Desert bloom

We got off to a late start, but made it to "boyscout" camp by 2am. It was pitch black and something very large growled and scared us and then we laughed and it woke up and tossed and turned in its tent. Oops.

Leggy and I went to Leadfield on Saturday. To get there you have to drive into Nevada and then back into Death Valley on a one way dirt road that's 30 miles long. The wild flowers were out and the desert was very green. What?!

Leadfield was pretty cool (inhabited from 1926-7) except for a tour of 4x4 Jeep people that stormed in on our ghosttown holiday. So we told some party-pooping child that they stored bodies in this building.
The drive through Titus Canyon, what you hit after Leadfield, was crazy. The cliffs rise up on either side of the road and narrow in so that you are snaking through the canyon. You really can't tell from this.

Next we went did 30 more miles of dirt road to get to the racetrack, one of my favorite places on the planet. I happened to have some plastic twirlers that we launched in the wind. And this time we really did find some of the creepy creeping rocks.

Ubehebe Crater
Even the Joshuas were in bloom

Leaving tomorrow

Plan your trip Local Radar Detailed Forecast

Update: The valley floor is actually 40% higher than the reported temp in this widget. Also, I will Twitter my trip.

By the way...something better

I tried something new in therapy (EMDR) that was really interesting. Starting from a bad thought you follow lights back and forth (yeah sounds nuts) and then you stop, take a breath, say what you were thinking and then go back to following lights. Then like every five thoughts you go back to the original bad thought and start over. The thing the kept coming up for me was this:


I need to roll around in the dirt. mk bye.

DV - Twice in one month

I can't get enough of Death Valley. Leggy and I went in October, and then W.D. and Leggy and I went last weekend.

The Racetrack
This is the place with the skating rocks and some weird depth perception issues. It's 30 miles down a dirt road so you really should not get a flat tire.






Lost Burro Mine
Lost Burro had around 7 mine shafts that we went into. The rickety supports were not deterrent enough, so we stumbled over rail tracks and rat eaten miner clothing in the dark.







Darwin
Darwin is one of my favorite modern ghosttowns (up there with Eagle Mountain and Desert Center). When we arrived, there was a coyote running down the road chasing a rabbit. Someone who lives here is obsessed with Aliens.





Cerro Gordo
The caretaker did not answer the phone. This place is a hairy drive and you need a tour to really see it. The view of of Keeler and Mount Whitney is amazing. It also has hanging ore carts, one of my favorite things.


NOVEMBER
Known as just "Mine" on the map, this fluffy place in northern Death Valley was probably a rhyolite mine. We felt like we were being poisoned just by being there because there were fluorescent green rocks and white puffy fluff everywhere...and there had obviously been some crash alien landings.




Rhyolite, a Nevada ghosttown, was full of great desert art and some of the tallest ghosted ruins I've seen.





Keene Wonder Mine. Still one of my favorite hikes in the world so far. Madeline and I did it in February as the sun was going down. This time D and A and I started early. We hiked past the main frame, threw rocks down caves we shouldn't have been near and then headed down the canyon rather than on the ridge. We saw a baby rattlesnake, bottles of old miner's drugs and fallen mine carts. The only thing better than a fallen mine cart is a hanging mine cart.










This house is at the old Harrisberg site close to Skidoo. We scared a motorcyclist who had slept there to get out of the rain.


Yosemite is too beautiful to be real. We had to get out of the car to make sure this wasn't a mountain mirage.

Somewhere on a desert highway

Leggy and I went to Death Valley and around the Mojave and Yosemite area last weekend. Pictures and narration are in the works, but for now...here are a few of our adventures in motion. It's a little long, but I couldn't resist the 360 panoramas. We went to the flattest place on the planet, The Racetrack (home of sailing stones); we found old miner's clothing and eating utensils and went in half a dozen mines (tailing wheels and stamp mills included!); we spotted coyotes, tarantulas, and rabbits; we ate cold supper, and we saw Ubehebe crater. We also dabbled in Darwin and Cerro Gordo...both of which deserve a return trip. Varney rarely leads us astray, but this time we found stuff that I'm sure Varney doesn't even know about.



This trip only increased my obsession with buying waterless property to call my own. I even have the Cerro Gordo caretaker's number programmed into my phone.

Keene Wonder Mine - A place to return to

Madeline and I went to Keene Wonder Mine for my birthday last February. We had a beer in the parking lot then took a gigantic hike up to the top, passing hanging ore carts, rusted safes and countless adits. Sadly we didn't have a flashlight. The weather was perfect.

Yesterday Dani and Allegra and I thought that returning to Death Valley, and to Keene Wonder Mine, might be a great idea. Wrong. It's 112 degrees. Instead we're going to the Yuba River near where my grandparents used to own several gold claims.

Here's Keene:

One of my most favorite photos ever. Below the end of the tracks is a pile of ore cars that look as if the ground fell out from under them.

This is when I cried because we had no flashlight.

No miner's booty left.

Looking down from the top.

We have a thing with machinery.

There were 11 of these towers all the way up the mountain.

Oooooh. It's dark in here.