March 2024 trip

[MojaveGeek]

We spent a week and a half in March based out of SPW.   After that I was hiking in SW Utah and Gold Butte NV and then watching the eclipse in Maine and then taking care of grandson while granddaughter was born so...  I'm a bit behind.

I'd characterize this trip as "obscure places" but that is increasingly where I find myself.   Long peak climbs are getting a bit out of reach with age, and I prefer solitude, so...   Many thanks to Beardilocks, Brice, and Kauri for posting so much valuable info to help me figure out these places.  Actually I seem to continually follow their footsteps.. which fortunately get erased in the desert wind.   In fact, most of these places had no signs of people other than the usual mylar balloons.

First day we went over Towne Pass to Panamint Dunes.  I seem to get out there about once a decade.   Always pretty and usually quiet though we saw one party packing out from the Dunes and of course a lot of people camp along that road.   In addition to the Dunes we found one of several rock alignments I had leads to, but I hesitate to post pix of such delicate things, and thanks to another member for this info, but I won't name them so they don't get pestered.





Next day we went to a canyon south of "Alluvial Fan" canyon, original beta from Kauri, but Beardilocks posted pix this winter.  Actually we meant to go there last year but Kathy and Eric were so taken by Alluvial Fan that we had done that instead. So, back we went.  This is a pretty canyon with a few challenges and scrambling but manageable until...  the canyon takes a sharp bend, and that's all folks.





That beautiful polished white chute was as far as we went; in fact we were stymied by some boulders just before so we could not touch the surface



The next day was cloudy and gradually turned into intermittent rain, but never super bad.  We went into a couple of places in the Kit Fox Hills.  A very nice bridge that Beardilocks recently reported on, then a couple more canyons in the mud hills that were cute but didn't go anywhere, and then a long canyon leading to a long but not super high slot which Kauri describes.   Photos were not the greatest.   We chased an owl up the long slot, probably Great Horned but never got a great look at it.  It would fly out of sight and sit some place, only for us to disturb it for a brief glimpse as we approached again.   At the top of the long slot you're coming out on the big flat area that is mostly desert pavement above the Kit Fox Hills, and had it not been rainy we might have returned via the canyon to the north which has the old road and telephone line, but we just retraced our steps instead.  Cold and windy which was why we were in canyons.  The wind was from the north and the dust from the Niter Beds and sand dunes required headlights for driving back to SPW later in the day, being quite intense.







More to come...

[wbdeford]

Looks like a wonderful trip! Guessing you were there in the early part of the month, as the yellow hasn't grown in yet. Glad you got to see the eclipse! It is indeed an awesome sight, and no picture really captures it.

[MojaveGeek]

We got there on the 12th. The various golds were coming out but not much else. Panamint Valley west side was quite the yellow show. The smaller plants like gravel ghost, five spot, phacelia, etc were starting to show but hardly dramatic.

We really lucked out in New England for the eclipse. It was not where everyone was heading by air, etc, but turned out to have excellent skies. I am still in awe weeks later, and this was not my first! Did you get to see it I hope? Not sure where home is for you; we're outside Boston and went up to northern Maine, to avoid the worst of the traffic challenge.

[MojaveGeek]

Day 4 had clearing weather and cool temps.   We drove just a bit toward Towne Pass and hiked up a canyon which has apparently been tagged "Sculpted".  Years ago we walked in to the giant dryfall.  This time we followed a Kauri rout on a long bypass, totally skipping the lower canyon.



Once we got up to the top of that ridge, we could see down into Sculpted and that's the entrance route (it's a bit easier just left out of the pic).   It looks like a fascinating canyon, with some rough spots.



But having spent a bunch of time getting over the ridge from 190, across a series of washes, and then climbing up the proper wash and eventually the ridge, we didn't feel too inclined to drop down... only to have to climb back up to the spot from which we took the photo.  So we ad libbed, and decided to descend via Black Point Canyon.   It looked pretty promising...



With a connecting ridge and descent into that brown rock looking good.



Well there was a steep loose descent at the end but it wasn't very long and then we were in the canyon bottom.  We'd been here before and knew we could get out OK, though things seems to have been re-arranged slightly with the storms.  We also saw a person in there, the only person we saw away from roads for the rest of the trip.








Day 5 was sunny with nice temps still  so we went up one side of Moonlight.  We ended up seeing the best flowers here - it was the only place we saw five spots and gravel ghosts.  Nice visibility.






Getting in to day 6, the temps were rising, so time to get off the valley floor.  We went up Ryan BM.  It looked real easy but there's a bunch of places where you have to thread a route between rocky parts.  The original plan had been to do a second peak but we really didn't have time, after taking a nice break on top.







More to come...

[MojaveGeek]

Day 7 stayed hot.  Getting to be a theme, as we seemed to be at the cusp of the sometimes sudden transition from winter to spring temps.   Our plan was to walk the closed road that runs from below daylight pass over upper Monarch and on to Chloride.  When we got there, we found the road actually open, with some grading having been done, so we drove in a ways.   We hiked up a nameless peak with great views for the effort, a true geezer's peak.







Day 8 was still hot.  We went back to Greenwater Valley to find the Funeral petros and climb the peak.  I'd been up the peak before, but not seen the petros back then.  There was some other rock art seen on this trip that I have not written about, but these are well known, so a pic is not out of line.



I was able to find a hint about these petroglyphs online, and it turned out that based on one photo I was able to set a waypoint on my GPS which ended up being off by 15 feet after 2.5 miles.  I might have just been able to walk to them knowing what types of rocks were attractive to the artists but worth  noting that it is hard to keep secrets online

It is a long slog up Funeral, not particularly steep but sometimes you have to work around fields of frustrating basalt (?) boulders.



The views are nice though!   It's fun to get to the summit and look down onto the salt flats, but we just ran out of time and had to be satisfied with what we got to the east, and of course all of Greenwater Valley.

[MojaveGeek]

Time to wrap this thread up.  Day 9, hot again, Daylight Peak.  Instead of the direct line from the parking area at the pass, we circled around and went up the ridge from the back side.  Longer but less steep.  We followed the main wash in and then picked our way up the ridge, which was rocky in parts but not particularly challenging.  A faint use trail was more easily detected on the return, which was the same route.  I wanted to see the country back there because I was considering a trip to Titanothere Peak from the pavement (it's a long drive on the Titus road, when it is open, but a very nice peak).  It is a visually interesting area.







The next day was pretty windy but cooler, so time for a canyon. We tried out the canyon south of Keane which Beardilocks and Brice described recently, one name for what was "Glitter".   It is an interesting area that sees very little use once you pass the canyon with King Midas Mine, but there was a faint trail running just along the bottom of the mountain.  The canyon is scenic with nice views back, and some mild dryfalls to climb or bypass.  We saw lots of shiny stuff in the canyon bottom but turned around at a big dryfall with a longer bypass - the best part of the canyon is obviously up in there.





On our last morning we did a quick jaunt up to Double Brdge, which is not far from 190.  Interesting how many footprints one finds right at the little side canyon to the bridge.








That wasn't the end of my trip, as I spent another week in SW Utah, based out of Hurricane, doing a bunch of searching for rock art and some solo hiking and scrambling, and then an overnight into Gold Butte.  But that's not the subject of this post.  I did have to get back to New England in time for the solar eclipse.   I had not made grand plans to fly to Austin or Dallas or such, but if the forecast was clear we had a plan to drive to northern Maine.   In fact we ended up with perfect skies and a great viewpoint looking out over a frozen lake, but on a day that was so warm we were down to shirt sleeves until the shadow cooled us down.   My son's phone camera captured the ambience of totality well.  You can see Venus below the sun, and the fast approaching distant edge of the shadow. What a treat!