Hello! Long time no post! Once again I have succumbed to the hustle and bustle of everyday life and have had a hard time finding time to make a post. It's been a big mix of being extremely busy with work and keeping busy with my hobbies.
This winter has been an odd one. We had a harsh cold November, a brown Xmas, a mild January, a February for the record books (both in cold and snow) and now a cold and snowy start to March. Kayaking lasted until January when the river closed up. Superior is still open in places but the air temperatures have been way to cold to get out there. As of today Superior is nearly 90% frozen over which is rare as the last time it froze over was 1999! I'm hoping sometime in March the river will open up and I will be able to make it up to Lake Superior for some late winter/early spring kayaking.
I did get the opportunity to enjoy the winter a bit through a couple of trips up north. One was to Minnesota's north shore and the other was up across the border to Thunder Bay. Both were picture perfect winter wonderland trips and I hope to make a post about them before spring really hits. With somewhere between 2.5ft-3 ft of snow currently still on the ground and subzero temperatures as I write this it could be a while before spring comes!
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| High Falls of the Pidgeon River, Grand Portage State Park, MN |
Despite having some fun escapes from the twin cities, my favorite part of this winter so far was having the opportunity to escape to the Desert Southwest. I flew into to Vegas en route to Death Valley National Park with my buddy from NYC Jesse.
Our first day got to a slightly late start so we decided to check out the "Touristy" sights at Death Valley. Most of these are right along the roadside or a short hike from the road. They are a bit more crowded than we care for but they are well worth seeing as they are quite unique. Our first stop was to "Artists Drive" this area has some very colorful rock formations which almost seem to be painted into the hills. We stopped for a quick hike at the Artists Pallete area.
I really found the blue rocks to be quite striking as the shade of blue is not one I've ever seen naturally occurring in rocks.
Our next stop led us to the "Devils Golf Course". This area is in one of the low basin's in Death Valley. This particular area is actually below sea level throughout most of it. Exposed in these areas are some really unique salt formations which are unlike many other landscapes.
Walking through this area was quite challenging as the Salt Deposits are very hard and sharp in many spots. The more delicate features on the top however are very fragile. So while walking about we tried stepping around the salt deposits as much as possible. The further from the parking area we walked the more interesting the formations became (most likely due to less human impact).
This same idea held true at the Badwater Basin area. This part of Death Valley National Park is the location of the lowest point in North America clocking in at 282 feet BELOW sea level. One of the comical things of this situation is that they put a sign high on the hill nearby showing where sea level actually is. Again the salt formations are the highlight here.
The vastness of the scenery is one of the more striking features. These strange landforms seem to go on forever until they finally give way to the mountains.
Above is the obligatory below sea level sign picture. Below shows some of the extremely delicate salt formations further away from the parking area. You'd almost think it was snow but it is actually very intricate salt crystal formations.
This completed our series of tourist stops and we headed North to the Mesquite Sand Dunes where we were to make camp for the night. One of the nice things about Death Valley National Park is that they have a pretty open camping situation. In most scenarios camping is legal as long as you are a mile away from roads. There is even car camping right beside some of the quieter dirt roads as well. In the morning we were greeted with a beautiful sunrise and a bluebird start to the day.
Having heard there was a potential for weather moving in we decided to check in one more time with the Visitor Center to see if the weather was looking favorable for our backpacking. We talked to one Ranger who was very persistent trying to dissuade us from going. Upon weighing our options we wound up talking to a different Ranger who was able to find a more accurate weather assessment which made it look much better for us. Hearing this we decided to set off an a 2 night 3 day backpacking trip that would be the highlight of our Trip.
The route has Jesse and I starting at nearly sea level. Our plan was to start hiking up Fall and make a camp in Upper Fall Canyon (~5000ft). From there we planned to climb the east ridge of Mt Palmer directly up to the summit (~8000ft). From the summit we will find a way down into Redwall Canyon which we hike back out to the open desert. Once there we travel a few miles across the open desert and the Alluvial fans back to our parking area.
Overall we were excited and optimistic about the trip. We had a decent weather window despite some cold night time lows and we had a good handle on some of the difficulties that would face us in the canyons.
Fall Canyon started off beautifully with a loose gravelly canyon bottom and soaring canyon walls.
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Soon we started running into some of the difficulties we had heard about in this Canyon. A common obstacle one comes across in desert canyons is dry waterfalls (dryfalls). These either need to be bypassed or climbed to continue down or up the Canyon. We had a number of these ranging from small to 25 feet high that we had to negotiate. Most were fairly easy but a few had some interesting climbing needed to get around. |
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Above: Jesse climbing through the Bypass around the 1st dryfall |
The narrows soon led to our biggest dryfall for the day. Jesse is awaiting below as we are getting a rope set up to haul packs above the dryfall so we can climb freely without them.
This was our last major obstacle for the day before finding a place to camp. This first day wound up feeling like a long one. Our packs were quite heavy due to needing to carry 2 gallons of water per person for this trip. Water alone clocked in at 16 pounds per person which made for quite a slog on day 1 with our full load of food and water. We set up camp on a bench just below the east Ridge of Mount Palmer and just above the canyon floor. The night was quite cold and we went to sleep to flurries and awoke to snow capped mountain tops and frozen ground at our elevation. The scene in the morning was quite gloomy.
This changed rather quickly and it looked like we may be in store for a beautiful day moving forward.
So we broke camp and begun ascending the East ridge of Palmer. This was a bit of a gamble as we didn't know for sure the route was going to be possible. Based on the topo maps it looked doable but there was little information about climbing Palmer from Fall Canyon so we were heading into the unknown.
The initial climb went well and the views kept getting better and better as we ascended.
Finally after climbing a while we got our first glimpse of Mount Palmer from the ridge we had been climbing. My heart sunk a little with that first glimpse because now I had finally seen just how rugged the east face was. I knew the route finding wouldn't be easy but at this point I was just really hoping we would find some reasonable route up this mountain without having to do any sketchy climbing.
So despite the serious looking nature of the east face we continued up the ridge and hoped we would find bypasses to the cliffs looming in the distance.
Though we knew we had achieved a great accomplishment summiting Palmer we also knew we still needed to make our way down to Redwall canyon which was still something like 3000 feet below us. Again there was little detail on the particulars of the route so we made a decision to descend directly to a side canyon which would lead to Redwall canyon proper. This was also a gamble because there was a potential we could get "cliffed out" on the way down have to either do sketchy down climbing, find a convoluted bypass, or backtrack.
Pretty soon after we started the difficulties started. We encountered a number of small cliffs that we were able to bypass. Often we could see a short way down the slope and the earth would appear to drop sharply beyond our sight line. So on the way down we would have to find a high point to scout our options and choose the safest way to proceed to avoid the steepest stuff. Jesse can be seen scouting the route in the picture below.
Below: The views behind us, looking back up towards Palmer, were consistently good on the way down.
Despite all the route finding difficulties and the loose terrain we were able to safely make it down to Redwall with only a few short climbs and safe bypasses around the sketchy stuff. If I were to do it again I would definitely consider hiking the main ridge on Palmer North and descend closer to the head of Upper Redwall but this way is much more direct and the route finding, though time consuming, wasn't the worst.
With daylight waning we made our way down Redwall and started looking for a campsite.
After breaking camp we started making our way down Redwall Canyon. We were looking forward to seeing the colorful red rock and the narrows which Redwall is known for. Below Jesse is making his way through the more open upper Redwall Canyon.
Below is the first narrows we hit in Redwall
Below is a short dryfall we had to climb down
Redwall overall was quite the pleasant experience. It was much more colorful than Fall Canyon and was much easier as well. The only major difficulty was the final 25' dryfall (shown above). Luckily we had heard that there was a reliable rope setup at the fall which could be used to make climbing it much safer. Upon inspecting the integrity of the anchor and rope we decided to trust it and safely made it down. Below is a shot at the mouth of Redwall.
Not far beyond this we made it out to the open desert and took one last look at the Mouth of Redwall Canyon (seen below).
The next few miles was through the open desert and back to our parking lot. This seemed like it would be easy, a little up and down, but nothing to crazy. We however had to cross Alluvial fans en route to the parking lot. Alluvial fans are basically dry river deltas, so when traversing one of these landforms you are constantly go in and out dry washes. This makes for a lot of up and down on loose rock. So our apparently flat and easy hike was actually far from it.
The Racetrack is a famous part of Death Valley for a few reasons. Getting there is extremely difficult. One must travel miles on terrible dirt roads to reach the Racetrack. The washboard in the valley is some of the worst I have ever encountered. Even at 15mph the Jeep was shaking to the extreme and moving heavily from side to side on the bigger bumps. There are also many rocky sections which have notoriously sharp rocks. We were thankful our vehicle had a full size spare and we knew how to use it.
Despite the difficult driving we were able to safely make it to the Racetrack Valley and we set up camp in the designated area just south of the Playa. The morning lighting from our camp was gorgeous!
After breaking camp we headed to the Playa (dry lake bed) to check out the most famous feature of the Racetrack. Rock from the surrounding cliffs fall onto the lake bed and when conditions are right (windy and wet/icy) the rocks actually move across the ground. Their tracks can be seen throughout the Playa (mostly on the south end) and the rocks appear to be racing one another across the lake bed.
Words can hardly describe the surreal nature of the Scenery. It truly feels like an alien world. The vastness of the scenery, and the stark landscape are something that one has to see firsthand to truly understand. Having thoroughly enjoyed the Playa we moved the car further north and started a hike up Ubehebe Mountain. This peak has a decent trail up and promises spectacular views of both the Racetrack Valley and the Saline Valley to the west. Our first glimpse of the mountain are seen below.
Below: We are traversing the rugged ridge between the false summit and the true summit
Below: a nice section of trail on the way up.
Below: Summit Register
Below: The view west of the Saline Valley and the Inyo Mountains
After descending the mountain we checked out the odd rock formation in the Playa known as the "Grandstand". If you look at the photos above of the Racetrack valley there a small area of rock protruding from the Playa and this is the Grandstand.
Below: the view looking down from the highpoint
After weighing our options we decided to head back to Vegas and spend the rest of the trip hiking in the Vegas area. On the way out we did make a quick stop at Ubehebe Crater which is a striking volcanic crater.
Once back in Vegas we decided that our next hike would take us to the Muddy Mountains near Valley of Fire State Park. We planned to climb Muddy Mountain which was touted as a strenuous climb to a beautiful summit. Upon getting close to the turnoff for Muddy Mountain we realized that the dirt road, and the mountains were all snow covered. Not wanting to get stuck en route or have problems climbing the steep parts of the mountain in the snow we decided to head to lower elevations of Valley of Fire. Valley of Fire is a spectacular outcrop of red sandstone. The sandstone forms short canyons and is quite maze like. We decided to go on the short "Mouses Tank" trail and then go off trail from there and explore the sandstone maze. On the trail there were many beautiful Petroglyphs.
The scenery here was varied and beautiful. We never really had a destination we just wandered around the canyons and enjoyed the beauty of the area. At one point after stopping for water and snack we stood up and looked behind us and there was a whole herd of female Big Horn Sheep on the cliffs just behind us.
This was a very enjoyable day. We were disappointed we had to back off the original mountain climbing plan but it's hard to go wrong in a area of beautiful sandstone.
For our last day in Vegas we went to our favorite stomping grounds Red Rock National Conservation Area. We have done many hikes and climbs in Red Rock so we decided to go back once again to check out some new areas. Our plan was to climb Red Cap Mountain in the Calico Hills but once again we were shut down by the snow.
As much as we both enjoy slickrock scrambling, neither of us were excited at the prospect of 4th-5th class climbing on snowy/icy slickrock. So once again we decided to improvise and we embarked on a route/trail called the Grand Circle Loop. This trail goes clear around the low sandstone escarpment that is the Calico Hills. So from sandstone quarry we traversed Redcap, New Peak, Kraft Mountain, then made our way to Calico Basin. We turned the corner around the south end of the escarpment and headed north past all the scenic pullouts back to Sandstone Quarry.
The scenery along the way was gorgeous. Though the snow shut down our summit plans it made for beautiful scenery.
It was truly strange seeing snow this low in the Vegas area. There is often snow in the higher elevations but rarely this low. The weather definitely was one of the memorable parts of this trip. We got pretty unlucky with how wet and cold the conditions were but it makes for good memories! Overall this was an amazing trip and I can't wait to get back out to desert again soon. In a few weeks from now I will be visiting my sister Ashley in Phoenix so there will more desert adventures soon!
