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Death Valley ChristmasDec 20-26, 2003PreludeWhen I stopped to get supplies at the Stovepipe Wells General Store, they were playing Handel instead of the usual western cowboy music. The checkout clerk seemed relieved. "Yeah, Michael Martin Murphy is O.K., but like...only so much!" he said, shaking his head. I've come to Death Valley to escape the Jingle Bells music and all the hullabaloo of Christmas. When I left the Bay Area, it was crazy. Holiday shoppers crowded the sidewalks, vehicles laden with butchered evergreens careened down the back roads, and the neighbors were planting giant candy canes in their rain-soaked yard. I seek the simplicity, somber hues, and quiet of the desert. I want to escape the incessant rain of the last several weeks long enough to get in some bicycling, high and dry. 98 milesCraters and CastlesToday's ride is to a pit and a castle, that would be Ubehebe Castle and Scotty's Pit...no, maybe it's the other way around. I start late enough in the morning to let the temperatures warm to the upper 40's, or at least that's the rationalization for sleeping in after a nine-hour drive yesterday. Wintry clouds waft overhead, but it's fairly calm, with winds 5-10 mph from the southeast. The low-angle light of winter accentuates the sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells and the "corn stalks" of arrowweed in the Devil's Cornfield. Pickleweed covers mounds of sand between the arrowweed bundles and desert holly dots the drier, less salty interfluves. Mesquite islands border the sand dunes, creating their own microenvironment. Both desert critters and human travelers recognize mesquite as root conduits to a water source. The "Elevation Sea Level" sign is missing near the junction with the road to Scotty's Castle. Sign rehab time, or collector's item, I wonder. I turn north and soon pass the turnoff to Daylight Pass. An informative highway sign on the "Wagon Wheel History" says that this site marks the old wagon road between the early 1900 boomtowns of Rhyolite and Skidoo and that the wheel ruts are still visible on the desert floor. I look hard, but don't see any. A bit further down the road a dirt track takes off to the original Stovepipe Well, which travelers found by the stovepipe stuck in the ground. The Grapevine Mountains rise steeply to the east, and across the valley the Cottonwood Mountains form the western horizon. The view changes only slowly. I pass the turnoff to Titus Canyon, but the road is swallowed by the mountain range and it's hard to believe there's even a canyon up there. With all the vertical relief on either side, the road tricks the bicycle rider into believing it's flat. Then I pass the 1000 ft elevation sign. The road now decides it's time to get down to business and climbs in earnest up the alluvial fan. The vegetation is mostly creosote, with some beavertail cactus and cholla stuck in for variety. There's even a blooming Encelia, or brittlebush, a bright yellow sunflower that straggles bravely on through the winter. At the Grapevine summit entrance station (2200 ft) the ranger checks my National Park pass and seems relieved that I'm going no further than Scotty's Castle. First, though, I take a side trip to Ubehebe Crater. Expansion cracks make the going slow and gravel aprons across the road are reminders of recent rains. The road circles around the backside of the crater, building anticipation for the eww-ahh view that one gets after popping over the rim. I eat a lunch of fig bars and dried pineapple overlooking the pit. Fallout from the steam explosions blankets older bright red sedimentary rocks like confetti. The crater is one of a dozen explosion pits that formed maybe several thousand years ago, and I wonder if anyone was around to witness the spectacle. With the chill of a cloudy winter day setting in on with the lunch stop, I could use a little steam heat about now. But the only way to warm up is to pedal back to the highway and continue on to Scotty's Castle, another three miles and nearly 1000 ft up the road. Fence posts march along the entrance to the castle, marked with "SJ", the insignia of Walter Scott and Albert Johnson, builders of the "castle". Mowing sounds come from the grounds bordering the castle, hardly a common disturbance in the desert. An enthusiastic ranger makes sure that all visitors are welcomed and accounted for and that they don't leave without an informative leaflet. I check out the snack shop, but it is uninspiring and I decide that the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in the bike bag will do just fine. A ranger is leading a small group on the paid tour of the house. It's getting too late for a tour, but from the outside, the sandstone-style architecture strikes me as fitting for the desert location. Time to head back, and as the ranger said, "It's all downhill from here." Well, mostly. There are a few minor climbs, but they are easier than they would seem from going the other direction. I knew that my late start and sightseeing would mean a return in the dark, so I came prepared. I get out the headlight a few miles before the junction with Hwy 190, as the sun dips behind the Panamint Range, splashing the clouds with crimson on its way out. The ride back up to Stovepipe takes in a peaceful, if rapidly chilling, evening. 59 milesFinding Nemo CrestThe morning starts out chilly, but climbing starts right off the bat and takes care of the warming up that the two cups of coffee couldn't quite do. Towne Pass was dusted with snow when I drove over two days ago, and I wonder if it's melted by now. The temperatures would suggest not. Fresh channels cut the alluvial fan here and there, and gouges in the pavement suggest gravel was recently cleared from the road. It's hard to imagine water flowing in such an arid environment, but this slope has the whole Panamint Range behind it to collect water when it does rain. Telescope Peak and subsidiary peaks have a substantial coating of snow. I make a brief stop at Emigrant Springs to fill water bottles for the long haul over the pass. The next available water is at Panamint Springs, 20 miles and one big climb away. Little green sprigs are sprouting from the rocky desert pavement, harbingers of a good wildflower season in the desert if the rain continues. Temperatures are in the low 50's, good climbing weather, and a slight tailwind buoys me up the pass. The brittlebush of a month ago has finally given up the bloom, and the elevation where they last appeared is now well in the snow zone. A few patches of snow remain in the shadows of the roadcuts, but it looks like daytime highs have wiped out most of the flocking. I roll over the summit, stopping just long enough to don a jacket for the descent. As the road winds through the steep canyon, there are glimpses of Panamint Valley and the road up to Panamint Springs against the dark face of the Argus Range. I begin a debate about whether to ride the extra three miles up to the springs to get water, or whether I've got enough to make it up to the spring at Wildrose. The side trip will probably take a half-hour, time I'd rather spend riding in daylight, which is preciously short this time of year. The road rolls out across the valley floor, crossing a spectacular desert pavement burnished by strong winds. Fortunately, there is only a slight headwind in the valley today. I opt for daylight over water, and with a final glance at Panamint Springs, turn south onto Panamint Valley road and head over the 15 miles of rollers to the junction with Emigrant Canyon road. A thicket of warning signs cautions the traveler about the conditions ahead, but for the bicycle rider, they only mean smaller vehicles to contend with and a more interesting ride. Telescope Peak presides royally over range and valley, but now show its western face. The cobble-studded asphalt surface makes the going slow and gives plenty of time to enjoy the view. There are no illusions about this climb being "flat", but it still harbors a surprise. Just when you think good progress is being made up the slope of the mountain range, the road suddenly tops out over a valley hidden against the range front. This is Wildrose graben, a down-dropped block of rock marked by prominent fault-bounded ridges on either side. A short descent takes care of the first fault scarp and a short climb takes care of the other. In between one can look down the graben and get glimpses of the salt flats of the Panamint playa gleaming in afternoon sun. Emigrant Canyon road was severely washed out by a winter storm in 1998, and short sections remain unpaved, but are easily ridden on a road bike. It's a fairly steep haul up through the canyon to Wildrose Station and the junction to Mahogany Flat campground and the charcoal kilns, where pinyon was toasted for use in the smelter of the Modoc lead-silver mine in the Argus Range. Poplars and thickets of willow mark the site of the old stage stop on the road between mining camps. Cement pads are all that remain of the buildings that once included a motel, restaurant, and gas station, according to guidebooks. The spring is flowing strong, if not very inviting. Just when I'm relieved that the grade gives some reprieve, I round a bend and face what is perhaps the steepest part of the climb. The road winds up through a canyon and finally breaks out into a high valley that gives views of the northern face of Telescope Peak. After a run across the valley, the road turns and climbs to the crest of the range. On the way up, I stop to examine an outcrop of a stretch-pebble conglomerate in the Precambrian Surprise formation, one of the older rocks of the region. There are no ready pullouts for cars, so being on a bicycle here has its advantages. The top of the hill is not Emigrant Pass, nor is it the high point of the road. The next bump is apparently the unmarked Nemo Crest (5547 ft), and from there, you can look down on Emigrant Pass (5318 ft). It's a quick descent to the top of the pass, where I bask in the 51-degree heat and eat a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. A nap is tempting, but the sun is quickly sliding behind the ridge and I want to get down the mountain before dark. The pass is clear of snow, but I hit snowline on the descent - on the cold dark side of the mountain. About a mile from Emigrant Pass, a washboard road to Skidoo takes off to the right, leading to a gold mining camp that was booming around the turn of the century and one of the few profitable metallic mines in the region. With the sun disappearing fast, it is decidedly chilly and good incentive to keep moving, though there are interesting geologic features to see along the way: hoodoos in the sedimentary rocks, cavernous weathering, unconformities, and monolithic breccias. I enjoy them all at 30 mph and soon pop out to see the green patch of Emigrant Springs and striking views of Death Valley far below. The descent from Emigrant Pass seems longer than the 3000 ft would allow, and from the junction, there's still another 2000 ft to descend! It's another hang-gliding experience that makes all the climbing so worthwhile. I roll into Stovepipe Wells precisely at dusk, justifying the decision to take daylight over side trip to Panamint Springs. 72 milesRhyolite Ghost TownToday I head in the opposite direction of yesterday - out to Beatty, Nevada and back, with a side trip to the ghost town of Rhyolite. It's another calm day on the desert and the sun is out. As I ride past the sand dunes and Devil's cornfield, the early morning light seems to accentuate the vegetation and the whiteness of the salt flat. My guidebooks describe an interesting zoning of vegetation by salt tolerance and water availability. I'm distracted with taking pictures of pickleweed mounds and "corn stalks" of arrowweed. The salt crust is fluffy white and looks like snow, giving the floor of Death Valley its "white Christmas". I make the jog onto Scotty's Castle road to the junction with the road to Beatty. The road heads up Mud Canyon through the Kit Fox Hills, which are composed of old lakebed and alluvial fan sediments. The sharp base of the hills marks the Furnace Creek Fault zone, one of a pair of major faults that have moved laterally and pulled apart the crust to form central Death Valley. Above the canyon, the Cambrian rocks of the Grapevine Mountains dominate the view. Corkscrew Peak looms above Hells' Gate - a twist of old sedimentary rocks folded and overturned. It reminds me of Mythen in central Switzerland. Hell's Gate is the entrance to Boundary Canyon, which claims the California-Nevada boundary, but also separates the Grapevine Mountains to the north from the Funeral Mountains to the south. It's the site of a major detachment fault, the Boundary Canyon fault, which is readily seen from a distance as light rocks to the left against dark rocks to the right. The road narrows, walls close in, and inevitable cold headwind from Nevada picks up. A bit beyond Hell's Gate, some reddish rocks mark the trace of the Keene Wonder fault, which is a major vertical fault responsible for uplifting the mountain range. The fault crosses the road a couple miles up. That's three major faults of three different types, rather earth shattering to be sure. Daylight Pass has its sign back announcing the 4317 ft elevation - it was missing on my Inferno ride in early November. The summit isn't exactly spectacular, but after a quick turn or two on the descent, I cross the state boundary, marked by a rather stark post, and the Amargosa Valley and Bullfrog Mountains, host to the gold-silver mines of the Beatty district, come into view. There's not much of an elevation loss on this side of the pass -- the valley floor is at 3000 ft. At the Death Valley National Park boundary, the state of Nevada finally puts up its welcoming sign and the pavement changes from pockmarked brown to rough, newly blackened chip-seal. I turn off the main highway and climb the hill to the ghost town of Rhyolite. The Bottle House is the first stop. An information kiosk of sorts holds brochures and informative leaflets, but otherwise, visitors are own their own. I ride up the main street, Golden Avenue, passing the remains of the school, bank, and the jail. The street isn't paved with gold, but light-colored rhyolite is the ground cover, and the mine tailings are still worth reworking. Modern processing techniques can recover fine gold that the miners couldn't a 100 years ago, and two operations in the area are doing just that. At the head of the street is the train station of the Las Vegas and Tonopah railroad, which was preserved because it was converted into a casino. In its heyday, Rhyolite was served by not just one, but three rail lines. The LV & T depot is now fenced off and dilapidated, which is too bad, as it would make a wonderful museum or visitor center. I sit at a picnic table under the old railroad signal, eat my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and try to imagine how different the scene was in days when the trains ran into town. Back at the main highway, a billboard urges the traveler to visit Beatty and lists all the amenities. One has little choice out here. I climb the small pass through the Bullfrog Mountains and Beatty announces its presence with a forest of signposts. The Yucca Mountain Science Center on the edge of town reminds one that nearby is the site of the proposed national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, which looms to the southeast of Beatty. The Death Valley National Park visitor center doesn't have much that I haven't seen already at Furnace Creek, but does have a useful list of hotels, including the Happy Burro Hostel and a new Motel 6 that boasts High-speed Internet access. It's not exactly what one would expect in a rather ramshackle desert town, but maybe this is the nuclear fallout of the Yucca Mountain study. I load up on snacks at the gas station food mart and then head back, on a roll to beat the darkness. The tailwind I had been hoping for hasn't materialized, but at least the wind isn't working against me. Daylight Pass from the east is a quick climb, and I soon roll over the summit and begin the 4000 ft descent into Death Valley. By now some wintry clouds have built up, giving a rather gloomy cast to the desert. But the return to Stovepipe Wells goes remarkable quickly and I roll up to the hotel just at dusk. 93 milesDante's ViewThe clouds have moved in and look to do some serious work before departing, but I decide to give it a go. At least there isn't much wind to contend with...yet. I get an early start and drive to Furnace Creek. From here, I climb to the junction with Badwater Rd at Sea Level and head south towards Badwater. A bit over a mile down the road, there's a small fault scarp parallel to the road, evidence of a prehistoric earthquake, perhaps 1500-2000 yrs ago. A couple miles further, a large channel that appears freshly cut emanates from Gower Gulch. The channel is more deeply eroded than other channels on the fan and seems out of character. Indeed it is. To protect Furnace Creek Inn from flooding, the Park Service diverted water from Furnace Creek Wash to Gower Gulch at the Zabriskie Point parking lot. The arroyo suddenly had to carry significantly more water and deep channeling was the result. Badwater Road used to be bumpy from being washed out here, but a new paving job has taken care of that. At Badwater the salt flats seem more intensely white under cloud cover than in brilliant sunlight, where everything just washes out. The old hand-lettered Sea Level elevation sign has been replaced with a new one that is lithographically correct. To get a picture of it on the cliff 282 ft above the road, one has to walk out onto the viewing deck, recently installed to keep visitors out of the salt pools. I ride out around the nearly perfectly symmetrical alluvial fan to get a view of Dante's view, my destination, and wave at anyone in the parking lot who might be looking down. Here's the turnaround point. The Badwater Turtleback, the smooth sloping surface of the mountain front, is most striking when one faces north. It's one of three Death Valley turtleback, whose origin is enigmatic, but thought to be a fault surface on Precambrian metamorphic rocks. On the return, I take a diversion onto Artist's Drive for a bit of roller-coastering in the hills. The reds, greens, and yellows of Artist's Palette look darker and more intense under clouds. The road descends through somber-colored fanglomerates of the Funeral Formation. At six miles into the loop, watch out! It's a sharp turn to the right and a steep climb back up the fan for another cruise through the colorful volcanic and lake sediments of the Artist's Drive formation before exiting to the highway. Back on the main road, I don't get the anticipated tailwind for the return to Furnace Creek, but it still goes pretty fast. I refill the water bottles and load up on snacks for the climb to Dante's View. Highway 190 up Furnace Creek Wash has been freshly blackened and the white line at the side of the road is barely visible. This will make any nighttime descent less than the usual runway course, so I vow to get down before dark. As I ride up the gentle climb, a white camper van passes me and suddenly does a U-turn. The driver rolls down the window: "Hey didn't I see you way out by Beatty yesterday?" "Could be - I get around!" He seems satisfied at solving that mystery and turns back onto the road. I wave as he goes by. The clouds are even thicker and heavier at the Dante's View turnoff, but there's no sign of rain or snow yet. The Billie borate mine is humming with activity and an ore truck is kicking up dust along the entrance road. Inactive Ryan presides over the valley, a relic of the days when a train brought tourists to the hotel there and advertised great views of Death Valley - but they got the wrong valley! The road is lined with intensely red Hoffman's buckwheat, which was a delicate pink when in bloom a month ago. It's endemic to Death Valley, but locally quite abundant. In the upper part of the valley, Ephedra (Mormon Tea) makes an appearance. It's an unusual evergreen related to pines, of all things, and sports miniature cones in its jointed stems. Greenwater Valley funnels only a moderate wind down the canyon, but it feels like the calm before the storm. I keep up a steady pace, determined to beat any snow or rain to the summit. From the turn out of the valley, the climb gets steep and keeps getting steeper. The mileposts click by, but oh so slowly. Once in Dante's Canyon a couple miles from the summit, a stiff cold headwind makes the going extra slow. Finally I pass the radiator tank, then the restrooms and the final parking area for anyone foolish enough to haul a trailer up here. Then it's another quarter mile, which contains the 15% of the warning sign at the junction. It feels like more than a quarter mile and more than 15%, but the climb goes quickly and the summit is soon in site. At the overlook, I gasp at the view - it is as if the entire top of the Panamint Range has been cut off and carried away. Clouds hug the range below the level of the viewpoint. Without the sun, the saltpan of Badwater is the brightest thing in sight. A Japanese tourist and I exchange photographic duties, and he compliments my doing the climb on a bicycle...as he quickly hops back in his warm car. Well it's not the going up that's hard - it's the cold of the descent that knocks the breath out of you. I put on all the warm clothes and jacket with hood for the descent. There is just enough time to get down before dark. Recent floods have left quite a bit of gravel on the road, so I take it easy through the loose and potentially icy patches. There seems to be as much headwind on the descent through Greenwater Valley as on the climb. I'm convinced the wind gods look out for bicyclists and switch the wind direction with fiendish delight. At the junction with the main highway, the salt flats of Death Valley gleam in the distance - almost 2000 ft below! Fortunately I have enough daylight to get down Furnace Creek wash and enjoy the scenery instead of watching the road striping. Back at Furnace Creek Ranch, I feast on garden burger and fries while reading the newspaper. The cover story is on the Paso Robles earthquake, which hit at 11:16 a.m. yesterday. Where was I then? Somewhere out around Rhyolite, but I didn't feel a thing. Or maybe I just imagined the LV & T train rumbling by.... 10 milesIn Harmony with BoraxOvernight the clouds have settled in to stay and the morning dawns gloomy and chilly. It's time for a day of rest and a couple exploratory rides on Vesuvius, the vintage Schwinn Cimarron mountain bike. As I ride from the Furnace Creek visitor center to the Harmony Borax Works, I remember finishing up a double century at Furnace Creek several years ago. A spunky little old lady asked me how far I had ridden that day. When I told her 200 miles, she goes, "Goodness gracious, and here I am happy to make it all the way down to Harmony!" Today, so am I. There's a convenient bike path the couple miles to the Borax Works parking lot. A trail loops around the remnants of the borax processing unit and the Twenty Mule Train wagons...sans mules. The road continues as graded gravel out past the remnants of adobe miner's houses to Mustard Canyon. The canyon is well named. The Funeral Formation lakebed sediments are an intense, well, mustard color. I exit Mustard Canyon and rejoin the highway. Back at the Harmony turnoff, I pick up the bike trail back to Furnace Creek. Continuing the borax theme, I next drive up to Twenty Mule Team canyon. On the way I stop at Zabriskie Point to check out the Goler Gulch cutoff. It appears that the road to the parking lot is built on the gravel diversion of Furnace Creek wash, and the slot cut for drainage to Goler Gulch is visible from the small ridge just east of the parking lot. At Twenty Mule Team Canyon, I get out Vesuvius. The several-mile loop through the canyon is gravelly, but well graded and mostly smooth, though storms can quickly change that situation. An easy ascent winds up through the yellow hills, which are almost devoid of vegetation. Apparently the clay of the Funeral Formation is rather impervious and not conducive to plant roots, even those of the hardy, adaptive plants of Death Valley. The Boraxo mine tailings have the same problem - revegetation isn't likely to happen there anytime soon, if ever. After the first crest, there's a short steep descent before a very steep climb up to the summit. After that it's a short run out to the main highway and return to the car. 39 milesPanamint Springs - Darwin summitThe clouds hang in there and look ready to rain at any time, but the bicycle wouldn't think of letting me pass up a Christmas Day ride, especially when a hearty meal is likely to follow. The flag at the hotel is fluttering for the first time all week, an ominous sign of a change in weather. I drive over Towne Pass to Panamint Springs resort, a small oasis at the foot of the Argus Range. Spatters of rain begin as I start the climb up to Darwin summit, but it's barely enough to wet the pavement. A few miles up, the road goes right through a volcano - a little cinder cone with bright red layers and volcanic bombs embedded in the scoria. The views open up once out of the canyon and at Father Crowley Point, there's a great view of the deep gash through colorful layers of basalt and sediments in Rainbow Canyon. The wind picks up considerably as I climb to the 4000 ft elevation marker. Here it seems like the top, but there's another 1000 ft to go. Joshua trees start appearing at about 4500 ft, with their spiky leaves poking at a heavy grey sky. A strong headwind rolls across the broad summit, making the last couple miles slow going. At Darwin turnoff, I decide there's probably not much of a view from the other side, so turn around. It's a cold and very gusty descent, and the wind scrolling around the hills makes it difficult to predict which way I'm going to be walloped next. At Crowley Point I stop to give my arms a break and ride the short bumpity road out to the overlook for a great view of Death Valley. The wind practically knocks me over when I get off the bike. The Grapevine Mountains are shrouded in clouds. The road below winds through a small cinder cone and makes a couple big loops before disappearing into the canyon. The memorial to "Padre Crowley" says "beloved and trusted by people of all faiths. He led them towards life's wider horizons. He passed this way." I wonder what it would be like without a car and a hotel waiting a few minutes away. Before I see the Panamint Springs sign, I smell something cooking, the rich smell of...turkey baking? Could it be?! The parking lot is filled with cars, more than the usual few at the hotel. I wonder what's up. Sign says "Christmas breakfast and dinner served today" and picnic tables are set up on the veranda. Maybe that's for the hotel guests, who probably had to reserve months in advance. A hot chocolate will do for me. Inside, it's as busy as a beehive. The guy at the counter gets me a hot chocolate between bites of mashed potato and rebooting the computer and I ask him if seating is available for Christmas dinner and how much is it. "Get in line - it's free. The hotel puts this on every year for anyone who shows up." Unbelievable! The timing couldn't be better. I change out of sticky bike clothes, don the most formal wear I can rustle up in the bike bag and get in line. Turkey, mash potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans, salad, vegetables, and a desert table filled with pies and cakes. My bicycle is telling me, "See, that bike ride was worth it!" I share table and good will with other travelers and watch the wind bend the creosote from the protection of the porch. On the drive back to Stovepipe Wells, a rainbow, ever so faint, gleams through the dark clouds hugging Towne Pass. I think of Father Crowley plodding over the mountain ranges as I turn up the heat in the station wagon. Even though the rain has been light, the dips on the other side of Towne Pass are filled with muddy flowing water and the car splashes through the streams. The storm isn't done here yet. The FugueBang, crash! Thunder and the drumming of rain woke me during the night. It sounded like all hell was breaking loose. But the splatters of rain finally tapered off as I fell back to sleep. In the morning, the sky is a crystal blue and mountains have a fresh skirt of snow down to about 3000 ft. The rocks are washed clean, and the gullies and fault scarps are delineated clearly by the early morning sun. The saltwater playa has water, reflecting the snowy peaks of the Panamint Range. The general store is already back to Happy Trails music and I'm ready to move on...to a fresh new year. BibliographyHunt, Charles B., 1975, Death Valley Geology, Ecology, Archaeology. University of California Press, Berkeley, 234 p. Miller, Martin G. and Lauren A. Wright, 2002, Geology of Death Valley National Park. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., Dubuque, Iowa, 72 p. Sharp, Robert P. and Allen F. Glazner, 1997, Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Owens Valley. Montana Press Publishing Co., Missoula, 321 p. Wright, Lauren A. and Bennie W. Troxel, eds., 1999, Cenozoic Basins of the Death Valley Region. Geological Society of America Special Paper 333, 381 p. Top |
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