Death Valley

The western portion of my trip is intended to visit places I haven't seen before. There are two exceptions: Death Valley National Park and Los Angeles, the latter only to visit my dear friend Lara. As I drove along the bumpy road into Death Valley (the type that makes your stomach lurch at each dip) on Sunday, I felt compelled to pull into the Zabriskie Point parking lot. In January 2010 I visited this place with the aforementioned dear friend Lara. We had hiked in the dark to the Point on the morning of her 23rd birthday to watch the sunrise, not realizing that there was a road leading directly to it. As we sat perched on the side of a rock, freezing, waiting for the sun to come up, while everyone else sat in the comfort of their heated cars, we couldn't help but feel like we were going to appreciate the beauty of it just a bit more. What a different perspective it was from Zabriskie in the dead of summer. The haze was such that I could hardly see the Panamint Mountains across the valley.

(Use this link if you'd like to see the album from my first visit to Death Valley.)

To escape the bitter heat of the valley (110 degrees when I arrived), I camped up in the Panamint Mountains. On Monday morning, I ventured onto a gravel road to reach the trailhead for Wildrose Peak. At the trailhead are the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns, used in the late 1800s to provide a source of fuel for the smelters at the lead and silver mines in the valley.  

After checking out the kilns, I headed up the 8.4 mile roundtrip trail, gaining an elevation of 2,200 ft to the peak at 9,064 ft.

From the peak you can see the salt flats in the valley, and the Amargosa Mountain Range past it.

About five hours later, I was back at my car, and headed away from Death Valley and its unbearable heat. On my way out, though, I passed a mountain which I distinctly remember from my visit in 2010.  The colorful tilted layers still struck me as stunning.

I was also very glad I bought gas before I left Nevada....