travel tangent: death valley 2010

A tangent for anyone missing travel and adventure during the pandemic.

For our third group hiking trip together, MAC and I picked canyons and badlands again: Death Valley National Park in California.  We were there in April when the average monthly temperatures are 32C/90F max and 17C/62F min.  In the summer, Death Valley is the hottest place on the planet. 

Like the previous year, MAC and I met up in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Las Vegas sounded to me (a Canadian) at first like a strange place to fly to for outdoor adventure but I learned it is an inexpensive destination that’s close to parks in Arizona, Utah, and California.  I flew in from Seattle, Washington and MAC from Atlanta, Georgia.  I (the OC part of me in particular) enjoyed a repeat of 2009: staying at the same hotel, catching up over a drink at the Bellagio, walking the strip to look at the spectacle, and eating a veggie burger at the Hard Rock Café.  Per MAC, by that time we had only been friends for two weeks (over two years).

We met up with our REI Adventures group the next morning at another hotel—we were at-capacity with twelve guests and two guides.  The guests were: one married couple, one solo man, and nine (yes 9!) women.  Of those women, five were travelling on their own (like MAC and I did in 2008 when we met on REI’s Havasu Falls trip).

There was not a moment of silence with 14 people in the van talking about where we had flown in from, what other trips we had done, and what we did in the real world.  In 2009, we went east from Las Vegas to cross the border into Arizona and visit the Grand Canyon.  In 2010, we headed west to cross the border into California. 

The previous year, MAC and I had the luxury of staying at inns.  For Death Valley, we were back to tenting at a base camp for 6 days/5 nights.  Once in the park, our destination was a seldom-used dirt road to a side canyon where the van was parked, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere. 

The guides supplied us with two-person tents, gave us a demo, and then we chose a spot and set up the tent ourselves.  We had to take time to find larger rocks to tie the fly to and weigh down the tent pegs.  There wasn’t a tree in sight for shelter.  This was camping in the desert. 

The trip details stated something like there would be no established bathroom facilities at the base camp and to bring a (poo) shovel.  MAC and I were prepared for this but a few of the other women thought this description meant there would be a port-a-potty!  Nope.  You had to walk down the dirt road towards the canyon and find a private spot among the gravelly dunes.  Another misunderstanding was one of the younger women brought a yoga mat rather than an air mattress/foam sleeping pad.  This was no soft forest floor to sleep on, but she never complained.

On our first full day in the park, we hiked directly out from our base camp in the morning.  If you look at the second photo, you can see I hung back to try to give some perspective of the group walking in this rocky expanse towards what seemed like multiple mountain ranges.  The landscape seemed very different than our previous two trips.  I really didn’t know what to expect.  Where were we going and how would we get through all those multi-coloUred mountains?    

As we got to the first of those ranges, we started hiking the Gower Gulch trail with sections of slot canyon.  This trail connected to Golden Canyon which looked like hills of firm sand.  In one area, we walked single file on a narrow trail to climb up to a windswept view.  I was in Death Valley but I frequently wore a long-sleeve shirt to counter the wind, not just the sun. 

One night, I woke up hearing a low-flying helicopter.  It was loud and gave me the creeps, feeling exposed lying in a sleeping bag in a tent in a little base camp in the desert.  When I told MAC about it the next morning, she hadn’t heard a thing (note: later in the week, I would be grateful that MAC is a sound sleeper). 

We stayed at the same camp all week but used the van to drive to trailheads so we could explore more of the park.  Death Valley is the largest national park in the contiguous USA.  My mother would have preferred I’d visited a park with a friendlier name.  Some of the place names that suit an expanse called Death Valley are: Funeral Mountains, Devils Golf Course, Stovepipe Wells, Hells Gate, Furnace Creek, Desolation Canyon, Last Chance Mountain, Deadman Pass, and Devils Hole.

After discovering slot canyons the previous year in Utah’s Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, I was thrilled to be back in one in Death Valley.  Something about them must connect to my inner-child!  Grotto Canyon is a deep slot canyon and I was all-in for the fun of scrambling and climbing with a rope where needed. 

A longer hike was to Dantes View (5000 ft elev) at the top of the Black Mountains.  The view overlooks Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level.  It’s a strange vista, looking down on the glaring white of the salt flats and across at the snow still atop Telescope Peak (11049 ft elev). 

Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells are two of the villages in the park with accommodations.  Because we used the van every day to drive to hikes, REI had an arrangement with a general store that we could stop and use the toilets (the women who had expected port-a-potties on-site were greatly relieved).  REI also had an arrangement with a hotel that we could stop every other day and use their swimming pool and poolside showers.  Unlike our base camp in Havasu Canyon in 2008, there was no nearby creek to jump in to whenever we needed to cool off.  The only water we saw was that swimming pool.  Death Valley is the driest place in North America with an average yearly rainfall of a mere 2 inches. 

I asked MAC if I was missing anything for this post and she remembered us laughing so loudly in the tent one morning that everyone else heard (note: the tents were spread out) and asked during breakfast what had been so funny so early. I reminded her that WE weren’t laughing, SHE was laughing. My hair was longer than usual and it was still wet when I’d gone to sleep after a late shower. When I sat up the next morning, MAC immediately started laughing at my crazy hair. It was kept under a bandana or hat the rest of the week.

For these guided hiking adventures, you just have to show up in shape and with your gear and all the details are taken care of for you.  I loved that.  The two guides, both men, did a great job.  And I cannot stress enough how wonderful it is to have other people cook for you while camping.  We ate our meals (and hung out during any downtime) sitting in a big circle of camp chairs. 

But on this trip there was what could have been a make-or-break point for my friendship with MAC. 

I woke up during the night and it wasn’t because of a helicopter this time.  Some spice used in the tofu fajitas I’d eaten for dinner was causing off-gassing.  I had to get out of the tent FAST and grab my shovel before the coming colon cleansing and I had to do it without waking MAC.  I feared the odoriferous experience would be too great a challenge to put to our friendship after … only 2.5 weeks by MAC’s math. 

I somehow got out of the tent without waking MAC, did what had to be done as far away from the tent as I could manage, got back into the tent without waking MAC, made sure MAC was still breathing, stayed awake to air the tent out, and was in shape to do the hiking the next day.  I did not immediately share this story with MAC.

The last full day in the park was a variety pack.  First, we hiked to Thimble Peak in the Grapevine Mountains and scrambled up to the top.  There was room for our group of 14 to all sit and enjoy the 360 degree view.  Next was nearby Titus Canyon.  Vehicles can drive through on the dirt road but we walked through the narrows of this deep canyon where the walls are only 20 ft apart in places.  For our last evening in the park, we hiked out to Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, relaxed with a snack and beverage, the white sand between our toes, and watched the sunset. 

Our last day, with no hikes on the itinerary, was stinking hot.  After taking down the camp, we went to a visitor center, but I didn’t have much energy to even just walk around the outdoor exhibits.  The temperature for all our hikes had been reasonable but I’m not sure how I would have fared if I had to hike that day. 

MAC knew she wanted to go back as soon as the trip was over—there was still so much she wanted to see!  I enjoyed the trip but, thinking of it now, nothing could have compared to the private guided tour in Arizona and Utah the year before which really was the trip of a lifetime.  However, as I researched and read up on Death Valley again for this post, I loosened many good memories and I discovered LOTS of reasons for returning to the park: Darwin Falls, Ubehebe Crater, climbing Telescope Peak, and exploring many more canyons, gulches, and slots.  Cycling would also be a great option to explore this vast park. 

During our extra day before we flew home, MAC and I went for massages (extra fantastic after a week of sleeping on the ground and hiking) and then dinner in the same complex.  Surrounded by people all dressed up for a night out, we didn’t care that we were in our post-massage comfy clothes with messy hair.  Las Vegas was their destination but not ours.  For us it was just a cheap way to get close to the parks.

References and related links:

• MAC: mon amie Caroline.
• OC: obsessive-compulsive.
• REI: Recreational Equipment, Inc.
• Death Valley National Park (NPS site)
• arizona and utah 2009 (post #157)
• havasu falls 2008 (post #155)