Death Valley Deep Dive 2024

[Beardilocks]

Today I headed up to Scruge Benchmark for the only reason anyone would really go up there:  Brice needed to check it off his list of Death Valley high-points.  There's really no other reason to battle to this rough terrain to middling viewpoint in a sea of other decent viewpoints in this part of the Grapevines.  And what with Red Wall, Palmer, Fall, and Titus Canyons all being so close there's plenty to see in the area.  However, we would end up looping in a visit to Red Wall Canyon at the end of the day.  After all, when you're already 2mi up the fan from North Rd...

We had no beta on this one and had to just wing it.  The way up was steep (about 2000ft/mile) it was pretty easy to navigate and climb.  The route we chose to go down however falls heavily into the “adventure-route” and the “do not attempt” categories. 

Nice view into what I think is Scruge Canyon here.  Which I am told is pronounced “Scrooge”. 


Looking further up Scruge Canyon.


View South.


Part of the ridge route.


Finally at the top!  The benchmark isn't the highest point on the ridge, but I wasn't complaining after 2200ft of gain in a few miles. 


Beautiful views towards Fall & Titus with Mesquite Dunes in the background.


Looking North towards Mesquite Spring.  Very suspicious solo cloud. 


Heading down the adventure route.  Notice the odd flat spot in the center. 


Here I am at the flat spot.  It's the only flat spot literally anywhere for miles (above the wash). 


Walking around it I started to notice some patterns.  I think possibly there might be some rock alignments here.  Or nature really randomly dropped some fairly apparent patterns.  Here is a circle with a bisecting straight line and a bit of a tail off the circle at the bottom. 


You are more than welcome to say that my imagination is running wild.  But several of the archeologically recognized rock alignments in the park are almost impossible to see when you're right on top of them as well.  These could go either way IMO.  View from another angle here with the circle more apparent. 


Another unlikely arrangement if natural.  Not impossible just very improbable. 





Am I the only one that sees a great white shark sphinx here?  Shark head & sphinx-like cat leg/rear?


The trip down the adventure route was starting to get spicy.  A lot of loose rocks rolling & some sections that had to be very carefully navigated, included several moderate drops that were interesting.  This section dropped 1500ft in 1/2mi. 


We came down the ridge on the right side of that canyon


One of the reasons for choosing the spicy adventure route down was that it dropped us closer to Red Wall Canyon.  But the hike up to the chockstone STILL added 800ft of gain to the day.  I was fairly exhausted at this point but I was too close not to poke my nose into Red Wall for the first time. 

Damn, Red Wall is a huge canyon.


The green adds some nice color contrast to the red. 





I love deep & twisty canyons. 





Next time I come back with more energy, I want to get up into that grotto. 


The hurricane didn't dislodge the chockstone.  Lol.  Still a slightly tricky climb as always. 


Looking back.


I think this is the cover of Digonnets first book.  I also just saw that he's added a Joshua Tree guide as well as a Mojave Desert Peaks guide coming soon.  Looks like the desert rat turned peak-bagger.






And after that it was just a bit over 2mi down a very rough and loose wash back to the trucks.  I grabbed a shower in Stovepipe, which is currently offering $5 showers in a whole motel room all to yourself.  Pretty wild for this dirtbag to have a whole motel room to shower in for $5.

[trailhound]

Your pictures are crazy good. Thank you for sharing.

[TacoLand]

Y'all are nuts. Red Wall looks gorgeous though ... and thanks for the heads up on other Digonnet books. The 2023 Hiking Western Death Valley cover looks suspiciously familiar. I'd personally grab his books just to read his writing.

[netllama]

Y'all are nuts.....

Pretty sure that's a requirement to post on this forum (just saying...)

[DeathValleyDazed]

You've got rocks in your head and in your boots for pulling off these adventures so you belong in this forum. That shark sphinx and other rocks patterns on the flat are mysterious.

[DAW89446]

Am I the only one that sees a great white shark sphinx here?  Shark head & sphinx-like cat leg/rear?

Maybe an ancestor to the Panamint Shark ... And the flat spot looks strangely like images from the rover on Mars. I agree that I have rocks in my head, but the rocks stuck in the lugs of my boots just get all over the livingroom carpet, which are painful to step on when I am walking barefoot to my recliner to drink a beer and watch TV ... 

[Beardilocks]

Is the Panamint Shark like a cool local cryptid??

[Beardilocks]

I was driving by the temporary-but-really-hanging-in-there Lake Manly the other day and it was DEAD calm out.  Pretty rare in Death Valley.  Which made for some gorgeous mirror views. 

[Beardilocks]

In my efforts to visit every petroglyph or pictograph site in DV, I have missed a couple of the more well known ones.  Today was the day to check off one of these and scope a bit of Death Valley history to boot.  Which is to say of course a history like most of the rest of Death Valley: more myth & legend than fact. 

Jayhawker Canyon has both prehistoric petroglyphs and historic signatures, mainly on one large boulder sometimes called Inscription Rock.  The Jayhawkers were part of the group that accidentally wandered into Death Valley in 1849.  The group separated upon entering at Furnace Creek with the Bennett/Arcane families headed South down the hot valley floor and the Jayhawkers heading towards the Mesquite Sand Dunes and eventually out over Towne Pass into Panamint Valley.  It is obvious in hindsight that they took the easier route out of the valley that would later be named Death. Along their escape route here in what would be named Jayhawker Canyon they rested at this spring and it is said that they carved their names on this rock. 

Or so the legend was told.

As lovely as that sounds, it is unlikely that that is how things played out.  Scrambling to survive and probably not carrying any tools to save weight, it is highly unlikely that they took the time here to leave their mark on the rocks.  Only one signature here actually names anyone in the Jayhawker party: the “WBR 1849” signature on the smaller rock for William B Rood (or Rude/Roods/Roode).  It is more likely that the first European through here to leave their mark on this rock were members of the Darwin French prospecting party that came through in 1860 looking for the Lost Gunsight silver/lead mine, leaving at least “J Hichens 1860” on the rock. 

It is more likely that WB Rood added this signature (and a couple of others bearing his name scattered throughout the park) in 1869, when he returned to Death Valley to look for a horde of gold coins that they buried during their hasty escape from the Valley of Death in 1849.  This gold horde has never been recovered.  Or at the very least the find was never reported.

It wasn't until 1936 that this rock was rediscovered and, with everyone who had carved their name into the rock long dead, a history was manufactured on the spot that this must have been the route the Jayhawkers took, owing to the “WBR 1849”.  Thus the name Jayhawker Spring & Canyon were adopted at that time, with the newly formed National Monument staff hungry for stories to tell it's first tourists.  The true story will likely never be known. 


It is quite the rock.  And heavily decorated. 


The most recent signature I could make out seemed to date from around the time of the rocks rediscovery in the late 1930's.





Of course the petroglyphs outshine the more recent history for me. 


But I cannot for the life of me figure out this creature.  With 5 legs (or 4 legs & a phallus) and such a massively long neck & tail.  The anthropmorph with the solid body and open face is unusual in this area. 





Notice the line coming way down out of the worn/obliterated spot to the lower part of the rock and what I think is a glyph for a spring.  Large form map?


Some linked-ball designs and possibly a simple atlatl. 


The heavily worn spots are interesting to me.  It is not the most convenient place for grinding grains.  Perhaps simply erasing older glyphs from a different group?  I can't imagine what would cause wear from usage.








This is the really interesting stuff up here.  The glyphs that can't be seen from ground level.  At the top of what could possibly be a map (with the spring at the bottom and a long line leading up to the obliterated spot) is what appears to be stars or a constellation. 


So freaking cool.  I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it this grouping. 


This is the rock next to the main boulder is also interesting.  Another possible spring glyph (circle with 2 lines coming out of it) this time including creatures you would see at a spring, like a deer with the largest antlers I've seen in DV and what appears to be a heron or a crane of some kind, with water dripping from it's beak.  Amazing.


The side of the spring/heron rock.


Continuing around the big boulder.  Notice the sheep in the lower left


Under the large name is this small petroglyph family completely with sheep. 


The backside of the large boulder. 





A nearby rock with what looks suspiciously like an Anarchy symbol.


A very elaborate set of initials over a smattering of older petroglyphs. 


Here is the “WBR 1849” carving. 


It is a pretty little canyon. 


All that history and I am neglecting the present…  The hike in was not what I expected at all.  Having done my typically deep NO research whatsoever for a more obvious landmark, I randomly pulled over where there was space and started hiking.  Much to my surprise there was a manicured trail for, well, fits and spurts anyway.  Much more than you would usually get with your typical social trail out here in the desert.  So I would assume that the National Monument staff cut a trail out here in the 1940s and it has been casually maintained by cairn-loving hikers ever since.  The trails has those oddly overly-curvy flourishes of designed trails.  It is still very easy to lose the trail (especially if you're enjoying the glorious view) so don't come out here looking for a legit National Parks trail.  It still takes a map and route-finding skills. 

My trip spec-ed out at 5mi roundtrip and a bit more than 1000ft of gain.  Easy unless you find yourself on a rare and unexpectedly hot (80F) and windless day in freaking January. 

A good part of the trail:

[DAW89446]

Is the Panamint Shark like a cool local cryptid??

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H22ETUM...sp=sharing, 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ad6qpor...sp=sharing

I don't have a good photo of it, but there's also a "fish" swimming out ahead of it.