We heard Death Valley was having an absolutely spectacular flower season, so
last Monday I asked for and received Friday, April 1st off.

We headed out for DV at about 4:30pm from Los Gatos. We arrived in the area
at about 12:30 am, but found it to be rather crowded. Stovepipe Wells
campground was over full; the parking lots of the campground had become tent
camping. We drove back up 190 a little ways and ended up staying in our car
at a pullout near a small campground that was also completely over flowing
with tents and cars. By morning (5am) a few other cars had joined us.

We headed out just after 5am to go catch the dunes at sunrise. That was
great. We drove south after that and found a tent site at Texas Springs
just before 8am. Furnace Creek was completely overflowing as well. We got
lucky as this was the only site available. It was the very first one going
in, too. That meant have lots of traffic, but also being close to the
toilets, garbage, and water.

After setting up the tent (we actually remembered the big nails and hammer,
which made this much easier) we headed further south to enjoy the
wildflowers. We took a short walk up to natural bridges, a bridge over a
canyon. This was entertaining.

We were both exhausted from having very little sleep the night before (I
think I got under 2 hours). We headed back to the tent site. We napped for
a bit, although Laurie did some image dumping. She decided to head out
without me to catch the sunset. I ended up sleeping for a few hours, total.
She got to see a couple of coyotes while out. I got to see the pictures,
but I definitely missed this.

After dinner, and a few attempts at star pictures, I went back to sleep. We
got up early again, but only just before sunrise. This time, we headed
north. We had wanted to do Titus Canyon with the Jeep, but it was closed.
So we went up to Ubehebe Crater and the road out to Race Track. On the way,
we spotted a Golden Eagle! It was absolutely amazing how big it was.
Watching through the 300mm lenses, we got to see it preening, which gave a
great view of its golden tail feathers. This was probably the best moment
of the trip.

We went down to Race Track, named for moving rocks. The road was fairly
rough and we were glad we had the Jeep and didn't have to worry about it.
Once there, we walked over to the "island" where we saw a number of lizards.

On our way back, we attempted to go up a true 4x4 trail. However, the Jeep
stalled at one point on a steep area as we hadn't switched into 4-low. We
decided to not go on as at one point we checked the clearance and we only
had about an inch to spare and things looked worse. We'll be going back at
some point, though. ;)

Laurie drove out and went about 2-3x the speed I went in. We got out
quickly and with some excitement, for sure. The wash board was rather
rough, but it smoothed a bit at speed. However, this came with a bit of a
loss of traction and control -- and the road was relatively busy. We'd see
a car every minute or two.

After this, we headed up to Scotty's Castle to get some ice cream and see it
this time of year. It was about like normal, though. It looked like the
Barrel Cactus there had already bloomed.

We tried to find the coyotes in the same place again at sunset, but with no
luck. We headed back for dinner and crashed relatively early again, but
this time after a nice long day of fun.

Sunday morning, we got up as the sun was coming up, but this sunrise was
anti-climactic. There were just enough clouds in the sky to filter out any
direct sunlight. We headed out 190 at north to 395. We visited Manzanar,
which has a visitor center now that's only been there about a year. It is
one of the best visitor centers at any of the parks we've visited.

After this, we headed north on 395 to 50 in Nevada as all of the other
passes were closed. We headed over, getting a nice view of Lake Tahoe. It
was actually snowing a bit, too. The radio was recommending carrying
chains. We weren't. Luckily, Echo Pass is right out of South Lake Tahoe,
so we got over before it was dark and icy.

It rained on us coming down, but it came with some lightning which made it
entertaining. We decided to stay at my grandma's rather than going all the
way back home. This made getting the car at work a bit easier, too. A
quick stop at the Elephant Bar for some takeout and we got in at about
9:30pm ending our weekend road trip.

Posted by Shane on April 4, 2005 5:00 PM | Permalink