Festive

 We have no holiday outings to embark upon here this year, aside from me singing with friends over Zoom last night, but at least the yard threw me a photogenic surprise when I was pruning yesterday:  mushrooms!

Anniversary Trip: Greenwater Valley

When we got married, lo those many years back, we spent our honeymoon in Death Valley.  Part of the trip was a wee bikepacking expedition exploring some of the dirt roads in Greenwater Valley.  This was back in the days before bikepacking was really a thing; we improvised ways to carry our stuff with things we had on hand:  a bike trailer, a rack trunk, backpacks.

On the more recent trip, we had our bikes in the back of the van, ready to come out when we felt like riding.  After several days of hiking and scrambling, Chad was ready to bike, and suggested we ride where we did last time we were here -- but instead of taking two days with luggage, do the same ride in one day, unencumbered. 

The roads look much the same now (left) as they did before (right).  They may appear to be flat because the landscape is so big, but riding up those alluvial fans is no joke.  We marvelled at how much work it had been for Chad to haul the trailer on the earlier trip.

See the trailer load?  Much more than I had on that trip, though then, as now, I had most of the navigational responsibilities.

We found the same funny accretion of desert junk at one junction, slightly reconfigured.

Old

Current. Same riders, right?  (though my back was a bit creaky this time)

We locked our bikes to the same obscure wilderness sign as before to go look at petroglyphs.  Somehow, we forgot how much of a walk it was down to the rock art, so Chad got to hoof it in shoes with bike cleats in soft sand further than he bargained for.  (I ride in flat mountain biking shoes, without the connected cleat, so had an unfair advantage in this case.)

The petroglyphs were fun to search for, as is usual.  The park service does not put these on maps, so that it isn't so easy for foolish people to deface them.  Fortunately, Chad remembered where the site was.

On the previous trip, we camped in a tiny tent.

This time, we enjoyed the spacious van.

And, as you might imagine, the sunsets out here are nice, and quiet.  We slept well!

Anniversary Trip: Canyon Scrambling

 On our way down into the main valley, I wanted to stop and do some canyon scrambling.  It being our actual anniversary, Chad willingly complied :)

One of my guidebooks had listed an interesting-looking obscure canyon, with sketchy instructions to the effect of "park on the side of the road 5.8 miles east of the campground, walk up the alluvial fan to the canyon mouth just to the right of the grayish hill at the base of the mountains".  Mileages in the book haven't been super accurate, at least according to our odometer, so we didn't worry too much when there wasn't a wide enough spot to park in until about 3/4 mile past the indicated parking spot.  There are also a bunch of different interesting drainages to explore in the Panamint Range, so if we missed, it wouldn't necessarily be a big deal.  

So, we parked in that wide spot at the side of the road and started walking up the fan.

We did have the presence of mind to look back at the van to try to spot some reference points to where we parked -- sort of lined up with the western side of the big alluvial fan across the way.

It didn't take long for the van to seem like a tiny white dot in the distance.  I was glad the white pops out of the landscape as well as it does; we might have run into trouble if had been another color, say, tan...

Promising-looking drainages.

After a bit, the broad wash we were following turned into more of a canyon.  Let the fun rock scrambling begin!

As I had suspected, after a while, I could no longer align what I remembered of the description of the canyon in the book with the reality on the ground.  We were in a different drainage.  No matter -- it is all fun!  It eventually became clear that we were in a side drainage that sort of connected up with the more well-known Mosaic Canyon.  We just took the scenic route away from those who don't favor hair-brained routes :)

A jolly, but quite do-able downclimb was needed to drop into Mosaic Canyon.  The hikers below seemed to think we were a bit weird...

Now we had hiked in about as much distance we had originally planned, but the terrain was interesting and the day was nice.  Let's just add a few bonus miles of hiking and scrambling!

Since the hike had turned into a longer expedition than planned, on the way back down we took the easy route that followed the main Mosaic Canyon past the point where we entered it, and then scanned the horizon for the van.  Can you see it?  Knowing it was toward the left side of the alluvial fan coming off the far mountains, we could, and started walking that way.

See, it's getting closer.  You would think that this is easy walking, but there is quite a bit of navigation around and climbing through small washes needed, so it takes time.

Eventually, we made it back to the vehicle and drove the long straight road into the valley

and down to Furnace Creek.  It being our anniversary, I had booked our one hotel room of the trip.  It was really nice to be able to take a shower!

Anniversary Trip: Wildrose Charcoal Kilns

With the likelihood of storms having passed overnight, we headed from Panamint Springs over the pass into Death Valley National Park.  Roads were clear, even though there had obviously been snowfall overnight down to about 4500 feet.  The sunny skies and possibility of a hike in the snow drew us upward, so we turned down a side road before dropping into the main valley.  Plus, there was an intriguing label of "charcoal kilns" on my map, which seemed like a good destination for the day.

The road out to the kilns headed up over another small pass, which was quite scenic in the crisp late fall air,  led past a high-elevation campground that we figured we would end up at later in the day since it was convenient and free, and eventually turned to dirt for the last few miles.  Thankfully, it was good dirt with none of the washboard horror of the previous day.

The open part of the road ended right at the row of 25' tall charcoal kilns.  These were built starting in 1877 to make charcoal to be used in the refining of ore from the mines along the edges of the Panamint Valley, including the one that we were at in Revenue Canyon the previous day.  Apparently 25 miles down one mountain, across a valley, and up another was the closest source of enough wood.  The kilns are still in remarkably good shape, likely aided by the fact that they were only in use for a couple of years.  They were built in 1877, with the last recorded use in 1879.

The view of the row of structures with a dusting of snow on the shady side looks remarkably like the photo in the guidebook that led us here.  The author must have visited in the winter also.

Naturally, we had to poke around inside them, to observe the layer of soot covering the walls and hoot at the echos inside.  A shape designed to reflect heat back at the fire reflects sound just as well!

We admired the view of the high Sierras to the west, with their fresh coating of snow.  

Poking around the kilns on its own wasn't enough recreation for the day.  Fortunately, there was a trailhead at the edge of the parking lot, and while we didn't want to climb all the way to the top of Wildrose Peak on our legs still tired from yesterday's long hike, there did look to be a saddle about halfway up from which one could peer into Death Valley proper.  Plus it would get us up into more snow!

As we hiked, we noted the lack of large trees in the area.  None of the trees close to the kilns are all that old, as the old trees were used to make charcoal back around 1878.  Everything left is younger than that.

Cactus in the snow.  I used to see this now and again in AZ, but still find it funny.

After climbing a couple of miles on the steep trail through occasionally slippery snow, we could peer through the trees down at the valley below.  At this point, we were at about 8000 feet, so the bottom of the valley, which is below sea level, looked to be quite a long way down.  A photograph doesn't do the scale of the terrain justice.

Happy Chad post snack.

After hiking and skidding our way back down the trail, we again enjoyed the views as we drove back down to the campground we saw earlier.

A fine, but cold-in-November campground.  The high peak is Telescope Peak, which at something like 11,000 feet is the highest point in the park.

As you might imagine, it got chilly after the sun went down.  At this time of year, that is at 4:30!  We ate dinner early and crawled into our cozy pod to read and sleep, and discovered the next morning that it must have been below freezing for most of the night -- the water in our big water jug we had left out was supercooled to the point that it instantly turned to slush when Chad picked it up.  

Thank goodness for all the insulation that Chad put in the van... and for the down comforter...  and for the thick quilt made out of old ski jacket scraps that my mom made some years back... and for warm fleecy pants...  (we haven't put in a heater for nighttime use yet).  

Anniversary Trip: Revenue Canyon

After what was becoming our routine breakfast of yogurt with fruit and granola accompanied by coffee, we looked at the still-unsettled weather and decided to find a canyon with mines to explore rather than climbing a peak.  Fortunately for us, the Panamint Valley where we were is so full of canyons with old mines that there were almost too many to pick from -- especially since I had picked up a good guidebook full of interesting off-the-beaten-path spots.  We could easily have spent the whole trip goofing off in this little region without even making it over to Death Valley.

But that wasn't the plan, so I pointed my finger at the book and landed on a page that told us to go park behind a limestone quarry here:

and head up the hills.  As we started walking up what used to be a mining road, we noticed that it had a curious track worn into part of it.  If you look closely, you can see small burro footprints.  Apparently, there are enough wild burros out here that they make their own burro-beaten paths.

We kept following the burro trail into the hills, and enjoyed the visual appeal of the varied rock formations.

and eventually started running into remnant structures from the gold and silver mining days of the 1880's.

Chad provided us with most of the day's good pictures.

We found walls and foundations of buildings

old water tanks,

and plenty of views.  Somewhere in here, we heard burros braying in a side ravine, but aside from some moment that Chad caught out of the corner of his eye, we didn't actually spot any of them.  I suspect the burros were hiding behind a rock, patiently waiting for us to go away so they could trot up and down their burro trails looking for food and water, but it was easy to imagine them sneaking quietly behind us, diving away only when we turned around to look.

At one point we hit a junction where there were several fallen wooden structures and I had to consult my map to figure out where some mine shafts with particularly colorful minerals were supposed to be.  That way!

"That way" proved to rise a bit more steeply.

A wee barrel cactus braved the rocks.

In just a few minutes, I found the expected hole in the ground.  This is an obscure enough location that the mine entrance was not barricaded off.  What is hard to tell from this picture is that the shaft starts right at the contact between two very different rock types, and there is quite a bit of color in the mineralization at the contact.

I poked my head in far enough to admire the rocks.  Chad went a little further, but not out of sight of daylight.  Though the tunnel seemed solid, one never knows when that might change, and one also never knows what remnant malodorous mine fumes may still be present, so we didn't go too far, tempting though it was.

With the day's nominal goal found, we followed the burro tracks back down the hill.  The storm still hadn't fully blown its way through,

leading to jolly changeable sunlight pools on the landscape.

At this point, I thought we might wild camp near another canyon on the east side of the valley, but it turned out the dirt road going there was covered in dreadful washboard.  One could rattle one's teeth out by going slowly and taking forever (not fun), or one could try to go fast enough to skim over the top of the bumps (didn't really smooth it out and led to some disconcerting loss of lateral traction).  Chad looked really quite pained until I pointed out that if we turned around and drove up the paved road for about half an hour, we would hit the campground at Panamint Springs, where they fortunately had a lovely site on the edge of the tent camping area for us for $10.  And we got there just before it started to rain!