I was up early on this Monday morning to go pick up my rental car. I picked the economy beauty you see below for $33/day out the door.
Today's scheduled itinerary is basically to try and get out of HelLA as fast as possible, swinging through Mojave Desert on my way to Death Valley National Park. After a few hours of road rage and doubling back for forgotten hiking boats I reached Mojave. There were not many hiking options here and even fewer loop hikes. I basically refuse to do out and back hikes. There was a contrast in the park between granite boulders and golden sand dunes
I was still shaken up from my Rattlesnake encounter a couple days ago so every step was well calculated and allowed few looks across the beautiful landscape. I also learned that Mojave was home to some of the most venomous snakes around, so I stayed near the car and always with a large blade in hand in case I needed to cut a huge X in my leg and suck out the poison like they tell you at Sunday school.
I was behind schedule a bit so I skipped the hike and made my way into the teeth of Death Valley
First stop when I arrived was this ruined building from the early 20th century. It was originally home to a casino and the first brothel in the United States. That is not true. Actually I do not remember; some mill I am sure.
Here is a map of the park, showing where I came in from the South.
There are a bunch of stops along the road, like Badwater Basin and Devils Golf Course. Here is the lowest part of the park and the US, where people walk out onto the salt flat. I skipped most of these stops as they did not seem too exciting. I did take the one way road through Artist's Palette, which is a mountainside of beautiful colors created by various rocks of different states.
Next stop was a little hike through golden canyon. It was actually pretty cool and wish I had more time to explore all the canyons that shot off from the main trail
I stopped by the visitor's center to try to pick up a campsite and some recommendations on spectacular views but Furnace Creek Center was closed and it did not look like it had been open for years. I pushed on in search of Mosquito campgrounds after taking a few shots of an old train that was set up outside the visitors center.
Heading north I passed some plush resort, which was definitely not ready for me or vice versa. I then ended up in the middle of a huge sand storm which should have warned me for the night to come, but per usual I was oblivious.
I found the campgrounds and positioned my car to best block the wind and unrolled my sleeping pad and mad some dinner. Around 2am I woke up to the sound of wind whipping and stones being thrown against the car and a mouth full of sand. I tried to put up with it for a bit but soon retreated into the confines of the backseat of the car. It was a little tight, and it would be a few nights before I would master the art of sleeping in a small car.
At first light I gathered everything up and repacked as I had quickly thrown everything in the car at 2am to avoid it from blowing away. It was off to Scotty’s Castle and onto a tight canyon road that proved interesting for my Nissan.
Until Tomorrow,
Darren
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