USA, December 2002

Death Valley and Grand Canyon

This is a diary of my trip to Death Valley, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I have tried to include useful information and hints for anyone planning to visit these areas. The diary is written from the point of view of a Brit abroad, but I hope it will be comprehensible to anyone.

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Death Valley

4^th Dec 2002

Up at dawn and drove into Barstow to buy food, water and fuel for cooking stove. I couldn’t find any meths or alcohol for my Trangia stove, but luckily found self-sealing canisters of propane for my Coleman burner. Alcohol based fuel seems very hard to come by, but Coleman fuel is available everywhere.

Drove from Barstow to Baker, past the world's largest thermometer, then turned off to Shoshone where I stopped to look at the museum, then on past Death Valley Junction to Furnace Creek.

Arrived at Furnace Creek in the early afternoon and had a look round the visitor centre and bought a guide book: Best Easy Day Hikes, Death Valley by Bill Cunningham and Polly Burke, published by Falcon, ISBN 1-56044-977-2. I based all the following walks in Death Valley on this guide book.

I pitched the tent at the Furnace Creek camp site. It is definitely worth paying $16 per night compared to $10 at the other camp sites, as the Furnace creek site is amongst trees and each pitch is secluded, whereas the other sites are just large open areas. Each camp pitch has an aluminium park bench - luxury compared to British campsites, but a bit cold to sit on after dark.

I had a look through the guide book and the Ranger Programme guide that I was given at the visitor centre. Decided to do walks by myself, as the ranger-guided walks looked a bit naff and didn’t start until 10:00. Daylight hours were 6:30 AM to 4:30 PM

For the next 4 days I did a moderate walk, 3 to 4 hours, in the morning, and "touristy" things, including some short walks, in the afternoon.

5^th Dec 2002

Golden Canyon – Zabriskie Point – Gower Gulch

Up at dawn, my body clock still on UK time. In the early morning it was quite cold, but soon warmed up. The walk starts off in the canyon, with 10 numbered points along the way. Each of these is a geological feature that is described in a pamphlet that you can buy at the start of the walk.

	After the numbered points, a side trail goes to the base of Red Cathedral – an impressive red cliff face, worth the detour.
Back on the main route, the trail leads over impressive sand dunes, the Badlands, to Zabriskie Point.
	The return is via a dry streambed, Gower Gulch, although I didn’t see any gowers in it.

Devil’s Golf Course

An area close to the lowest point of Death Valley, where salt formations one to 2 foot high have accumulated. Very difficult to walk on, but it was fun to collect a small amount of salt to use in cooking at the campsite.

Badwater

A few miles further down the road from Devil’s Golf course, this is the lowest point in the USA, 280 ft below sea level. The salt flats look just like snow. A sign perched on the rocks marks sea level, but only looked about 100 ft up.
There is a small lake near the roadside that has some unique snails that can tolerate high salt concentrations.

Natural Bridge

A nice short walk up a canyon off the Badwater road to finish the day. The most significant feature is a rock bridge across the canyon.

The walk described in the guide book ends at a 20ft pitch, but there was a fixed climbing rope which could be used as a hand line. I followed the canyon up for only half a mile above the pitch as it was getting late, but it looked like the canyon continued further up.

Walking back down the canyon, there are impressive views over Badwater. It looks like a coastal estuary from high up, and just needs a few seagulls and sheep to make it look like Barmouth seen from Cadair Idris.

6^th Dec 2002

Mosaic Canyon

	The start of Mosaic Canyon is very impressive, consisting of sections of rock strata that have been uplifted by geological activity to form spectacular shapes.
After that there are sections of marble passageway eroded smooth by water, showing the strata of the marble to great effect.
	Afterwards the passage continues up a series of short free climbs, until a bypass on the right has to be taken to avoid a more significant pitch.
Above the pitch, drop back into the canyon passage and follow the widened passage upstream to another pitch. The bypass for this is back on the left (facing upstream) and follows a well-worn footpath high over the hillside, bypassing at least one further pitch, possibly more. The footpath initially looks very steep, but is perfectly sound.	Looking down the Canyon
	Once back in the streambed, the canyon continues further to a significant pitch, 40 or 50 ft high. For a climber, this would be a feasible free climb, as the pitch is in 2 sections, but for non-climbers like me, it is a good place to stop and have lunch as it is nice and cool in the shade of the canyon.

The Sand Dunes

Not far from Stovepipe Wells, the Sand Dunes provide some good photographs, including cracked mud formations.

Salt Creek

An easy stroll on wooden boards, put down to prevent people walking on the vegetation and in the creek. There are pupfish in the creek, but I didn’t see any.

7^th Dec 2002

There were running races taking place today, from 10km to a half marathon, so there were a few more people at the campsite for the weekend. My next door neighbour, Scott from San Francisco was running a half marathon, and persuaded me to attend the Ranger Programme lecture in the evening.

Grotto Canyon

The track leading up to Grotto Canyon is not signposted as well as the other canyons, so took me a while to find. The guidebook recommends a high clearance vehicle for the track, so I parked at the roadside and walked up. In reality an ordinary car could have made it up the track.

Once in the canyon, a short climb is quickly reached. This looked a bit awkward, so I looked for a bypass further downstream. About 100 yards down from the climb there is an obvious branch on the right (facing upstream), with a cairn marking the route. I followed this up for about half a mile, boulder hopping most of the time, but without being able to find a way back into the canyon.

Back at the junction, I had another look at the climb and decided to have a go at it. It wasn’t particularly difficult using cavers climbing technique (knees, elbows and thrutching), but straight afterwards was another climb, this one more technical, with a small pile of boulders at the bottom to provide a leg-up.

I admitted defeat at this point, and had another look round for a bypass, without success. Talking to one of the park rangers later in the day, I found out that there is a bypass on the other wall of the canyon (left hand side, facing upstream) before the start of the climbs. It is supposed to be marked with a cairn, although I never spotted it.

Keane Wonder Mine and Spring

The approach road to Keane Wonder Mine is quite rough, but passable in an ordinary car. Keane Wonder Mine is a group of abandoned mine buildings. The walk out to Keane Wonder Spring passes a few dry streambeds that have a wide range of different coloured rocks in them. The spring itself produces quite a flow of water, but it looks very undrinkable, so it is surprising that there is a disused aqueduct pipe that was used to divert water to the mine. The sulphur mine near the spring gives off a terrible smell that further adds to the unpleasantness of the water source.

Artists Drive

The colours and formations on Artists Drive are amazing. There are 2 points on the drive where it is worth parking and walking closer to the rocks. The first one is a lay-by close to the start of the drive, and the second is the side road to Artist’s palette, where it is possible to walk amongst the pastel coloured rocks.

8^th Dec 2002

Titus Canyon

Titus Canyon is an impressive high walled canyon where cars can drive one way. The day I walked it, I walked 3 miles up the canyon without encountering a single car, and only saw 4 cars on the walk back down.

The first mile up the canyon is the most impressive, but further on where the canyon widens out there are some stunning rock strata that have been uplifted so much that the strata have bent over more than 90 degrees.

After the walk there were several other cars at the car park at the start of the canyon, but I never saw anyone else walking in the canyon, so everyone else must have been walking in nearby ???? canyon. Due to running out of time, I didn’t manage to do that canyon.

Ubehebe Crater

Ubehebe Crater is a massive 3000 year old volcanic crater that looks more like a meteorite impact crater.

Las Vegas

Drove from Death Valley to Las Vegas, and found a hotel in downtown, a few miles from the strip, the Lady Luck casino ($40). I didn’t realise that downtown is a separate area from the Strip (aka Las Vegas Boulevard), where all the famous hotels are. Downtown is still worth a look, just to see the Freemont street shopping arcade.

9^th Dec 2002

The next morning I checked out of the Lady Luck hotel and went looking for a hotel on the Strip. The difficulty with turning up on spec is that it is hard to find anywhere to park, so a better idea would be to phone a few hotels in advance to find a room. I inquired at the Monte Carlo and was quoted $60 at reception, but on telephoning the reservation desk, I was quoted $50.

The hotels on the Strip are very impressive in scale and tackiness, and worth looking around for a day. The Forum shops, adjoining Caesars Palace hotel are a good place to buy souvenirs and presents.

10^th Dec 2002

Left Las Vegas soon after dawn, and drove out to the Hoover Dam. It was not as big as I had thought it would be, but still an impressive engineering feat. Drove on to the Grand Canyon, and arrived at the South Rim in the mid afternoon.

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon information plaza is not accessible by car, and so is quite difficult to find on arrival. In fact the whole of the Grand Canyon Village seems to be poorly signposted and difficult to navigate.

Eventually found the information plaza, where I was directed to the Backcountry Office to reserve a camping space. The ranger there was very helpful, and suggested that I could try to book a place in a bunkhouse instead of camping. This sounded a very attractive option as it avoided the need to carry a tent or sleeping bag.

I enquired at Bright Angel Lodge, but there were no bunkhouse places available, and I was advised to try again the following morning.

Camping overnight at the campsite on the rim was extremely cold with a 2 seasons sleeping bag. Afterwards someone told me that the temperature had dropped to 18 degrees F.

11^th Dec 2002

I enquired at Bright Angel Lodge in the morning, and a place in the bunkhouse had become available. I think I was quite lucky, as people seem to book months in advance. (See http://www.nps.org/grca for details.) My contingency plan was to camp, which would have been quite pleasant, as the temperature at the bottom of the canyon was quite pleasant even at night.

There are express buses from Bright Angel Lodge to the start of the South Kaibab Trail at 8:00, 9:00 and 10:00, allowing walkers to park at or near Bright Angel Lodge, walk down the steeper South Kaibab Trail, and then ascend the more gradual Bright Angel Trail the next day. I took the 9:00 bus and started walking at 9:30.

After walking for about half an hour, I stopped to change the film in my camera, and was caught up by the lead group from a local walking club, the Prescott Hiking Club who had been on the bus. Jim, Chris and Bill were excellent walking companions for the remainder of the descent, walking at a decent pace, and having extensive knowledge of the canyon and its wildlife.

The “Black Bridge” crosses the Colorado river at the bottom of South Kaibab Trail. The 550 ft cables in the suspension bridge were carried down on the shoulders of teams of men.

We reached Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon at 12:20, and stopped outside the canteen for lunch. I bought and posted some postcards at the ranch, marked “delivered by mule”. There are no roads to the bottom of the canyon, so everything has to be transported up and down by mule.

Phantom Ranch is located in a very pleasant spot amongst cottonwood trees whose leaves were turning autumn colours.

After a rest at Phantom Ranch, I explored a few miles of the North Kaibab Trail. This trail follows a tributary of the Colorado which is quite modest in water volume, but even this has massive cliffs towering overhead on either side. I followed the trail until it widened out. Ultimately, this trail leads to the North rim of the Grand Canyon.

Back at Phantom Ranch soon before dusk, I checked in at the bunkhouse and was amazed to find it equipped with a toilet and a shower. There were even towels provided, as well as bedding. Stew dinner was at served at 6:30 in the canteen (there was also a steak option served at 5:00). The great thing about the stew option is that it is served in a large tureen at each table, so you can have second and third helpings. After a beer in the canteen after dinner, I had a good night’s sleep.

12^th Dec 2002

The first wake up call for breakfast is at 5:00, for people planning to ascend to the rim. I thought that was a bit excessive as dawn isn’t until 7:30. The next breakfast call is 7:00. I declined both options, and stayed in bed until 7:30, checkout time for the bunkhouses.

Before ascending to the rim, I had a short walk up Clear Creek Trail, which runs roughly parallel to the Colorado river for a couple of miles. It is worth walking up this trail for an hour, as there are some great views up and down the river.

Back at Phantom Ranch, I bought a souvenir tee shirt and at 10:00 started back to the rim up the Bright Angel Trail. I spotted a few deer on the ascent. About half way up is Indian Garden Campground – a very pleasant spot amongst more cottonwood trees turning colour. I stopped here for a short rest and to fill up a water bottle. A couple who had walked down from the rim told me that the water refill points higher up were shut off.

The ascent becomes much steeper above Indian Garden Campground, so I ploughed on and got to the rim at 14:10. I wanted to drive down to a sizeable town at lower altitude to avoid another freezing night camping at the rim. Drove to Barstow and found a motel. There are dozens to chooser from on historic route 66 as it goes through Barstow.

13^th Dec 2002

Los Angeles, Getty Centre

Drove into Los Angeles to visit the new Getty Centre and managed to get in without a reservation, I think partly due to having an English accent. The Getty Centre is well worth a day’s visit. As well as the art treasures, there are very pleasant gardens with stunning views over Los Angeles.

That evening I found a hotel on Santa Monica Boulevard, (fairly close to LA Airport),and walked along the Santa Monica pier and 3^rdStreet promenade – very similar in character to Covent Garden.

14^th Dec 2002

Back home to North West England, where the December weather was so gloomy it was difficult to tell when the sun had risen.