.  Giving you a strange like super-sized washboard with a long wavelength.  Not the kind of teeth-rattler washboard but more like the whole truck hopping up & down like a low-rider in sections.  Not terrible but slowed me way down.  I unfortunately did not drop into the wash to continue up to the trailhead for Hungry Bill's, as I only just made it back to the truck before sundown.  I'm quite sure it's been pushed through all the way to the end though.  Every canyon has been.

There are so so many trails out here.  I'm sure some are Native American, some prospector, some animal.  But they make scaling the huge benches out here so lovely. 





This odd geologic anomaly has always stood out to me from across the valley.  I want to at least vaguely check it out & see if it's worth a deep dive at a later date. 


The canyons that cut around the edges of the large sandstone mass are beautifully sculpted. 





And holding quite a lot of water still.  These tinajas would have been well used by early inhabitants of the valley.


You can see the old gravel height in the canyon here.  This was evident in at least a half dozen places.  The recent floods may have really cleaned out these chutes!


Very odd conglomerate here. 


Looking into the main canyon that splits this huge sandstone dome.  I wonder how far one could get up it without rope.


I thought this feature was ...uh, interesting.  I dubbed it “The Cosmic Toilet”.  Because it reminded me of a cross between the Cosmic Ashtray in Southern UT and Paul Bunyan's Potty in Canyonlands NP.  And it looks like a toilet seat. 




There seem to be quite a lot of springs or seeps in the sandstone formation. 





Coming to you from INSIDE the Cosmic Toilet. 


I'm really curious what this huge bowl back there looks like.  It seems to hit a pretty huge dryfall to stop progress circling the dome.  I wasn't close enough to see if there was an easy bypass. 


I was surpised to find this section of fencing next to this spring.  You don't see a lot of barbed wire in Death Valley outside mining camps. 






With all the springs and seeps and tinajas, it was no real surprise to find an ancient shelter, albeit a small one.  According to Hunt's study of the area, there are quite a few ancient 'campsites' in the area.  Although anything she visited was stripped of anything of interest.  (Photo is out of order to protect the location of the site. Was it even in this area?  Or up Trail Canyon???)


The proof of occupation:  a mortero & mano still in place. 




A really cool geologic feature that I think I'll need to explore more in depth when I have more time.  Way too many hidden nooks & crannies to explore in one outing.

[Beardilocks]

I went to check out a pair of twin 'caves' that are documented habitation sites.  Alice Hunt estimated occupation as “sporadically” from Death Valley II culture (as long ago as 7000 years) to pre-WWI prospectors.  All evidence of Native American habitation was removed when the caves were excavated in the 1950's.  Both caves are approximately 15ft wide and 10ft deep.  The walled cave was dug out to an interior height of about 8ft (as measured in the 50's) and the other was about 6ft tall. 

I often spend a LOT of time hunting for these types of caves.  Sometimes you're looking for one cave in a whole hill of caves.  This time it was… rather obvious. 


Some later trash left behind by prospectors.


Although prospectors don't usually have bottles quite this fancy.  If a turn of the century prospector brought a date out here, I'd really love to hear that story. 


The (slightly) smaller cave. 





There's still a few pieces of pretty chert flake remaining. 


The walled cave.  The wall was likely erected by prospectors.  The biggest evidence for that is that they used some of the mortero stones in the building of the wall. 








Homey.  If a bit Hanta-haunted. 











One of the mortero stones used in the wall. 

[Beardilocks]

Once again back with a Road Condition Report.  This time Galena Canyon.

I had actually never been up Galena before.  One of the few park roads with that distinction.  My first time in DV I hit Queen of Sheba and figured that was close enough.  Well, all these years later I rectified that. 

This time the road has, by and large, been left as it was .  They dozered any gullies or horribly washed out sections but left the rest of the road alone.  It's washed out a bit in places and has pretty big rocks in the road here and there.  It's much as it's always been (I assume).  Which is nice after the heavy plowing of Trail/Johnson.  For some reason I didn't take any photos on the way up.  So you'll have to use your memory and/or imagination. 

I knew there was a lot of mining relics up here but it really is heavily worked over.  Looks like most stuff is standing as it has been for many ages of man.





Not too many places in DV get these special signs. 








I definitely didn't give myself enough time to explore around up here.  Dangit, one more reason I'll have to stick around DV.

[Beardilocks]

I took an adventure way off the beaten path into the very heart of the Panamint Mountains to find these cool fossilized camel tracks.  Or something like that…  I have heard no age given on these racks (I believe the park service only first heard about them a few years ago), but if they are even vaguely related to the massive fossil print collection across the valley in Copper Canyon (visitation by NPS sponsored hikes only) they would be around 5 million years old. 

This grouping wasn't even on my radar.  And I think they were the best ones that I found.  They were on a shelf up from the wash a bit.





Here's the main grouping that I was looking for. 











This group was at a different location nearby.


This group was miles away in a different area.  These are harder to distinguish due to decay (obviously). 


I would bet that there are a lot more prints in the area if one looked long enough.  The issue here is that the fossiliferous layer is nearly horizontal, meaning you only see the prints at the edges of a wash that has cut through that layer.  As opposed to the Copper Canyon formation which is nearly vertical, giving you a shot at many many more prints. 

Really cool spot.

[Brice]

  Both caves are approximately 15ft wide and 10ft deep.  The walled cave was dug out to an interior height of about 8ft (as measured in the 50's) and the other was about 6ft tall.

I've spotted those caves before but didn't go to check them out close up. From a distance I assumed they were much smaller than the dimensions you describe.  Thanks for doing the work for me!  

The wide angle lens you have really does a wonderful job getting photos in tight places.  I might have to pay attention to the camera specs of the next phone I buy...