Mary and I wanted to go to Death Valley National Park for the long Thanksgiving weekend, but we were having trouble finding a place to stay. We were even starting to consider camping. Then we thought if we were going to camp, we might as well go somewhere new where we would have to camp. We started thinking about Mojave National Preserve. We had driven through there many years ago, but never really spent any time there. The problem was, it gets really cold at night, and the forecast called for below freezing. Brrrrr. In the end, Mary managed to find a room at Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley, so that’s where we went.

Thursday, November 22 (Thanksgiving Day)

We had a bit of a slow start in the morning (as usual) and didn’t manage to get on the road until around 11 AM. We had stopped for a few supplies (including ever important coffee and donuts) then hit the road for our nearly 500 mile. We took US101 south and cut across CA152 to the east. As expected, we hit some traffic here, so I made a couple holiday calls to family. We finally hit I-5 and headed south on the most boring stretch of the drive (and stinky too, especially near Coalinga). The donuts and coffee had worn off by the time we hit the cutoff for CA46, so we pulled into the only place around, a gas station with a Subway sign. The subway was closed for the holiday, but they did have a few pre-made sandwiches. We got a couple, one of which was turkey. We were afraid it may be our only turkey of the day since we didn’t think we’d make it in to the park before the few restaurants closed. We took 46 to 99 to 56 to 14 (so many numbers!). By now we had rounded the southern end of the Sierras and we heading north. Up 14 to US395 then 190 in to the park. We made it to Stovepipe Wells in time to have a nice turkey dinner with pumpkin pie! We got to the Furnace Creek Ranch after 10 PM.

Friday, November 23

On Friday we decided to explore a new area of the park. We headed south on Badwater Road through the heart of the valley to hike Sidewinder Canyon. We read about this hike in Hiking California’s Desert Parks. One of the main attractions to this hike was the mention of bighorn sheep. We looked for them every time we went to the park, but had never seen one. Following the directions to the trailhead, we missed the dirt road since my odometer seemed to be off by 2 miles compared to the book. After backtracking, we managed to find it easily enough (it’s pretty much the only road out there). There are a bunch of canyons in this area, so it took a little time to find the right one. We hiked all the way up a short but steep one before we realized we wanted the next canyon over. It is definitely bighorn sheep country, there are droppings all over the place. A few minutes up the canyon, we saw a bighorn up above us on the north canyon wall. Damn, we had just been up there a little while ago after following the previous canyon to its end. Oh well, it was pretty cool seeing the bighorn. The canyon is pretty cool. There are a few narrow, twisted areas and quite a few slot canyons along the side. We hiked up to the end and also explored one of the slot canyons. On the way out, we saw two more sheep on the canyon wall, this time a bit closer. For more pictures from this hike, check out my Sidewinder Canyon and Bighorn Sheep galleries.

Saturday, November 24

For today we planned to explore another new area of the park. We drove up the Emigrant Canyon Road to Wildrose to see the Charcoal Kilns and hike Hummingbird Canyon. The Charcoal Kilns are pretty cool (see picture near the top of this post). They were built in 1877 to make charcoal which was used for smelting. They are about 25′ tall with a 30′ circumference. They were only used for about a year, so they are still in good shape. After checking out the kilns, we set off to find the Hummingbird Canyon trail. After searching for a while, we found the dirt road to the trail head, but decided the road was too rough, so we headed back to the valley to see the sand dunes. On the way back to the valley, we stopped for a picture of my Escape on Emigrant Valley Road (see left). For more pictures, check the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns gallery.

The sand dunes are one of our favorite features in Death Valley. There are a few different sets of dunes, but we went to the easiest to access, the ones on Mesquite Flat near Stovepipe Wells. These dunes start not far off the road and the tallest dune is about 2 miles out. We hiked around the dunes looking for wildlife, but saw only tracks of birds, rodents, insects and possibly canines. The various patters in the sand re really cool, both the small ripples and the large dunes themselves. We sat on the dunes for a while, watching the sun set and the moon rise. There were some people doing some sort of strange photo shoot a couple dunes over. Something to do with a long red cloth, purple wings and no clothing. For more pictures from the dunes, check out the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes gallery.

Sunday, November 25

For our last day we decided to do one of our favorite hikes, Mosaic Canyon. But first we decided to check out a feature we had not visited before, the Devil’s Cornfield. The “corn stalks” of the Devil’s Cornfield are really stacks of arroweed. The weeds grow in a sandy area near the sand dunes on Mesquite Flat. Some of the weeds grow on mounds of sand, and their roots go deep searching for water. Sometimes the wind blows the sand away, and a section of the roots are exposed leaving tall stacks. There were tons of animal tracks around this area, and many holes that I guess housed kangaroo rats and other small critters. Unfortunately we didn’t see any. Check the Devil’s Cornfield gallery for more pictures.

The hike up Mosaic Canyon was quite nice. It’s a really great hike through a diverse canyon. In some areas it’s really wide with golden walls. In others it’s a narrow channel of polished rock. And of course there are sections with various colored stones embedded in the canyon wall, creating the mosaics it is named for. We stopped for lunch in the widest part of the canyon, enjoying the cool but sunny weather. After lunch we hiked up to a dry fall that we couldn’t climb. It seems like there might be a way around it, but we never seem to leave time to explore further. We still had a long drive ahead of us. We really like the narrow chutes in this canyon; they’re as smooth as marble. There are more shots in the Mosaic Canyon gallery.

After a quick stop at the store at Stovepipe Wells to stock up on caffeine, we hit the road for the long drive home. Driving home on I-5 on the Sunday after Thankgiving is not the smartest thing to do. We were in hours of bumper to bumper traffic. We had done the same thing last year so we brought a few books on CD to take our mind off the traffic. It was well worth it to spend a four-day weekend in one of the great National Parks in California.