Across the Desert 4: Death Valley

Start: Shoshone, CA

End: Furnace Creek, CA

Miles: 75

Day 12: Chips N Salsa

Start: Shoshone

End: Dublin Hills

We wake up with sunrise. I look around.

"Where the hell are we?"

"I think we're in a ditch."

Indeed, we're nestled into some bushes on a weird pile of dust. Rusty metal machinery pokes out of the dust at odd angles; chunks of glass litter the ground. We hadn't been able to see it in the dark last night, but we're lying in a literal ditch.

A film of coarse grey dust coats everything, including us; shifting around on our dust piles puffs up more of the stuff, sending smoky clouds drifting with the breeze. Despite all the dirt and debris that we've experienced throughout the hike so far, this dust feels distinctly unclean. I try to shake the dust off my bivy and throw on my shoes to go use the bathroom. Two steps from our camp, I sink up to my shins into heaps of the fine dust, flooding my shoes. Should've thrown on some gaiters.

Jet Fighter and I eat our breakfast of general store muffins and donuts, and then sit around in the dust all morning until the discomfort of hunger outweighs the discomfort of getting ready. We make sure to take a route out of this ditch that does not go right through someone's backyard this time around. We must be quite a sight for the people driving through this morning, two dusty weirdos materializing out of the desert. It's back to the general store for us, to get our snacks for the day. They have homemade salsa and tortilla chips that smell amazing so I decide to try them out.

We set up shop in the cemetery overlooking Shoshone. I clean out my socks, wipe down my gear, and eat the entire bag of chips and salsa. I have no service- haven't had any since Baker. It feels very old-school, simultaneously lonely and refreshing to be so detached from everything. We look over our maps for Death Valley and decide that the route I had planned is completely fucking insane. If it goes, it would be an amazingly aesthetic route that hits all the attractions on the valley's East side without any water carries of more than 40 miles. The thing is, quite a few sections are unscouted, and I could only find one single report of the flow of one absolutely critical spring. I want to check out this route someday, with the safety of a provisioned car to fall back on. For now, we opt to descend most of the way to the valley floor to grab water at Willow Spring, before climbing back up a pass to get into Sheep Canyon and take that all the way to the valley floor. From there we'll hike the valley floor over to the Zabriskie Point trail system, and on to Furnace Creek.

The sun takes away the cemetery's shade around noon, so we pack up and head to a bench outside the Shoshone Museum. It's a nice place with some cool geologic exhibits and old mining machinery. I get chased by some very persistent bees here, but overall the afternoon creeps by uneventfully.

Four o'clock finally arrives. We pack up our stuff, load up on water (10 liters each), and head up a dirt road into the Dublin Hills. We have to get over one unscouted pass to get back on our original route tomorrow, so we decide to get as close as possible to get a look at what we'll be dealing with in the darkness tomorrow morning. The dirt road passes some historic mining homes dug straight into the hillside of Dublin Gulch.

Before long we've left them behind and we're back in the wild. Leaving the dirt road, we amble up towards the pass. It turns out to be a very mild grade to reach a quite low pass- score one for our route planning. There are some old, old cairns climbing the hillside above us, but we don't see the point of leaving our wash. Maybe they go to a mining claim or something.

Jet Fighter and I find a pretty spot nestled against the wash just below the pass. We cook are food with a beautiful sunset, and get to bed.

"Hey look a scorpion!"

I corral the little guy into a container and move it a healthy distance from camp. I carefully zip up my bivy this time, and then actually get to bed.

Day 13: Open Country

Start: Dublin Hills

End: Willow Spring

We're up at 5 and out of camp before 5:30. We're getting faster at packing. It's a quick scrabble up to the dark, windblown pass, where we join up with an old mining road. Pass #1, complete.

Descending from the pass, there's a spot in the road marked as a campsite where we find a small RV. We hurry past with lights turned to the side- it's probably harmless, just another desert traveler, but still I'd rather not find out just in case. Who in their right mind would come up here when you have all of Death Valley to your North? The dirt road past here further validates my caution, as it is quite rutted and rocky; I'm impressed that an RV was able to make it up there in the first place.

We take a network of dirt roads down from the Dublin Hills as the sky shows the first orange hints of dawn. In the morning gloom I keep thinking I see things walking around ahead of us, but nothing shows. That RV must have unsettled me, along with nerves about the ensuing section. Up ahead I can see a dark strip across our path: Jubilee Pass Road. And beyond that: Death Valley National Park.

Jet Fighter and I give a good whoop as we cross into the National Park. It's surreal to actually be here. After all the planning this summer, imagining what it would be like to get here, and then throwing all that planning out the window when Jet Fighter hurt her knee, and then giving up completely on that last day into Fenner. We are fucking here.

Sunrise on the peaks to our left is incredibly pretty, made even more enjoyable because I know that it is a Death Valley sunrise. We head cross country through this flat area as the sun rises in earnest before turning up a gap and heading into the sloping valleys of the Greenwater Range. We make good talk as the gradual climb between volcanic hills flies by. We cross through this first spur into another broad valley. Pass #2, complete.

The wind picks up to become an absolute torrent on the far side of this pass. It's an incessant, strong diagonal push that simultaneously destabilizes you and slows you down. Jet Fighter and I struggle through this section, and it's with great relief that we plop down in the shelter of a large wash on the valley's far side. I'm once again wondering who the last person to come through here would have been. This is a far, lonely corner of Death Valley NP, two ranges sandwiching us from roads of any kind and nothing of note to encourage cross country exploration. Hell, even the USGS maps don't show anything of note through here. But the bleak, open space feels different this time. Previously, the empty spaces were lonely, scary, making me feel overwhelmed and out of my league. For the first time I feel competent, knowledgeable, excited about what lays ahead.

Jet Fighter and I haul ourselves back to our feet and start climbing up this second spur of the Greenwaters. This is the biggest pass yet, with steep, loose slopes to get up to the summit. It's slow going, but thankfully stays utterly non-technical. Pass #3, complete. Surprisingly, there is a massive cairn up here. Who the hell is building these big cairns in the middle of nowhere?

It doesn't look real

We cross over the pass to get a beautiful view of Greenwater Valley spreading out below us. The wind attacks us here, wind of the sort I haven't felt since winter hiking in the Presidentials out East. It is a pure howl, too loud in my ears to hear Jet Fighter when she shouts right next to me. We step/slide our way down from the pass to escape this assault, which rapidly diminishes down from the pass. There are some more cairns leading down into the creosote. Could they be old Desert Trail Cairns? Or even older mining cairns?

From here we say goodbye to Blisterfree's route for the last time and start out on a path of our own making. I would have loved to take his route across the top rim of Death Valley, but I could not see any water sources for its 80-mile entirety. Our route only gives us 1 source, but it is perfectly placed and changes the whole dynamic of this section. It's also our destination for tonight.

We pick up some old Jeep tracks that appear and disappear through the brush. Nothing here matches the roads shown on the USGS maps, but that's ok. It's pretty straightforward cross-country to the dirt Greenwater Valley Road.

"We turn off of Greenwater Road in four miles, want to break for lunch there?"

"Sounds good to me. I'm starving"

We fly across this stretch, covering the four miles in about an hour and finally breaking under the scant shadow of another creosote.

It starts to get really toasty after lunch. It's probably only 75-ish degrees for this 3-hour span, but Jet Fighter and I are mountain goats, not desert rats- Jet Fighter especially is hit hard by the heat as we enter the Black Mountains, the rampart forming Death Valley's East wall. We take a long, gradually climbing dirt road heading Southwest. There is absolutely no respite from the sun here as it beams straight into our faces, no steep wash edges or rock outcrops or even bushes to hide in. We dub this place the "Valley of Doom".

"I think that's the top of the pass right up there."

"And there's shade, too! Thank god."

Jet Fighter and I stagger up to the top of the pass and collapse in this glorious, solid shade. I take in the view of the latest mountain range: the peaks on this side of things are much steeper, snaking ridgelines forming distinct, craggy points. Way down through a gap in the mountains, impossibly far down, we can see a strip of sunlit plains: the valley floor. Pass #4: complete.

It's a generous break in the shade, and then Jet Fighter and I climb to our feet for the final descent into Willow Spring. Between the downhill, the northwesterly trail, and the lowering sun, this side of the pass is worlds different from the other side. The lack of difficulty lets me stress about water instead.

Willow Spring is incredibly reliable. I have multiple surveys and trip reports where it is a literal stream flowing and confirmed as a perennial source. But still, as a more reliable source we are really truly relying on it. If Willow Spring is dry we will be in trouble, having to climb back out and descend Sheep Canyon in the dark and then try to flag someone down on a road of unknown popularity. Like so many of our water sources on this trip, it's all or nothing.

Everything just feels so incredibly dry as the valley walls close in around us. The plants today have been smaller, greyer, sparser than any other stretch of trail today. I have a hard time seeing how there could be water anywhere around here, nevermind a literal creek. This descent isn't quite as nerve-wracking as Francis Spring, but it's close.

We hit the end of the dirt road as the gloom of dusk sets in. I feel nauseous with anxiety. We round a corner to see an enormous patch of bushes: Willow Spring. This is it. Jet Fighter and I drop our packs and each set out in a different direction around the thicket. Actually getting into it to look for water is going to be a problem. I scramble along the loose canyon wall above the thick bushes, looking for any glimmer of water. In the center of the thicket I can see green reeds and a big cottonwood tree: jackpot!!!

I slide through the thick arroweed lining the walls and crash into the reeds. I hoist myself back onto a dead cottonwood branch and scan the area. I can hear the faint but unmistakable sound of trickling water. I scan the brush... there! Right at the base of the cottonwood tree, running water! Relief!

"Wooo I found our water! Let's meet back at our packs and grab out bottles."

It's a massive struggle to extricate myself from these bushes and get back to our packs. I would rather not go back there, both for my sake and the sake of this precious riparian area. Jet Fighter and I decide to try a much better-defined game trail along the other side of the canyon. It takes us down alongside the brush before veering into a patch of willow. Ducking into the bushes, I spot a little pool of flowing water.

Willow Spring hides its water well

I gradually collect water from the pool as Jet Fighter sets up camp on a gravel pile away from the game trail. I need to grab a lot, as we've got a two day water carry ahead of us- the largest of the hike. The water is clear, fresh, and tasty. I wonder when, and where, it fell as rain.

We cook our dinners in the fading light, watching bats flit around the canyon walls. The bushes sway and whisper when the wind blows. I could believe that I'm back east camping in a meadow or something. It's peaceful, comforting, and I fall asleep fast.

Day 14: Siesta!

Start: Willow Spring

End: Near Coffin Canyon

We wake up at our standard 5:00 time. We were considering getting up earlier and taking the day slow in anticipation of the heavy packs, but I'm nervous about getting up and over the pass between Willow Spring and Sheep Canyon. I want to be able to see it in daylight to pick our route. I wish we could just descend from Willow Spring via Willow Canyon, but that route has some absolutely massive dryfalls. At least on that account, I did my research. Instead we have to backtrack 3 miles up through Gold Valley, regaining 2,000 feet that we cruised down yesterday. It will not be a cruise back up. I savor the last few minutes of weightlessness as we pack up our stuff. Then I lug my pack onto my back- 11 liters of water all told- and Jet Fighter and I start up the road.

Within 30 minutes my shoulders are killing me and I am already checking the map to see how far we've gone. This is not a good sign for the day ahead. It's a slow, brutal haul out of Gold Valley. But at least it's a pretty one- the sun lights up the craggy peaks all around us brilliant orange, throwing into sharp relief snaking ridgelines that were invisible yesterday. We take a break at the end of our dirt road before starting the cross country clilmb- it has been a long first hour.

"Today is going to suck."

Gold Valley

The climb is exhausting, but far shorter and less brutal than expected. What's on the other side scares me, though. The walls of the pass plunge drastically, too steep for me to see Sheep Canyon down below. I'm reminded of the edge of China Ranch Wash right before our idiotic descent into that. What have we gotten ourselves into. I have plenty of time to wait and contemplate the descent as Jet Fighter catches up. I pace from one end of the saddle to the other, looking into the gullies gouging down off the ridge and trying to judge which one will not cliff out. I eat a Reese's as a morale booster, then pick one gully with some bighorn tracks leading down.

"Ok. Let's do this."

With every turn I expect to hit a dryfall or a massive cliff, but the gully takes us down at a steep but doable grade. We hit a couple small dryfalls that involve traverses on crumbly rock and then some awesome scree skiing. Abruptly, we have made it down. We are in Sheep Fricking Canyon. Easy peasy.

Looking back the way we came, and forward to what lies ahead

Jet Fighter and I head down the canyon, joining up with bigger and bigger branches, passing some that are marked with cairns. This section has a good amount of dryfalls, but they are all downclimbed or avoided with relative ease given our crushing pack weight. On one particularly exposed spot I try to lower my backpack onto a ledge. It lands, balances for a second, and then slowly tips to agonizingly crash down to the bottom of the dryfall with all the momentum of 20+ pounds of water. Adding insult to injury, I am too sketched out by the downclimb move and end up finding a well-established bypass. I hurry over to my bag (it's DCF, it's not meant for this kind of stuff), but there is only one small scratch. I take special care to remove my water jug and inspect it for damage. All good. Thank God.

We continue on, the canyon walls deepening and steepening. We take a turn to face a wall beaming with reflected sunlight. I go to put on my sunglasses. Wait, my sunglasses! I haven't thought about them since the descent to Willow Spring yesterday. I think back. I put them on my head when we got into the shade, and then we arrived at the spring and I did the bushwhack and I don't remember having them that night. Fuck. They must be caught in some bushes back at the spring. They are gone. Tomorrow is gonna be an interesting one.

We join up with the main branch of Sheep Canyon, where we find actual human footprints in the wash. There are green plants here, with big yellow flowers absolutely swarming with bees. I poke around looking for water, just for fun, but there is nothing obvious and it's not worth trampling the reeds. You could probably dig yourself a qanat here if you had the time, in an emergency.

The wash bottom turns to fist-sized, rounded rocks in braided beds where the going is incredibly tedious. For most of the canyon we are simply too awestruck to notice, but it really starts to wear on us as we close in on the valley floor. Taking one final curve, we see that the canyon walls widen and fall away to the huge expanse before us: Death Valley.

We break for lunch in the shade of these final walls. I take my shirt off, and the cool stone feels good for about one minute before I get too cold. Classic. Jet Fighter has some blisters to deal with on her feet.

"Hey, do you have a favorite toe?"

"No."

"Oh, ok."

After lunch we head out across the alluvial fan. It is hot down here in the open. I can already feel myself wilting. From the vantage point offered by the alluvial fan, I can see for miles across the featureless valley. Not much shade to be found out there. Jet Fighter and I agree, we don't have enough water to comfortably make it to Furnace Creek if we're sweating for the next five hours. Plus that would just suck. We find a deep gully carved in the alluvial fan and set up camp against some rocks. It's time for a siesta.

The four hours of hanging out, snacking, and finding cool rocks pass by surprisingly fast. We chose our spot well, and the sun's arc doesn't take away our shade until 4:30, a natural alarm clock telling us to get moving.

Yup, totally a candid photo

It's still hot out, probably hotter than it was at noon, but the sun is setting. And the sun is everything out here. Jet Fighter and I drop off the alluvial fan and cross Badwater Road. A car drives by, the first people we have seen since Shoshone. (I don't count Creepy Trailer). From here to Furnace Creek we are roughly paralleling the road. We decide to shortcut this part of it and head straight across the valley floor since the salt flats have not yet started. It's uneven but easy walking across latticed bars of mud. The sky turns a dull purple as the sun finally sets across the valley. I feel like I'm walking on Mars, in a weird disembodied way. I feel like another person, not me but some stranger. It is weird.

This is Mars

We hit the road as true darkness sets in. Once again, we must make quite a sight for the last few stragglers driving out of the valley along Badwater. I'm somewhat surprised that no one stops to ask if we're ok. Do we look too scary to stop, or too in-control? Or maybe both?

Our legs and stomachs telling us to call it quits, we pick a random alluvial fan where the no-camping boundary across this part of the valley floor dips in a bit. It's 8:30 maybe? We make a quick dinner, eat, and go to bed. Between my missing sunglasses and Jet Fighter's aversion to heat, we need to make some miles early tomorrow. What a day, though. Every day, every hour of the entire trip so far has been a fight, and I can't believe we've fought all the way to being one day away from Furnace Creek.

Day 15: The End

Start: Near Coffin Canyon

End: Furnace Creek, CA

The alarm wakes us up early today, and we are up and hiking before 4. It's gonna be a long day, 24 miles across the valley along Badwater Road plus another 4 miles around Zabriskie Point. We leave our lonely little alluvial fan and rejoin the road. It keeps squiggling around alluvial fans, adding distance, but we opt not to shortcut this area. The maps show salt flats starting around here, terrain that we are utterly unfamiliar with. We are worried that straying off-road would destroy fragile soil or leave us stuck in quicksand.

I'm able to keep my headlamp on its lowest red light setting while walking, just enough to illuminate the reflective strips in the road. You can see and hear cars coming for miles, so we walk right down the center line. With my headlamp on such a low setting, I can really take in the nightscape all around. The mountains towering all around Death Valley loom in the darkness, and a kaleidoscopic band of stars marks the milky way. It is absolutely stunning. I once again get that surreal, floating sensation. Time seems not to exist in this weirdly disembodied state. The hours flow by fast, and before we know it the sky begins to lighten.

A few cars pass us as we approach Badwater. Given the desertedness of the last 3 hours, I had been quite excited to see Badwater in the morning gloom, in a solitude that few experience. Rounding the last alluvial fan, I'm dismayed to see cars, people with headlamps, and flashing cameras. The rumble of engines and shout of voices is a sacrilegious contrast to the peace and quiet of the surroundings. We can make out a line of dark spots, people taking the trail out to Badwater to catch the sunrise. Jet Fighter and I were considering walking out there, but all these people sure don't encourage us.

We walk down to read the informative plaques about the Badwater Snail (super cool, by the way- I had no clue that the floor of Death Valley had perennial water or snails!) Signs warn you to stay on the boardwalk to avoid trampling fragile snail habitat. Of course, the salt crust away from the boardwalk towards the little pools where the snails live is heavily trampled, with several sets of fresh-looking tracks. People are idiots. Jet Fighter and I get our token Badwater Basin picture, and then hurry onwards, back to solitude and fresh air.

It's lightening up in earnest now as we continue down the road. The traffic starts to pick up, as does a strong wind. It's the classic wind, blowing from forward-right. I am so sick of wind, I am so sick of how it is always blowing from this same direction even though we have been changing compass directions. Ahead of us is a line, a line where the shade of the valley walls ends and the sun begins. We made good progress across the valley, but not enough. It's time to suffer.

The temperature almost immediately shoots up by 10 degrees as we enter the sun. It's bearable right now, but we have hours of this ahead of us. I put on my sun hat and discover that the brim is too flimsy in the strong wind and gets blown back, acting as a sort of sail while also exposing my face to the sun. I have to walk with my head tilted down towards my feet to keep the hat on the right way, but I also have to periodically look up to check for cars, get the hat blown up, and then reconfigure the whole system.

And so the hours pass, my head tilted to the ground, eyes squinting against the brightness, relentless wind blowing against us on this endless road. Try as I might to ignore the mile markers on the road, I can't help but take note of every single one. They're an acute reminder of just how slow our progress is. My Achilles decides to make a reappearance, worse than ever. It is a sharp knife of pain and lances up through my heel with every step. These hours are absolute misery.

There is nothing of note ahead on the map for miles and miles until "Mushroom Rock". This becomes our checkpoint, our measure of progress. We decide that we'll take a nice leisurely snack break once we get there. I'm imagining some epic rock formation, maybe a massif with a cool overhang to sit under and chill out. We slog on, counting down the miles towards this Mushroom Rock. One guy stops and asks if we're ok, if we need anything. I don't expect everyone to be stopping and bending over backwards to help us, not even close, but at the same time I am quite surprised that this is the first person to stop out of maybe 40 cars. I guess I'm used to places that are more familiar with hikers, or maybe covid has changed things.

Mushroom Rock is finally close, just a quarter mile away around a bend. We turn the bend and I scan the surroundings. No big rocks make themselves known, no overhangs or cool formations. Just a volcanic boulder pile to our right and plains to our left. Gaia shows Mushroom Rock on the right side of the road, so I head off towards the rocky slope. Then I see it: a tiny little rock perched precariously on a wind-worn neck. Well, this is it. Mushroom Rock. I walk over to it.

"Where are you going?"

"Mushroom rock."

"I thought it was right on the road."

"Yeah it's right there."

"Where?"

"Literally right there."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Jet Fighter and I find some shade next to this underwhelming landmark and take our break. I'm not giving Mushroom Rock enough credit. It is actually pretty dang cool. Mushroom Rock was just such a hyped-up destination, something we had been talking about all morning. I was expecting something a bit bigger.

The famed Mushroom Rock

It's a short, very hot scamper from Mushroom Rock into Gower Gulch and the start of the Zabriskie trails. Even after the generous break at the rock, we are hot and tired and ready for a leisurely lunch break here. We find a good rocky nook in the canyon that gives my eyes a break from the sun. A steady stream of people pass by, day hikers from the Golden Canyon trailhead. I'm weirdly jealous of these people in tank tops and shorts, the luxury of being exposed to the sun for just a few hours at a time.

After about an hour it's finally time to get going. We head up through the canyon, which is now weirdly deserted. The afternoon heat must have deterred everyone. The canyon heads up through an area of badlands. Every turn reveals more and more spectacular formations, varied reds and yellows and greens sculpted by wind and water. Tiredness completely forgotten, we take our time through here, marveling at minute details in the rocks. Some deep purple clouds roll in as we head through a section of bright yellow badlands. The contrast between the purples in the wash bottom rocks and sky, and the yellows of the badlands and sunshine are absolutely unreal, something that cannot be captured in any way other than just being there.

More day hikers trot by Jet Fighter and I, their heads down, looking straight ahead. I want to shout at them to stop, look around, take in this special place instead of hurrying on to the next attraction on the list. Hopefully this is not coming off too condescending, because I am guilty of it too. What I absolutely love about long hikes like this is the sheer appreciation it gives you for everything. This canyon feels so so special after the inhospitable trot across the floor of Death Valley. Death Valley itself feels so much more special having hiked into it and across it instead of driving in. The entirety of Death Valley is a destination, a reward, instead of just being the frame in which all the adventures take place. This is why I do these hikes, this is why I suffer through so much.

We make it up to the top of the wash at Zabriskie Junction and take the trail heading back down to the valley floor. This one takes us along the tops of the badlands with a spectacular traverse around Manly Beacon. The hour of reckoning, however, has arrived. We need to decide here and now whether we are ending at Furnace Creek, whether these last few miles will be the last of the hike.

I am absolutely exhausted, mentally even moreso than physically. I have been going nonstop, and even though it has only been two weeks, every day has felt like two or three days' worth of effort squished into one. My Achilles has been killing me all day, and it would be foolish to head out into the heart of Death Valley in such a bad physical and mental state. These last few miles have been among the most spectacular of the hike, a fitting endpoint. I am ready to be done. Jet Fighter agrees, she is ready to call it quits too.

We descend the last of the trail with heavy hearts. I reflect on this hike, on all the struggles, and how it feels to be ending here. I think back to how it felt to finish the AT, the buildup and the weirdly anticlimactic finish atop Katahdin. I feel a weird, very present nostalgia for that day. It almost feels like I have just finished the trail again, like I'm standing in my room with the same pack that I had left there with 100 days prior, not knowing what to do with myself.

You know a view is good when you recognize it from Planet Earth

The last few miles of road walk slide by in the setting sun, and we can see the lights of Furnace Creek. We arrive in the dark, get celebratory chips and ice cream from the general store. We sit by a water fountain in the dark eating our ice cream snickers. It's another strangely anticlimactic end to an absolute adventure. I don't think you can have a fitting end to something such as this.

When the ice cream is done, we haul our packs on and head towards the campground. It's closed, so we find a nice spot to stealth camp nestled in a big grove of tamarix. I still can't believe it's over.