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Start: Furnace Creek, CA
End: Ubehebe Crater
Miles: 105
Day 16: Attack of the Spikey Mud
Start: Furnace Creek, CA
End: Near McLean Spring
The wind picks up overnight, its howling gusts blowing sand all over us as we sleep. Between it and the weirdness of this being our last night out here, it's a very bad night of sleep. I've also woken up six of the past seven nights to hear a loud buzzing overhead, like there is a particularly large housefly circling my ear. It's really strange, and I have no clue what is responsible. We haven't seen any flies at all during the day, or heard anything to explain the buzzing. Thus, even without our alarm Jet Fighter and I are both wide awake by six.
"I'm sad to be ending here. Like it just feels weird," The first thing that Jet Fighter says.
Fucking hell, we're going to keep hiking, aren't we?
I agree with Jet Fighter, but there are just too many things in the way for us to continue on. We decide to start our day with no intention of continuing past here and see where it goes. A lot needs to go right: if we can get our resupply box from the post office, and if the rangers tell us it's ok to cross Death Valley, and if we can find somewhere to charge up our phones, and if the forecast isn't too hot today, and if my Achilles does not hurt at all, then we will reconsider. The post office doesn't open until 10, so we walk over to the visitors center to use the bathroom and buy our permits. Right now, a thick layer of clouds blankets the sky, keeping it mild. I check with the rangers there about our planned route across the valley, and they are unconcerned. Shockingly unconcerned, actually-- I had expected them to grill us about how we had entered the park, where we were going, what our backup plans were. It's a pleasant surprise that we are left mostly free to go about our route and do dumb stuff. We are able to find working outlets right outside the bathrooms at the visitor's center, too. So far so good. God damnit we are really going to do this. Ten o'clock hits, and we stroll over to the post office and get the resupply without any problems. My Achilles does not hurt at all. It looks like we are doing this.
Peanut Butter in Ziplocs does not work. Do not attempt.
Thankfully, we will be passing by a water spigot at Stovepipe Wells tomorrow morning, so we can skimp on water and only take 6 litres each. Jet Fighter and I load up the packs and leave the post office, road walking to get out of Furnace Creek before we turn and head cross-country. I am extremely excited for the upcoming section- I pieced together this route entirely from scratch by googling "Death Valley highlights" and then making a connect-the-dots route from one to the next. It has a sensible, aesthetic flow, and passes three reliable water sources, each well-spaced from the last. It feels good to be continuing on towards the original endpoint, though I think we needed to enter Furnace Creek with the mindset of it being the finish. We needed a night where we weren't looking ahead and stressing about tomorrow; we needed a morning of the same.
But now, it's time for action. We turn off of the road and begin our crossing of the valley. Through here, we need to shoot straight 8 miles due West across the valley to avoid Cottonball Marsh to the North, before turning and following the alluvial fans another 6 miles up to Salt Creek. Things start out smooth, as we head across dried, cracked mud where the going is pleasantly easy. The mountains looming across the valley look quite far away. An incessant wind, from ahead and to the right of course, starts to blow as we leave the hills and scattered mesquite.
Up ahead, I can see the color of the valley floor change from white-grey to a sandy beige. As we draw closer, the cracked mud starts to become less cracked. It starts to slide and squelch under our feet. Before we know it, we are glissading across a layer of thick, slippery mud. It coats the bottoms of my shoes, gets stuck up under my gaiters, and sticks to the insides of my pant legs. With every step the strong wind literally blows us a couple inches to the side, as if we are walking on ice. I check the map for any indication of how long this mud lasts-- if it gets any deeper, the going will be quite miserable. If it gets a lot deeper, things could get dangerous. From the satellite imagery it looks like we are in a narrow strip of dark brown that marks the far southern extent of Cottonball Marsh. Things will hopefully change up ahead.
Indeed things do change, as the mud starts to get a thin sheen of silvery salt across its surface. This sheen thickens until we are walking across huge plates of the stuff. It reminds me of the ice that forms along the beach in winter, just huge plates of salt crystals with a spiderweb of larger ridges dividing each plate. The deep mud continues to stick to our shoes, but it's a lot less wet and slippery, and the wind doesn't push us along it anymore. We do have to keep correcting course, as it pushes us to the left with every step. Up ahead the ground rises abruptly by maybe a foot, and the terrain changes too. Muddy salt plates give way to the weirdest terrain I have every seen.
It looks like someone used a giant cake piping bag, like what you'd use on a ginger bread house, to drizzle a layer of mud over everything. This mud then dried and cracked into impossibly weird stacks and ripples. Stepping up onto this surface provides momentary relief in the form of solid ground. And then the post holing begins. This mud takes the worst parts of a talus field and a thin snow crust and combines them- every step on this muddy mess is awkward and balancey on a single point of your foot, made harder by the wind. But oftentimes this mud breaks or crumbles, sending your foot sliding or postholing at a random angle. The going is painful and agonizingly slow. I also feel weirdly nauseous and lethargic. Why did we keep going? We could be hitching out to a hotel in Vegas right now.
We are close to the far side of the valley when we decide to break for lunch. It's only been 2 hours or so of walking on the day, but we're both feeling out of sorts. I'm not even that hungry, an absolute rarity when hiking.
It's a quick lunch break, and then Jet Fighter and I keep going. My nausea fades, but the terrain's difficulty does not. It gets worse, actually. The hardened mud transforms from rippled layers into literal spikes, coating the ground in 2-4 inch pinnacles. There is nowhere good to step; you just have to walk across the spikes. The half mile or so of spiked mud passes in agony, as I run-shuffle across it to get it done with as fast as possible. It's a huge relief to hit some more mud/salt flat at Salt Spring.
I regret not getting any pictures of the spikey mud- too miserable in the moment. This is a spikey mud / layered mud morph right here
This is where we turn North and up along the edge of the marsh. The terrain ahead looks promising, but as we get closer it reveals itself to be yet more layered mud. We try cutting West to the alluvial fan on the valley's edge, but this reveals itself to be an equally painful scree field of rolling, rounded stones- the ancient lake shore of Lake Manly, I'm guessing. Jet Fighter and I try to stay in a narrow band of terrain that has less stones than the alluvial fan and less hard mud than the marsh. This actually works ok. It at least gets the miles done; before we know it we are leaving the marsh behind.
The next challenge is a series of pebble dunes that lie ahead of us. What looked like a small band of broken hills on the topographic map reveals itself to be an area of heavily-creased badlands, made up of that same rounded scree from the alluvial fan. What looks like flat ground in contour lines reveals itself to be endless tiny scrambles up and down this field of rocks. I crest one final hill to suddenly see a river down below me: Salt Creek.
With the sun setting, we plunge down to the creek and 'ford' it right near the end, where it peters off into the sand in little meanders. Jet Fighter and I can't help but laugh and admire this river, flowing in the middle of the desert in the middle of Death Freaking Valley. A parking lot with one car takes us to a boardwalk that follows Salt Creek. I'm amazed to read on a plaque that there are pupfish living here, too, a remnant of the fish that used to live in Lake Manly when it filled the valley 10,000 years ago. We pass the owners of the car on their way out, and then we have the place to ourselves. The river is exceptionally pretty in the setting sun. As we trot along the boardwalk, I feel the sense of spiritual awe that accompanies these rare sources of water out in the desert. I love it here; I want to come back with a book and spend a whole day sitting next to the water watching it meander through the saltbush meadows.
We amble up the creek, completely ignorant of the fact that we have miles to make; it's worth it for this. The boardwalk ends and a trail takes us up some bluffs alongside the creek. It's much bigger here, a legitimate marsh with huge pools of water surrounded by expansive grasses. I see some ripples in the water, but the pupfish are elusive.
The creek comes to an end all too soon, as does the trail as we arrive at McLean Spring. This was planned as an emergency water source only, of varying quality based on others' reports. I taste the water- it's quite salty, but not too much so. I think you could use it for hydration in a dire situation. But there is no need to steal water from the desert with Stovepipe Wells looming tomorrow morning.
We break out our headlamps and head off cross country. The terrain is varied, a mix of easy walking across powdery dust and harder bushwhacking through layered mud and stands of arrowweed. We cross over Salt Creek, now a small muddy gully, one final time, and then we're off towards the Devils' Cornfield. After another hour of night hiking, we decide that we've made enough progress for today. We find some soft dirt nestled against a stand of arrowweed and make camp. As I'm sitting on my bivy, I move a rock to find a little desert scorpion hiding underneath. It scurries towards the shelter of my sleeping bag, and I have to corral it into a ziploc bag. I transport the scorpion a good 50 yards from camp and let it go. Looks like I'll be zipping up the bivy tonight. The stars are exceptionally pretty right now, and the ground is pleasantly soft. I fall asleep content, happy that we're still out here, still making progress, still pushing.
Day 17: Back into the Mountains
Start: near McLean Spring
End: Marble Canyon Spring
We're up at 5 as usual. Today is an exciting day- there are lots of highlights to see, from the Devil's Cornfield to the Mesquite Dunes to Marble Canyon. We do have 4,000 feet of a 7,000-foot climb to do, but with Stovepipe Wells 5 miles into the day and Marble Canyon Spring at the end, we can take it easy with the water. We head towards Stovepipe Wells, entering the ominously-named Devil's Cornfield.
The 'corn' of the Devil's Cornfield is defined by the arrowweed plant. Indicative of a shallow water table, this shrub's spacing is contingent on the availability of water. Growing conditions are just right through this particular stretch of valley floor to allow large, widely spaced clumps of arrowweed to grow. Adjacent to the Mesquite Dunes, the sparse arrowweed stabilizes windblown sand to form ominous, 10-foot tall hoodoos of sand and dense shrubbery. Apparently it looks like shocks of corn on the desert floor by daylight. Walking through the cornfield by headlamp beam, however, is quite an experience. There is just enough light to make you aware of the ghostly arrowweed silhouettes all around. I get the feeling of being surrounded by things, or beings of some sort, ominous sentinels at the edge of my vision. The beings become more and more visible as the first signs of dawn illuminate the valley floor. This is another place I want to come back to and see properly in daylight, though I sure don't regret how we got to experience it.
Just as abruptly as the hoodoos began, they taper away, and the dune field begins. The dunes are an absolute delight. Perfectly formed ridgelines of sand snake their way up and down the dunes, large enough that they're fun to run up and down but not so large as to be a drag. The only prints to be found through this sandscape are those of a lone desert fox, primly dotting their way along a sensible path between dunes. The sky turning blue-orange with the rising sun, we cut into the dunefield towards bigger and better dunes. We pick our paths through the sandy waves to our hearts' content. The sand starts to get a bit wearisome to travel on, so we cut back towards Stovepipe Wells. Some of the troughs in the dunes through here have little mesquite trees and dead, weathered trunks. We pass the first human footsteps too; they run perpendicular to ours in a well-trod track from a parking area to the heart of the dunes. Our tracks run in stark contrast, two lone sets of feet emerging from the desert on one side and disappearing back into it on the other.
From here we decide to hit the pavement and road walk the half mile into Stovepipe Wells. It's completely deserted there, but we find the water spigot on the side of the ranger station. It feels good to only need to grab three litres, along with a fourth that I chug on the spot. A pair of ravens watch us from a nearby fence post, cawing with characteristic indignation. I wouldn't put it past them to figure out how to operate this spigot.
Then we head back out into the wilds on the Marble-Cottonwood canyon road. We pass by the general store on our way out, but it's sadly about three hours too early for any snacks. Here begins the only boring stretch of trail today, a 7-mile climb up the alluvial fan from the valley floor to the mouth of Marble Canyon. This uneventful stretch of trail passes quickly thanks to some good banter. We pass a rugged car with some people packing up a campsite. It passes us and then gets stuck in some sand down the road, before getting unstuck and driving onwards.
The sun finally burns through the clouds on the final push up the alluvial fan, and it suddenly gets hot out. I'm very thankful that we're so close to the welcoming shade of steep canyon walls. We take a short break at the canyon mouth before heading into its cavernous depths. We instantly becomes ants relative to these gigantic facades; they close in around us, leaving just enough space for a vehicle to get through on the dirt road. And sure enough, the car we passed earlier is on its way out. The driver stops and offers us water- apparently he saw us on our hike into Furnace Creek a couple days ago. Of course, this is one of the only times on the trip that we have absolutely no need for water, and we decline the offer.
The road takes us out of the canyon walls and back into sunshine. From this wide, wide wash it looks like first line of mountains we've just passed through act as a funnel to focus all the water through this gap. It must be an incredible sight during heavy rains, to see torrents of water sloshing their way through the S-shaped opening.
It's lunchtime, but the sun is absolutely baking through this open canyon. Jet Fighter and I resolve to break once we reenter the shady, confined walls further up the wash. At a fork in the road we pass another car parked off to the side of the wash. Going left would take us up Cottonwood Canyon, which you can turn into fun loop by connecting to Marble Canyon via Dead Horse Canyon. It's a loop I definitely want to come back and give a go, because the large stands of cottonwood in Cottonwood Canyon look exceptionally pretty. For now, though, we are taking Marble Canyon all the way up to the the top. The walls close back in shortly after taking this fork, and we sit under some massive cliffs for lunch.
Shortly thereafter, we hit a big gated "Wilderness Restoration" sign blocking the trail, ending our dirt road for the day. We continue past it, entering the shade of the canyon, and the real fun begins. Massive, striated walls envelop us on all sides as we meander our way upwards. I once again start scanning the slopes above for any signs of movement, hoping to catch a glimpse of some bighorns. If I do see one, it will definitely be when I'm not looking or expecting it at all, but I can't help searching.
The canyon just gets more and more spectacular, lined on both sides with striped walls of variable blues and oranges. We round a corner to find the route barricaded by a chokestone bigger than a car. It looks like a tough climb, and not an obstacle I had heard of in doing my research. I check the map. Well, we're still in the right canyon. We backtrack to climb around it on the canyon wall to our right, only to spot a well-trod route switchbacking up and around the chokestone. There we go.
I get above the chokestone and jump with fright. Oh shit, people! With backpacks! I'm so startled at passing backpackers that I forget to say anything, not even a simple "hello". The three backpackers pass by without saying anything either, and the encounter is over. Scary.
Just past here the walls reach their grandest, the canyon becoming a 10-foot slot straight into the mountains. The walls ripple and curve with the flows of water that carved them, with sweeping overhangs and ledges in some spots. It's only been about an hour since lunch, but this is a mandatory snack break. Jet Fighter and I sit on a ledge, our heads looking up at the walls above. There is a large nest in a hueco up on a high wall, maybe belonging to a raven or hawk. Maybe the ravens that we saw at Stovepipie Wells. I'd like to imagine that the nest's builder can appreciate the aesthetic beauty of this place just as much as we do.
The canyon widens back up as we approach the turn-off from the trail. We jump our way along the hardened mud that lines its edges, trying to avoid the loose wash-bottom gravel. I feel a bit anxious about the section ahead. The only account I have of a complete climb out of Marble Canyon is Dirtmonger's from his Desert Trail hike. It sounds uneventfully passable from his report, but everyone has different standards of sketch and he is a desert animal. At least the water sounds reliable- he found water flowing well below Marble Spring passing through in a similarly dry year.
We reach the loop's turnoff into Dead Horse Canyon and say goodbye to what passes for trail out here, turning off into the unknown of upper Marble Canyon. I check the map to verify that this is the right canyon, and I'm amazed to see that we're already above 3,000 feet. It hasn't felt like we have been climbing at all! I thought we still had at least another 2,000 feet of climbing, and it's a huge morale boost to have done almost half of the 7,000+ foot climb so easily. We continue onwards excitedly.
The texture of the upper canyon is worlds different from the smooth blues and oranges of the lower canyon. Wavy grey and white marble makes up the walls through here. It's heavily pockmarked, with little hanging gardens clinging to the rock within the huecos. The walls are less grand than the lower canyon, but I think I enjoy the contrasting green plants and white walls more than the pure majesty of the lower canyon.
The lack of human tracks through this area is making me realize just how much animal activity there is in the canyon up here. The ground is absolutely littered with the droppings of bighorns and coyotes. Some are even big enough to be mountain lion, though I don't know for sure. If we're gonna see bighorns anywhere, this is it.
We pass an enormous tree trunk lying in the wash, quite out of place here in the desert. I wonder where that came from. My question is answered a few minutes later, as we pass a small riparian area. A huge, broken-off cottonwood sits there. Everything here is dead and dry; there's not even any grass on the ground. It makes me sad, thinking about how this place might have been 100 years ago, with ancient cottonwoods and the lush greenery of a desert oasis. We are drying up the West.
Something about this tree is just sad to look at
Arrowweed and clumped sedges become thicker and thicker as we draw near our spring in the dying light. Everything here screams of water, and I only feel a fraction of the usual overwhelming anxiety when arriving at a crucial spring. We check out the spring in the main canyon first- if we can avoid backtrackinng, all the better. I look in the gaps between sedges for some pool of water, some sort of qanat. Nothing. I push through the dense arrowweed and root through the grasses. Nothing. I wiggle under a lone mesquite and run my fingers through the dirt. Bone dry.
Fuck this. I am so fucking done with finding water. It doesn't matter that there's another spring to check, it doesn't matter that we can bail back to Stovepipe Wells with minimal consequences. This hike has mentally taxed me to my limit. I am so, so sick of always trying to find water out here, always having to stress about it. Jet Fighter and I have nothing to say. We backtrack to the side canyon that has the other spring, the one that had water actively flowing out of it when Dirtmonger was here. The start is bone dry. I crash through more dense arrowweed. I can see a few small grey birds flitting around ahead of me. Heading towards them, I dodge a mesquite to find... water!!!
Once again, the characteristic relief of finding a spring, knowing you aren't completely fucked, that you have water. It makes you want to run around and shout joyfully at the sky. There is hardly any water here at all- just the barest scummy trickle over a rock, emerging from a dense mat of grasses to disappear into the ground. But even if we have to sit here for hours, we have our water.
That's our water
I bushwhack up the wash to see if I can find the actual spring and better water. It quickly turns into heinous thicket that would not be worth the effort at all, so I abandon the effort. Jet Fighter heads back down the canyon to set up camp in a sandy spot, while I'm on water duty. I dig out some mud from a depression in the rocks to make a little qanat of my own. It fills with water surprisingly fast, and I'm able to dip my bottle in and fill up our reservoirs. The water is a murky, silt-brown and has an earthy tang, but overall it's cool and tasty. We need a lot of water again- 10 litres each, to get us the next 41 miles. At least this carry ends with another surefire source, the last water source of the trip actually. Getting all our water takes a while, but our camp is set up and dinner's cooking by the time I'm back in camp. The stars are out, brilliant as usual. With one horrible ten-minute exception, it's been a pretty good day.
Day 18: Treeline
Start: Marble Canyon Spring
End: Top of Bighorn Gorge
It's a five o'clock wakeup as usual, and then we're off and hiking. The morning is cold, our first time waking up to find ice floating in our bottles since the Kingstons. Jet Fighter almost loses her glove, realizing that it somehow ended up in the spring while we were packing up. At least things dry out fast out here. Between our heavy packs, beat-up legs, and the 3,500 feet of climbing that still remain, it's one of those mornings where you know you're going to suffer and you have that feeling of dread at the day ahead and there is nothing you can do about it. We are ending the day with a descent into Bighorn Gorge, something that I could find absolutely no trip reports about. I know that deeper into the gorge there are some big dryfalls that have bypasses, but the actual drop down from the 7,000-foot plateau around White Top Mountain is a complete unknown. We're just going for it.
The going starts out slow, as Marble Canyon turns into a small, crumbly wash. There is still lots of arrowweed growing everywhere, forcing us to navigate this maze of shrubbery in an attempt to find the path of least resistance. It usually results in us hitting a dead end and crashing through the bushes to reach another open area. We pass through a set of marble bluffs guarding the sides of the canyon in a sort of gateway, one final remnant of the sweeping walls down below. Beyond this there is a squat stone wall descending into the wash. It looks old and incredibly out of place. Why would anyone build a stone wall here, like ever? The brush thickens up here, and we even get a few mesquite trees. Their thorns force us onto the crumbly side of the canyon for a slow few minutes, but then I spot our dirt road on the other side of the wash. We cross over and join up with the road. It feels good, having our feet on easy, solid ground again. We'll be on dirt roads all the way into Bighorn Gorge today.
The sun is lighting up the peaks around us a fiery orange-red, but down in the wash we are still stuck in cold shade. I see a plastic bag stuck in the bushes on the side of the wash. Of course, even up here there is litter. Disgusting- Getting closer to the bag, I realize that it isn't a bag at all. It's snow!
I hastily bend over, pretending to tie my shoes but actually readying a snowball as Jet Fighter approaches, and then I stand up and let the snowball fly. I miss. On purpose, of course.
It's incredible, I cannot believe that there is snow up here. I cannot believe that we've gone from the floor of Death Valley to snow in just 8 hours of hiking.
We climb up the last bit of Marble Canyon, entering the sun at an abandoned mining town. It's complete with rusty cars, crumbling shacks, and old mining equipment. The shacks make an interesting sight, though quite forlorn. I'm impressed that people used to live up here; it must have been a hard life.
The temperature is perfect for once, with crisp air and a gentle breeze complementing the warm sun. We make pleasant, uneventful miles through the rolling hills, interspersing frequent breaks to rest our legs and shoulders. We still have a solid six litres of water each, after all. The pleasant temperatures don't last forever, and before we know it the crisp mountain air has disappeared, replaced by stuffy desert air. We cross Ulida flat and crest a hill into Hidden Valley, heading for Perdido Canyon- unremarkable places with cool names. I'm dismayed to see that we've actually dropped back down to 4,500 feet from the morning's 5,400-foot crest. I thought we were getting close to the halfway point of the day's climbing, but now we're back near where we began.
A pickup truck drives up to us and stops. The driver asks what we're doing out here. When we tell him we're backpacking, he shakes his head incredulously.
"You know you're in the middle of nowhere, right?"
"Oh yeah, we know it!"
A couple minutes later, another pickup truck drives by! I can't believe there is so much traffic on this road in the middle of nowhere. They drive by us again shortly thereafter, explaining that they took a wrong turn at Teakettle Junction. They must have been headed for the Racetrack- another thing that I really wanted to see, but it is really out there. I just couldn't work it into our route in an aesthetic way, sadly. That's a visit for next time.
We start sinking into dust at the trough of the valley. Literally, the road is made up of this fine light powder, so loose that we sink into it by over a foot in some places. Apparently this is a dry lake bed; we must be walking through the fine, silty sediments that settled at the lake's bottom. Seeing these signs of long-gone water once again makes me want to go back in time and see this place 10,000 years ago, when the slopes would have been forested and the valley floor was a giant lake. Our footsteps send ripples through the bizarre fluid dust. Even with this distraction, the going is brutally monotonous. The road is flat, straight, wide-open empty. We plan an early lunch break for the junction at the end of this road as motivation. These last miles of lakebed are slow, dull, and tiring, but we finally make it to our junction.
Our friends the joshua trees have reappeared on this side of the valley, and we try to take shelter under one's shade. All the joshua trees down here are small and spindly, offering minimal cover, so I decide to make my own shade by tying my fleece and windshirt between two trekking poles and staking it up. It actually works surprisingly well. Why hadn't I thought of this earlier?
The trail starts to climb in earnest again, but it's actually a welcome relief from the flat monotony of Hidden Valley. It feels good to be pushing, gaining elevation, making new ground. We pass above 5,600 feet, and every step becomes a new high point of the route. I turn back to say something to Jet Fighter and spot towering snow-capped peaks on the horizon- the Sierra! I had been hoping for a good view of the Sierra from this section of trail, so I'm mildly disappointed that they are almost entirely blocked by southern spurs of both the Last Chance and Inyo ranges. Still though, it's cool to imagine the snow-capped peaks and forested valleys, a stark contrast from the open desolation up here.
You can just make out the snowy Sierra on the horizon- mountains always look smaller in pictures
There's a van on the side of the road up ahead; a couple is packing it up while their dog runs around. We say hi as we pass by, and they recommend a side canyon to the right that will shortcut part of the dirt road. A break from this dirt road that is both prettier and shorter than the main route? Hell yeah!
We cut off from the road and head up through the joshua trees to this canyon. The rocks are pretty neat, and they provide a welcome break from the last 7 hours of dirt roads. We take a break in a section of rocky narrows.
"Shade, glorious shade"
"Glorious, wonderful, bountiful shade"
Our singing echoes weirdly off these rock walls. If anyone happened to be walking through the canyon to hear our singing, they would probably turn back and start running away. I sure as hell would never head towards weird singing out here.
Of course, within three minutes of sitting here we start to get cold. We also want to make it to the top of Bighorn Gorge with daylight, to scope out the descent. So onwards we go, up the canyon and back out into the open. The final slopes back up to the dirt road are coated in this spindly red plant. I've been seeing it since around the Mojave, but it's especially thick here. It contrasts nicely with the yellow shrubs and blue sky to form a striking mosaic.
Back to the dirt road now. Things on this side of the canyon feel distinctly cooler and wetter. There are salt patches all over the soil, signs of shallow groundwater evaporating. It's practically a jungle compared to the desolation of the past week, more reminiscent of the Mojave than the Great Basin. There are dense shrubs with thick tendrils that make them look like flies wrapped up in the web of an enormous spider. My theory is that the tendrils collect dew from clouds that get caught up here in the mountains.
Whitetop Mountain looms straight ahead. I can see why it's called Whitetop, as the pale sediments that streak its sides give it an almost snowy appearance. The road drops into the canyon cutting along Whitetop's base- I think this is the top of Dry Bone Canyon, another one I'd like to explore someday- and then we turn to the left and start the final 1,000 feet of climbing.
Ok, it looks barren in the picture but I swear there were a lot of plants
The Desert Hike has given me newfound appreciation for quite a lot of mundane things, but chief among them are trees. Even now, writing this three months after the fact, the pinons and junipers and ponderosas of Colorado Springs amaze me in a way that they never did before the hike.
Climbing up this broad valley, I can see a patch of greenery up ahead. As we get closer, it gets bigger, and I get more excited. Could it be... it is! I run up to this tree, this little tree, the first familiar tree since Day 5 in the Mojave. I never thought that I would appreciate a pinon pine so much in my life. I stand there with my hands on the trunk, looking up through its needles. I love this tree. I cannot wait to be back among the trees in Colorado.
Onwards up the canyon. I see another pinon pine, and then another, and then another. Before I know it, we have left the canyon behind and we're walking through a full-blown forest of pinon pines. There are still joshua trees here too, and it's a really weird but cool sight to see these two plants, each so iconic in their own biome, growing side by side. I lose all sense of time as I wander up through these groves of pinons, making the last of the climb in the setting sun. I almost completely forget about Bighorn Gorge until we're right on top of it. We've hit the high point of the entire hike up here, 7,000 feet.
Our descent is obscured by pinon pines, and my feeling of trepidation grows as we leave the dirt road to approach the wide open space ahead. Bighorn Gorge is the final obstacle, the last great uncertainty between us and Ubehebe Crater. It would really suck to get this far only to find Bighorn Gorge utterly impassable and have to backtrack all the way to Stovepipe Wells. It would also suck to get into another scenario like Copper Basin, where I had to descend dryfalls that were sketchy and difficult to climb back up when I got cliffed out. But we approach the edge to see... a gently sloping hill down into the wash!
We skid down the slope to start our descent. Out of the sun, the temperature plummets here on this northeast slope. It gets cold. There is a shocking amount of snow through here; my feet sink in up to half a foot in some places. The trees are a lot bigger too, and juniper joins the pinon pines in this cold ravine. I'm thrilled to pass an old cairn hiding down in this wash, along with the faint remains of a trail- it bodes well for the rest of the descent. The large trees become an obstacle, forcing us up and around dense branches. I don't mind it at all, though.
The pictures don't make it look like much, but this area was super cool
We navigate a few small dryfalls with ease, though the snow-covered terrain does add difficulty. We start to pass through open areas without any trees. We haven't quite made it to where we wanted today, but Jet Fighter and I agree that camping among the trees tonight would be amazing. We're worried that trying to push on another mile or two would push us out of the tree zone and back into desert; it's an easy decision to stop here and camp early. I find a flat, needle-covered spot under the branches of a large juniper. Nestled between the juniper's comforting trunk on one side and a pile of boulders on the other, it is perfect. The juniper helps hold in some of our warmth on what promises to be a cold night.
We make dinner watching the sky turn from red to orange to blue. Our campsite is warm, cozy, and has a view- we could not have picked a better spot out here. One final obstacle awaits us tomorrow in descending the gorge. I can't believe that it's come down to this. I have no trouble falling asleep tonight in this beautiful, amazing place.
Best campsite of the hike.
Day 19: Bighorn Gorge
Start: Top of Bighorn Gorge
End: Death Valley Wash
We're up at 5 as always after an amazing night of sleep. I had been bracing myself for a cold, cold night in this ravine, but the big juniper sheltered us like a warm blanket. We pack up and leave this blanket, and the temperature immediately drops by a solid 10 degrees. Onward, down Bighorn Gorge we go.
The big junipers and pinons fade away almost immediately to be replaced by joshua trees, with just a few stragglers hiding against the canyon walls. We hit our first legitimate dryfall of the descent, but navigate the loose side slope easily. I'm having a lot of trouble warming up today-- I'm fully layered up, but the effortless downhill through this frigid wash means that I'm not recovering the body heat lost while packing up. Ok, it's Reese's time! I grab my Breakfast Reese's with cold hands and try to open it. My fingers are so numb that I can't get a good enough grip on the packaging. fucking hell. After a few minutes of fumbling I finally get the Reese's open with my teeth. It's a chocolatey mess inside. The Reese's must have melted in Furnace Creek, resolidifying into a lumpy mess around the paper wrapper. I'm forced to chip little pieces off of the wrapper, and end up leaving a frustrating amount of chocolate glued to the sides of the packaging. So much for a good breakfast.
As annoying as the melted Reese's are, they do the trick. I'm able to warm up and actually appreciate the steepening walls of Bighorn Gorge. The wash slices straight through the rocky headwall in front of us, exposing layered waves of rock like a big grey birthday cake. We pass our last patch of snow in a rocky recess where the walls close in around us. Up ahead, the wash plunges through a tiny slot in the walls. It's an obvious dryfall, but we still can't help but walk up to its very edge and peer down 60 feet to the wash bottom below. This must be the dryfall that the trip report I found stopped at- they figured that it could be bypassed using a boulder field to the right. Or maybe it's impassable and the actual dryfall mentioned is further down the gorge.
Jet Fighter and I head over to a gap on our left with trepidation. I can see an exceptionally crumbly scramble down to a boulder field, which then curves to the right, out of sight. I skitter my way down the rock wall without incident, emerging onto the boulder field to see the wash bottom, a clear shot down below me. Thank God. We take this steep boulder field one at a time to avoid any accidental deaths and continue on our way.
My camera was pointed up for this boulder field- it was steep!
The gorge just gets more and more spectacular as we navigate dryfall after dryfall. Every bend in the wash reveals new patterns, new layers of rock. We hit a slot of smooth, blue stone that involves a series of little slides. Whoa, check out those rocks! The blue stone in one outcrop has a few snail shell fossils, magnificently preserved in cross-section in the water-eroded canyon walls. The fossils become more and more common as we keep descending, and soon enough they are everywhere we look.
The fossils end, and banded grey rock with dryfalls aplenty begins. We slide, duck, scramble, and dodge our way down these dryfalls, one after another. We round a bend to see the walls of Bighorn gorge widen and fall away abruptly. We've made it through the Cottoonwood mountains, down Bighorn Gorge, and out to the alluvial fan.
"Wow, we made it through!"
"I wonder what will go wrong now. We're probably gonna finish in the rain or something."
"Ha. Wouldn't that be something. But it's smooth sailing from here."
Wrong. I forgot how much alluvial fans suck. We walk along another pathway of rounded, fist-sized rocks, none of which seem too happy about where they are sitting on the ground. We zigzag through this wash, trying to stick to channels that look marginally less rocky than others. It's pretty much useless, and just burns more energy. I climb the side of the wash in a spot that it's not a sheer 10-foot bank, and I'm awarded with about 10 feet of easy desert pavement before my path abruptly dead-ends: two washes converge here, and there is no way down. So I backtrack and slide back down into the wash.
We were supposed to cut to our left over into Death Valley Wash about a mile ago, but I've learned a lot since those fateful summer days six months ago when I mapped out this route. The broken, wash-streaked topography of the planned route throws up screaming red flags in my brain, so Jet Fighter and I have decided to descend the wash into less hectic-looking terrain and then cut across. But first, it's time for a good lunch break in the shade of the wash walls. We savor the last lunch break of the trip, sitting in what promises to be the last shade for the next few hours.
"Those clouds sure look like rain, don't you think?"
"Maybe, but they're really far away. And stuck up in the mountains. And besides, they're not moving in the right direction."
I'm all out of water, so it's time to get moving to the campground. I pick a spot on the map up ahead where it looks like we can bail out of this wash. Sure enough, on arriving there we find a faint trail that actually switchbacks its way out of the wash. Did someone build this? We follow this faint trail Northeast as it crosses the sloping ridgeline between our wash and the next. It drops us into this wash, and then we pick it back up on the other side. Here the trail veers due East. I, of course, think I know better than this trail, and so decide to leave it and continue cross-country. Within minutes we realize this for the mistake it is, as we're stuck zigzagging back and forth to cross perpendicular to these endless washes. I take one big fall when the wash side completely crumbles away beneath my feet. It is with great relief that we stumble out onto the flat hardpan of Death Valley Wash.
The wind picks up and blue-grey clouds brew over the mountains on all sides as we make our way towards Mesquite Campground. Weirdly enough, it's blowing at our backs this time around. That's a first for this hike. The wash takes us straight to the campground, where we load up at spigots. Last water source of the hike. We take an extended snack break at the spring, enjoying the green cattails and strong stream flow. A ranger drives by while Jet Fighter and I are sitting here. On the way out, he stops to chat with us. I'm surprised to find out that Mesquite Spring supplies all the water for this campsite. The ecologist in me doesn't know how to feel about that, but the tired hiker doesn't give a crap.
"Hey by the way, do you know what the weather is for tonight?"
"Oh yeah, it's rain."
There must be quite a look of horror on our faces.
"You guys have rain gear, right?"
We assure the ranger that we have rain gear, we have food, we (kind of) know what we're doing. He heads on his way, and we head on ours, eager to get to camp before this rain arrives. The wind picks up to a howl, throwing dust and sand into the air. Jet Fighter and I decide to start scouting suitable campsites before it gets any darker. The threat of rain, however, has really limited our choices. Wash bottoms are the perfect places to look for comfortable, sheltered sites. Finding somewhere that is comfortable, out of the wind, and safe from flash floods is a tough task. In the end we settle for a spot that is moderately comfortable, mediocrely sheltered, and decently safe from flash floods. Pitching the tarps in this wind takes quite a while. We have to go fetch heavy rocks to weigh down the stakes and keep them from pulling out of the loose sand. After a lot of finagling, we finally get our tarps pitched taut enough that they don't flap too much in the wind. The clouds have finally boiled over the mountains, spilling into the valley on all sides in a spectacularly brooding sunset. Jet Fighter and I cook our dinners while hunkered down in our bivvies, eyes closed against the windblown sand that blasts under the tarps. This hike is going to be an adventure to its last, isn't it?
Day 20: Ubehebe
Start: Death Valley Wash
End: Ubehebe Crater
The howling wind keeps us up late, but as far as I can tell the rain never arrives. I wake up around 2am to striking silence. Looking out from under the tarp, I can see stars in the night sky. Well we survived that. What next?
The next thing I remember, it's 5 and the alarm is going off. I'm up and wide awake before the thought that this is the last morning even crosses my mind. There are just some things- big runs, exciting and stressful events, the starts of hikes, the ends of hikes- that I can always jump right out of bed for. We pack up quickly. I tally my food: two Reese's (saved in celebration for the finish), three squares of chocolate, a few peanut butter pretzels. Doesn't matter anymore. I eat the chocolate and pretzels as we head out of camp in the dark. The last time headed out of camp in the dark. My phone is completely dead, my power bank has been dead for days, my headlamp is also starting to dim. Jet Fighter's phone is at 6%; her power bank is also dead. We are really sprinting to the finish, running on fumes here. At least we have water. This is it, the last morning out stumbling through the dark.
We head up Death Valley Wash as the sky lightens up, the last desert sunrise we'll see. It's all a blur, and before I know it I spot a street sign on the road that will take us to the crater. Ending with a road walk. How fitting. While the wash was a blur, the road walk is the opposite. It trickles by, dragging its feet.
"Holy shit. I cannot believe we're here, I cannot believe we're doing this."
It's all we can say. It's all we can think. It's only been twenty days, but every single day has felt like 3 days of a normal thru hike. There has been no trail to follow, no guthooks, no trail guide, no trip reports. Twenty days of 100% mental involvement, twenty days of present, visceral perseverance. I flash back to a month ago, seeing Jet Fighter fall into the wash. The next day, collapsing into a shade of a ditch with the forgone conclusion that we could go no further. I flash back to nineteen days ago, adrift in the Whipple Mountains after the hardest day of hiking in my life, already overwhelmed, realizing there was no way I could complete this hike and not even knowing that each of the next two days would be harder than the last. Fifteen days ago, arriving at Burro Spring to find no water, thinking we would be turning back just one day after being reunited. Ten days ago, realizing we would have to hike nine more miles to Shoshone if we wanted to continue this hike, and thinking that I was done. Five days ago, deciding in the setting sun of Zabriskie Point that we'd call it quits at Furnace Creek. And a million struggles in between. How the fuck are we here?
I expect to turn a corner and see Ubehebe at every bend in the road. I can see a parking area at the top of the hill ahead. This is it. We climb to the top, and there it is. Ubehebe crater. We are done, finished, complete. Jet Fighter snaps a few pictures, and just in time, as her phone dies. We sit on the crater rim as the sun emerges from the clouds. I eat my Reese's, watching crows circle down below us in the crater. The end of an adventure.
Ok, now how the hell are we going to get out of here?
If you managed to read this far, props to you! It was a daunting task, typing it all up in so much detail, but I want to have it documented, both for my own memories and on the off chance anyone tries to repeat this route. Thanks for following along on this adventure!
-Speedy G