Death Valley National Park: Spring Break 2010
One month ago, my parents decided to plan out a trip Death Valley National Park to see all the wildflowers that would be in bloom due to the amount of rain we have gotten. I decided to take the opportunity to tag along, and make the trip a photography focused trip. We (my mom, dad, sister, and I) went to Death Valley National Park from March 16-19, 2010, during our spring break vacation. The trip did not turn out how I expected it, for it turned into a "see as much as you can" trip instead of a trip more focused on photography. After I calmed down from this disappointment on the second day, I really got to enjoy being in the national park. Got to see many wonderful things from a hidden canyon watershed, to very well preserved historical buildings/artifacts, to seeing a endangered species. In all, the trip went well, other than getting annoyed that the parents didn't do much research on the park, which made them less prepared during the trip. Also got annoyed about a few other things the parents did, but I wont waste your time complaining about that. Below are the details of our trip day by day, along with photographs of different things we saw.
Day 1
The day started out just as any other day that I have to travel. I woke up, officially packed because I always tend to wait till the last minute to do so, and pack up the car. My dad wanted to be on the road by 9 am. This didn't happen to be the case, for they seemed to just poke around, and fuss about every little detail. I think it was little extreme to turn off the water to the entire house, when our grandma might need the water to give to our cats. We got on the road finally around 10 am. We took my mom's Pacifica instead of my dad's dodge truck, which made my sister and I happy, for the Pacifica has way more leg room and is more comfortable. We drove up to Ridgecrest via the 395, and then drove through Trona to get to the Panamint Valley, which a portion of the valley is within Death Valley National Park. Before we got into the National Park, we decided to take a 3 mile dirt road to the other side of the valley to see the Ballarat Ghost Town.
Ballarat wasn't that big of a ghost town, there was a few old buildings, most of them fallen apart, and one building considered a jail that was the only building in good standing. Ballarat served as a supply point for travelers heading into the mountains for the Panamint City Gold Mine in the late 1800's and early 1900's. There happened to be a general store, which you could buy some food or a drink if needed. The store is ran by people who still live at Ballarat, in trailers in their so called campground next to the cemetery. You look around, and you see nothing for miles, throughout the entire Panamint Valley. My sister and I wasn't that impressed with Ballarat, and kinda made fun of how the one guy at the store talked. The think I found interesting in Ballarat, was the fact that the store guy claimed that a old Dodge Power Wagon that sits across the way was the vehicle of Charles Manson. Right away, my sister and I didn't believe him, and figured it was just something the guy says to keep people interested in the place. After getting home, I did some research, and it seems that Charles Manson and a gang of his killer friends hid south of Ballarat, in Baker Ranch, in the 60's, and left graffiti in Ballarat and his truck. There was evidence in that truck, which shows that it was truly Charles Manson's truck. After the parents bought some sodas to be nice to the store guy, which one can of soda costs 2 bucks, we got in the car, and headed back to the highway to get to the Panamint Springs Settlement.
We got inside the national park, and stopped at Panamint Springs Resort, which was were we stayed the first night. From how big it showed up on the map, i figured Panamint Springs was a small town, but when we got there, i realized it was just a hotel, a restaurant, a RV park, and a general store/gas station that was all together as one resort. I personally wouldn't have called this place a resort when we got there, but after seeing some other places on our trip, this was a resort. We check into our room, which was part of a cabin of three rooms, and prepared to head out to go on a hiking trip to Darwin Falls. Our room had three beds, a bathroom, and sinks. No TV or alarm clock or radio. Sure the bathroom door wouldn't shut, and it was hard to open the door with the key, but it was a nice hotel room. There was also no cell service, and later on we figure out that we wont have cell service for most of the trip. One thing that was impressive, was there was free wireless internet. It wasn't the fastest since it was satellite internet, but it was great to have some connection to the outside world.
We hit the road to set out to hike to Darwin Falls. What should have been a 15 minute drive turned into a hour drive, all because my mom didn't know how to read the park map. We drove all the way out to a very small town, that almost looked like a ghost town, of Darwin, outside of the national park. From that town, we could drive to the parking spot for the falls, but it was a 4 wheel drive road only. When we got into Darwin, I knew she read the map wrong because we shouldn't have left the national park. She didn't see the dirt road to the falls that was just a mile from were our hotel was. We had to drive 20 miles back to were we came to go on the dirt road. When we finally get to the parking lot, it was somewere between 6:00 and 6:15. I was getting worried that we wouldn't make it since the sun set at 6:57 pm. We start our hike, and soon my dad stops to take photos of things that really wasn't all that great. My sister and I decided to keep going, and let my mom and dad fall behind. Most of the hiking trail was flat with a small incline in elevation, taking us deep inside a canyon of the Panamint Mountains. About 2/3's into the hiking trail, the view changed from a dry brown desert to a lush green watershed with a small creek. We had to climb over some big rocks and balance ourselves many times on logs to keep us dry as we passed over the creek. At the end of the hiking trail, you came to a small waterfall that comes from the snow melt at the top of the mountains. We got to the falls at 6:40 pm. My dad finally caught up, and told us my mom couldn't handle the climbing on the rocks, so she stayed behind. I was glad we did the hike, even though it was getting dark due to the sun setting, because it was very beautiful. We also had a special treat to see bats flying around, eating bugs surrounding us. There is a small cave next to the falls, and I believe that was were they were coming from, which was just amazing. Never been that close to bats. We left the falls at 6:51 pm, and hiked back to the car. It was just about dark when we got back. It took us 45 minutes to get back to Panamint Springs. This small trip to Darwin Falls was my favorite thing on this entire trip, and I highly recommend that anyone that goes to Death Valley, should stop to take this two mile hike total trip to see these falls.
When we got back to Panamint Springs, we ate at the restaurant. This place was expensive, and it took a bit longer than most places to get our food, but it was the best food we had the entire trip. The people who run the restaurant were very friendly, and all the food was handmade right there, from their bread to there sauce they used on the pasta. We ate outside, enjoying the cool desert night. Everything was pitch black, nothing for miles on end. I have been to many dark places were I could see tons of stars, but I don't think I have seen as many stars as I did that night. It was truly amazing. Near the end of our meal, we could even hear a very small group of coyotes in the far distances howling into the dark night. After dinner, I really wanted to try out a star trail photograph, but my dad just wanted to sleep, and they didn't trust me enough to take my moms car to the middle of nowhere to take the photograph.
Day 2
We slowly woke up to the warm desert sun, and went to eat breakfast at the restaurant. After breakfast, we headed out on the road for a full day of adventure in Death Valley. We first drove up into the Panamint Mountains, on a very small two lane road through the Emigrant Canyon, then to Nemo Canyon, which lead us to the Wildrose Canyon to see some historical charcoal kilns. These ten charcoal kilns were used to make charcoal that would be used in Silver mines down the mountain. They only were in operation for three years before shutting down due to the mine shutting down. These are the most well preserved kilns in the entire United States. I turned on my GPS unit to see what elevation they were located at, which was at 6,907 feet above sea level. Seeing the kilns were cool, but was made me more excited was seeing all the snow in the mountains, and at the kilns. Yes, snow in Death Valley National Park. Who would of thought of that. I found some snow untouched and decided to have a small bit of the pure snow. It felt good to be in a cooler location. Was the coolest temperature we experienced during the day time in the national park. The one thing I wish i was able to enjoy while at the Kilns was some lovely piece and quite, but there were some elderly people who kept yelling at each other while we were there, so that didn't make it as enjoyable as I would of liked. I did like seeing way far off in the distance the Sierra Nevada Mountains, with Mt. Whitney, fully covered with snow. It was a great view. Everyone but my mom explored the Kilns. She stayed in the car, because she didn't want to get her shoes muddy from the snow melt on the road.
We drove back down the few canyons, and officially drove into Death Valley. We stopped at Stovepipe to check out the gift shops, and to pay our entrance fee. Learned at the ranger station that The Racetrack was closed. Heading that put me in a bad mood, because that was one of the places I was hoping to be out near sunset to get a perfect photograph. Just outside of Stovepipe is the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, which we looked at from the parking lot. This was another spot I was hoping to be around sunset for another great photograph opportunity. Would of hiked to the top of the dunes. Lets just say the parents thought we should move on because of time, and claimed these sand dunes weren't that great. At this time, I got really pissed, and realized that I made the mistake of thinking that I would be able to focus on photography on this trip. All of my visions I had for my photographs are at low light with shadows and yellow and orange coloring from the sun. I would have to do that at sun rise or sun set. I mentioned to my parents I wanted to be out at these places at those times, and they just claimed we didn't have the time. The rest of the day, I was in a very upset type of mood, and almost a pissed off mood towards my parents. More so with my dad, for he is always taking photos of everything, and I figured he would make the effort to be out to get a perfect shot, but with this trip, it didn't seem to be that way.
From the parking lot, we headed down to Furnace Creek. On the way, we stopped at a old borax mine ruins, which I wasn't too happy with seeing, but yet again, I was in a very bad mood. We took a small drive through a small canyon on a dirt road before heading back to the main road. When we got to Furnace Creek, we stopped at the Death Valley Visitor Center/ Museum to get more information about the park and look around. At that point, we were around 190 feet below sea level. Also noticed that the temperature was 95 degrees. This was around 4:00 pm. A big change from the charcoal Kilns. Afterwards we stopped off at Furnace Creek Ranch in a hopes to get some cold ice tea. They didn't have any normal ice tea at the store. They had all the different kinds of teas that were jam packed with surgar, but no regular ice tea. It was another added disappointment into the day. By this time, I just wanted to head over to the hotel and call it a day. I convinced my parents to head up to the next place we stayed at. Motel 6 in Beatty, Nevada. One more thing that added to my very bad mood was the very crappy music my parents were listening to from Furnace Creek to Beatty. Im not sure who it was, but man, it was a female artist who sounded like she was whining the entire time and not even trying to singing. Tried to drown it out with my ipod, but it didn't work.
One thing we wanted to see, planed to see it first thing in the morning, was Rhyolite Ghost Town, just outside of Beatty. We happened to see the signs for it as we got close to Beatty, and decided to see it this day instead of the next morning. It was at sunset, and no one was out there. This was one of the locations that the movie, The Island, was filmed at, which made things exciting for me to see. I do admit that Rhyolite was way better than Ballarat, but compared to other ghost towns I have seen, for example Bodie Ghost Town, this place sucked. The buildings were more out of cement and not old wood. To me, the old wooded buildings are just more beautiful to look at compared to these half standing cement ones. It was harder to take photographs of the old buildings because everything had signs saying do not enter, and had fences around it. We took photos, and then left to go check into the hotel. I do say, if you are in the area, you should visit the ghost town, but this will probably be the first and only time you would want to see this place. If you havn't, i recommend going to Bodie instead. On our way out, we stopped off at the cemetery. It was quite interesting, because there was a person buried their who died in WWII, and another person who died in 1991. I looked at the year that the person was born, and it was in the early 1900's. If i had to guess, i figured that person was born here in Rhyolite when it was a blooming gold town.
We got to the motel, and we then went to eat dinner. Beatty was a small town, and lots of the places, you didn't feel safe to go eat or visit. There was a casino two buildings away from the motel, and we decided that would be the best place to eat dinner. The food was alright, but my one eye was having some type of allergy reaction due to the cigarette smoke from the casino. Was added to the list towards my very upsetting mood at this point. During dinner, I was talking to the parents, and my dad agreed that we should try out some star trail photos that night. We decided we should do it on the same road that Rhyolite was, and point the cameras towards Death Valley, were there would be no lights to ruin the photos. We got to the hotel, I prepared my camera equipment, and my dad, sister, and I headed out to the spot. My mom stayed behind because she was tired.
Preparing the camera equipment put me into my zone, and took me out of my disappointed/ upset mood I have had all day. We got to the spot, and set up our camera equipment. We got out there around 9:05 pm. I got a little worried that these photos wouldn't turn out, because we noticed that near the town was a light house type thing for the local airport, and it was lighting up the landscape as it passed by. I decided to point the camera fully in the sky, so it wouldn't effect the shots. Worked on 15 and 30 minute exposures while also helping my dad out with his star trails. Near the beginning of the shoot, a car turned onto the road we were on, and made us mad that we had to stop the exposures or the headlights would ruin the shots. It turned out to be a Nevada State Trooper going up to Rhyolite to make sure no one was up at the Ghost Town since it is a Day Use only site. He slowed down, noticed we had cameras, and just said good evening, and went on up to Rhyolite. We would be out their in the darkness till 11:05 when my dad got tired. I got some great results, and couldn't wait till the next night to put everything I did into a long hour exposure to get what I visioned to be for my star trail photograph. While my sister and I was waiting for my dad to finish up his last exposure, we played with flash lights and time exposure photography. It was some fun trying different things, and it brightened me up from a long day of being upset. Went back to the motel and went to sleep.
Day 3
The original plan, in my dad's eye, was to wake up early, eat a fast breakfast, and be on the road by 8 am to get to Scotty's Castle before tickets for the day sold out. That wasn't the case. My parents took a long time to get ready in the morning. They woke up early, but they just moved real slow. We went to eat breakfast, at the same restaurant at the casino, around 8:15 ish. The food was ok again. Just wasn't awesome like what the food was in Panamint Springs. This time, the smoke didn't effect me like it did the night before. Kinda strange. We got on the road at 9:30, and headed to Scotty's Castle, just a short 75 miles away. When we got there, noticed it was going to be a nice day today. Went to purchase the tickets. I noticed on the window, the road closures, and realized that they were going to open the road to The Racetrack would open after 4 pm the next day. It made me a little pissed because it was opening the day we were leaving. Made my dad kinda mad to, but oh well. I didn't let that get to me, because at this point, I didn't want to be in that upset mood the rest of the trip.
Our first tour was at 10:50 am, and that was the tour of the main house. I have to say, it was very impressive. I didn't have high expectations for this place since I have been to Hearst Castle, which was huge. The person who owned Hearst Castle might have had more money, but what made Scotty's Castle stand out compared to Hearst Castle was the technology used at Scotty's Castle. The engineering for all the pluming and electricity was just amazing. I wont go into details since this blog is long enough as is, but I highly recommend planning a trip to see Scotty's Castle. The story behind is alone has many layers and things that I didn't expect to hear. After the house tour, we chilled around for a while outside, waiting for our second tour to happen, which was the underground tour. I started to notice a small wind has picked up outside and small puffy clouds were in the sky. The underground tour was even more amazing, going through underground tunnels on the property, and seeing how they produced power for the house, and seeing all the artifacts in the tunnels that were supposed to be used to finish building the house. Yes, the house is incomplete.
After the underground tour, we had a pick nick lunch with Tuna Salad Sandwiches. The wind began to blow harder and more clouds began to show up, but at the time, nothing worth worrying about. We headed back down to Furnace Creek to fuel up and have a pit stop, then headed down to the Badwater Basin. By the time we got to the Badwater Basin, the wind had stopped, but very dark rain clouds were over the Panamint Mountains. At this time, we were at the lowest point in the western hemisphere, 282 ft below sea level. We walked on out to the salt flats. My sister and I took a smaller path form the main path, mainly because I didn't want to go to a place were tons of people would be. I had my camera and tripod with me. We got out to the salt plats, and it was still wet. We were walking, and the salt layer was too weak to hold our weight, so we would go sinking into a wet muddy layer below the salt layer. We continued walking out some more before stopping due to actual water puddles that were above the salt layer. I set up my camera and tripod, and began taking photographs of the snow capped mountains and the dark cloudy skys. By this time, the clouds have covered the entire sky, making it very dark. I was worried that it would start raining, and I would have to run back 1/2 a mile to the car with my camera so it won't get too wet. i didn't have anything to cover it with. I went back into my zone while I was taking photographs. The time began to just pass by.
Near the end of me taking photos. The wind picked up, and began to blow super hard. To the northwest, I noticed it looked like it was pouring rain over the stovepipe to Panamint Springs area. I decided it was time to get out of there. While walking back to the car, rain drops began to fall, and I started rushing back to the car. Made a quick stop at the badwater sign to take a photo of me there, then continued on to the car. By the time I got to the car, you couldn't see the snow on the top of the mountains, it was covered with rain clouds, and the wind was going crazy. It was in the late afternoon, and it was time to move on to our third hotel for the night. On the way back to Furnace Creek, we drove through Artist Drive, and looked at the Artist Pallet. I wasn't too happy the parents decided to go on that one way road through a canyon because of the rain. It gave it a chance of us being flooded out if it started pouring on us. We were lucky and was fine. Artist Pallet was a collection of hills and canyon walls with tons of different colors. Kinda reminded me of Spumoni ice cream. We got into Furnace Creek, and from their headed out of Death Valley, to go to Death Valley Junction, to stay at the Amargosa Opera House. I got real disappointed because this night was supposed to be my official star trail photograph taking, with a real long exposure, and well composed photograph. But the storm covered up the sky, and I was unable to take star trails that night.
We got there when it was dark. Parents checked into the hotel, then we rushed over to the cafe before it closed. It was the only food for 40 miles in any direction. The food was normal food. Nothing impressive. After dinner, went into the hotel room. Lets just say it was the worst place we have stayed at. Very old school room. I had to sleep on a roll away bed. Cracks all over the wall. The carpet must of been the original carpet from the 1920s when this place was built. Nothing on the walls, it was plane. Of course, with the storm, there was nothing to do out there. No TV, no internet, and very little cell service. My sister and I sat there bored to death. I remembered that I brought some UNO cards, so my sister and I started to play a few games, then my mom joined in on the games. We played till around 1030, then went to be.
Day 4
Didn't sleep real well. I woke up with bug bits all over my arms and legs. It sucked. Had breakfast at the same restaurant. It was ok food again. Then we left the hotel to do some last minute things before heading home. Before heading back to Death Valley, I convinced my parents to take a side trip to the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. There, the national park service owns a small part of land called Devil's Hole. It is a access point to a underground cave system filled fully with water. There is a special species of fish, called Desert Pupfish, that live in that water cave. These are specific Desert Pupfish that you can only find at Devils Hole. It was cool to see, but couldn't see any of the fish, which was expected. You can find programs about Devil's hole on the discovery channel at times. These fish are slowly disappearing and scientists don't know why, so they have been doing some extensive studying as to what is happening to their environment.
After Devil's Hole, we stopped at the Refuge headquarters to learn about this place. We learned that at the point of rocks, is a pool full of desert pupfish that you can see swimming around. We drove passed it on the way in, since we though it was just a pile of rocks or something. There was also a spring called Crystal Spring near the headquaters that we walked to. This spring produces around 180 gallons of water per second. There were mosquito fish in this spring and river, but we couldn't see any pup fish. We headed back to the point of rocks, and walked over to the King Pool to see about a hundred blue desert pupfish swimming around. It was amazing to watch and see these fish, for these fish are very endangered, and I have only seen them at The Living Desert Zoo in Palm Desert. While I was at the King Pool. I noticed that my rubber eye piece for my Nikon camera was missing. I looked all over for it and had no luck. I figured it must of fell off at Devil's Hole somewhere. I decided to leave it and I will have to order a new one. We were there for about 30 minutes before heading back to the car and driving on back into Death Valley.
We stopped at Furnace Creek to get some gas and my parents got some more disappointing sugar loaded tea. We ate a quick lunch, and headed south. Today the skies were super clear. I kinda missed the cloud covered skies. As we drove passed Badwater, I noticed that the basin has a lot more water than the day before, which means they got a good amount of rain the night before. We kept driving, and decided it was getting late, so we didn't stop anywhere else in the park, and slowly headed home. We stopped in Shoshone to look at a museum, then continued down to Baker. Got on the 15 freeway, and headed home. We stopped at Barstow to have dinner at Denny's, then continued on home. Got home about 9:00 pm.
This trip at first didn't meet my expectations, but after I got over it, it was a nice four day trip. The desert has so much to offer, and this is one place that has a lot to see. In the future, i hope to return to Death Valley, to focus more on my photography rather than anything else. We didn't see really any wildflowers, for they normally don't show up till the middle of April.
Day 1
The day started out just as any other day that I have to travel. I woke up, officially packed because I always tend to wait till the last minute to do so, and pack up the car. My dad wanted to be on the road by 9 am. This didn't happen to be the case, for they seemed to just poke around, and fuss about every little detail. I think it was little extreme to turn off the water to the entire house, when our grandma might need the water to give to our cats. We got on the road finally around 10 am. We took my mom's Pacifica instead of my dad's dodge truck, which made my sister and I happy, for the Pacifica has way more leg room and is more comfortable. We drove up to Ridgecrest via the 395, and then drove through Trona to get to the Panamint Valley, which a portion of the valley is within Death Valley National Park. Before we got into the National Park, we decided to take a 3 mile dirt road to the other side of the valley to see the Ballarat Ghost Town.
Ballarat wasn't that big of a ghost town, there was a few old buildings, most of them fallen apart, and one building considered a jail that was the only building in good standing. Ballarat served as a supply point for travelers heading into the mountains for the Panamint City Gold Mine in the late 1800's and early 1900's. There happened to be a general store, which you could buy some food or a drink if needed. The store is ran by people who still live at Ballarat, in trailers in their so called campground next to the cemetery. You look around, and you see nothing for miles, throughout the entire Panamint Valley. My sister and I wasn't that impressed with Ballarat, and kinda made fun of how the one guy at the store talked. The think I found interesting in Ballarat, was the fact that the store guy claimed that a old Dodge Power Wagon that sits across the way was the vehicle of Charles Manson. Right away, my sister and I didn't believe him, and figured it was just something the guy says to keep people interested in the place. After getting home, I did some research, and it seems that Charles Manson and a gang of his killer friends hid south of Ballarat, in Baker Ranch, in the 60's, and left graffiti in Ballarat and his truck. There was evidence in that truck, which shows that it was truly Charles Manson's truck. After the parents bought some sodas to be nice to the store guy, which one can of soda costs 2 bucks, we got in the car, and headed back to the highway to get to the Panamint Springs Settlement.We got inside the national park, and stopped at Panamint Springs Resort, which was were we stayed the first night. From how big it showed up on the map, i figured Panamint Springs was a small town, but when we got there, i realized it was just a hotel, a restaurant, a RV park, and a general store/gas station that was all together as one resort. I personally wouldn't have called this place a resort when we got there, but after seeing some other places on our trip, this was a resort. We check into our room, which was part of a cabin of three rooms, and prepared to head out to go on a hiking trip to Darwin Falls. Our room had three beds, a bathroom, and sinks. No TV or alarm clock or radio. Sure the bathroom door wouldn't shut, and it was hard to open the door with the key, but it was a nice hotel room. There was also no cell service, and later on we figure out that we wont have cell service for most of the trip. One thing that was impressive, was there was free wireless internet. It wasn't the fastest since it was satellite internet, but it was great to have some connection to the outside world.
We hit the road to set out to hike to Darwin Falls. What should have been a 15 minute drive turned into a hour drive, all because my mom didn't know how to read the park map. We drove all the way out to a very small town, that almost looked like a ghost town, of Darwin, outside of the national park. From that town, we could drive to the parking spot for the falls, but it was a 4 wheel drive road only. When we got into Darwin, I knew she read the map wrong because we shouldn't have left the national park. She didn't see the dirt road to the falls that was just a mile from were our hotel was. We had to drive 20 miles back to were we came to go on the dirt road. When we finally get to the parking lot, it was somewere between 6:00 and 6:15. I was getting worried that we wouldn't make it since the sun set at 6:57 pm. We start our hike, and soon my dad stops to take photos of things that really wasn't all that great. My sister and I decided to keep going, and let my mom and dad fall behind. Most of the hiking trail was flat with a small incline in elevation, taking us deep inside a canyon of the Panamint Mountains. About 2/3's into the hiking trail, the view changed from a dry brown desert to a lush green watershed with a small creek. We had to climb over some big rocks and balance ourselves many times on logs to keep us dry as we passed over the creek. At the end of the hiking trail, you came to a small waterfall that comes from the snow melt at the top of the mountains. We got to the falls at 6:40 pm. My dad finally caught up, and told us my mom couldn't handle the climbing on the rocks, so she stayed behind. I was glad we did the hike, even though it was getting dark due to the sun setting, because it was very beautiful. We also had a special treat to see bats flying around, eating bugs surrounding us. There is a small cave next to the falls, and I believe that was were they were coming from, which was just amazing. Never been that close to bats. We left the falls at 6:51 pm, and hiked back to the car. It was just about dark when we got back. It took us 45 minutes to get back to Panamint Springs. This small trip to Darwin Falls was my favorite thing on this entire trip, and I highly recommend that anyone that goes to Death Valley, should stop to take this two mile hike total trip to see these falls.When we got back to Panamint Springs, we ate at the restaurant. This place was expensive, and it took a bit longer than most places to get our food, but it was the best food we had the entire trip. The people who run the restaurant were very friendly, and all the food was handmade right there, from their bread to there sauce they used on the pasta. We ate outside, enjoying the cool desert night. Everything was pitch black, nothing for miles on end. I have been to many dark places were I could see tons of stars, but I don't think I have seen as many stars as I did that night. It was truly amazing. Near the end of our meal, we could even hear a very small group of coyotes in the far distances howling into the dark night. After dinner, I really wanted to try out a star trail photograph, but my dad just wanted to sleep, and they didn't trust me enough to take my moms car to the middle of nowhere to take the photograph.
Day 2
Day 3
The original plan, in my dad's eye, was to wake up early, eat a fast breakfast, and be on the road by 8 am to get to Scotty's Castle before tickets for the day sold out. That wasn't the case. My parents took a long time to get ready in the morning. They woke up early, but they just moved real slow. We went to eat breakfast, at the same restaurant at the casino, around 8:15 ish. The food was ok again. Just wasn't awesome like what the food was in Panamint Springs. This time, the smoke didn't effect me like it did the night before. Kinda strange. We got on the road at 9:30, and headed to Scotty's Castle, just a short 75 miles away. When we got there, noticed it was going to be a nice day today. Went to purchase the tickets. I noticed on the window, the road closures, and realized that they were going to open the road to The Racetrack would open after 4 pm the next day. It made me a little pissed because it was opening the day we were leaving. Made my dad kinda mad to, but oh well. I didn't let that get to me, because at this point, I didn't want to be in that upset mood the rest of the trip.
Near the end of me taking photos. The wind picked up, and began to blow super hard. To the northwest, I noticed it looked like it was pouring rain over the stovepipe to Panamint Springs area. I decided it was time to get out of there. While walking back to the car, rain drops began to fall, and I started rushing back to the car. Made a quick stop at the badwater sign to take a photo of me there, then continued on to the car. By the time I got to the car, you couldn't see the snow on the top of the mountains, it was covered with rain clouds, and the wind was going crazy. It was in the late afternoon, and it was time to move on to our third hotel for the night. On the way back to Furnace Creek, we drove through Artist Drive, and looked at the Artist Pallet. I wasn't too happy the parents decided to go on that one way road through a canyon because of the rain. It gave it a chance of us being flooded out if it started pouring on us. We were lucky and was fine. Artist Pallet was a collection of hills and canyon walls with tons of different colors. Kinda reminded me of Spumoni ice cream. We got into Furnace Creek, and from their headed out of Death Valley, to go to Death Valley Junction, to stay at the Amargosa Opera House. I got real disappointed because this night was supposed to be my official star trail photograph taking, with a real long exposure, and well composed photograph. But the storm covered up the sky, and I was unable to take star trails that night.
Day 4
Didn't sleep real well. I woke up with bug bits all over my arms and legs. It sucked. Had breakfast at the same restaurant. It was ok food again. Then we left the hotel to do some last minute things before heading home. Before heading back to Death Valley, I convinced my parents to take a side trip to the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. There, the national park service owns a small part of land called Devil's Hole. It is a access point to a underground cave system filled fully with water. There is a special species of fish, called Desert Pupfish, that live in that water cave. These are specific Desert Pupfish that you can only find at Devils Hole. It was cool to see, but couldn't see any of the fish, which was expected. You can find programs about Devil's hole on the discovery channel at times. These fish are slowly disappearing and scientists don't know why, so they have been doing some extensive studying as to what is happening to their environment.
After Devil's Hole, we stopped at the Refuge headquarters to learn about this place. We learned that at the point of rocks, is a pool full of desert pupfish that you can see swimming around. We drove passed it on the way in, since we though it was just a pile of rocks or something. There was also a spring called Crystal Spring near the headquaters that we walked to. This spring produces around 180 gallons of water per second. There were mosquito fish in this spring and river, but we couldn't see any pup fish. We headed back to the point of rocks, and walked over to the King Pool to see about a hundred blue desert pupfish swimming around. It was amazing to watch and see these fish, for these fish are very endangered, and I have only seen them at The Living Desert Zoo in Palm Desert. While I was at the King Pool. I noticed that my rubber eye piece for my Nikon camera was missing. I looked all over for it and had no luck. I figured it must of fell off at Devil's Hole somewhere. I decided to leave it and I will have to order a new one. We were there for about 30 minutes before heading back to the car and driving on back into Death Valley.
We stopped at Furnace Creek to get some gas and my parents got some more disappointing sugar loaded tea. We ate a quick lunch, and headed south. Today the skies were super clear. I kinda missed the cloud covered skies. As we drove passed Badwater, I noticed that the basin has a lot more water than the day before, which means they got a good amount of rain the night before. We kept driving, and decided it was getting late, so we didn't stop anywhere else in the park, and slowly headed home. We stopped in Shoshone to look at a museum, then continued down to Baker. Got on the 15 freeway, and headed home. We stopped at Barstow to have dinner at Denny's, then continued on home. Got home about 9:00 pm.
This trip at first didn't meet my expectations, but after I got over it, it was a nice four day trip. The desert has so much to offer, and this is one place that has a lot to see. In the future, i hope to return to Death Valley, to focus more on my photography rather than anything else. We didn't see really any wildflowers, for they normally don't show up till the middle of April.
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