Our Death Valley Adventure (April)

Spring break was upon us and I was very excited to get out of town and into the wilderness. I have always been intrigued by the desert in the spring, when it is alive with wild flowers and foliage. So Mike and I decided to hike a 25 mile loop in Death Valley. Now I will warn you that this trip was Murphy's Law at its best...anything that can go wrong, will... Here we go!

It started on the drive. At around Bakersfield I realized I forgot my hiking boots. I had previously hiked in my Chacos though, so I wasn't too worried. But then, on the first day of hiking, a stick punctured the arch of my foot. It was quite painful, Mike cleaned it up for me, sealed it with some duct tape and then cut the toe off a pair of his socks to provide some added protection. I think my feet look pretty hot, don't you?

But wait...I think I am getting ahead of myself. Back to the drive... The O-ring was bad on our fuel canister and the pressure change as we drove from the Bay Area, over the pass and into Death Valley caused our fuel to leak all over Mike's backpack (containing his clothes, sleeping bag and much of our food for the hike). Then, upon the recommendation of the park ranger, we took the Subaru up a 4WD only road. Honestly it wasn't that bad of a road - but apparently the Subaru has a weak sway bar, and we broke our front suspension! Who knew that isn't a very important part?!

Our hike began on a very hot day. It took us quite some time to get some miles behind us (not to mention the whole foot injury). But, we had much to enjoy, the wild flowers were abundant from the start! Here are a handful of the flowers we saw.

Our hike continued up a canyon filled with old cottonwoods. Two springs kept parts of the canyon trickling with water. The trail was challenging to follow as many hikers and wild horses make their own paths from one side of the canyon to the other. We reached the top of the canyon by noon on the second day and then began a 4 mile cross country trek to hook up with a canyon known for its petroglyphs and marbled appearance. Along the way we saw lots of lizards, a sidewinder rattlesnake, a caterpillar nest, a butterfly and three wild horses - one that was as white as snow.

Well, it turns out that we never quite found the junction between our cross country trek and the elusive marbled canyon with petroglyphs. Instead we found that our lunch food was soiled with fuel (from the car trip) and we realized ourselves just a little bit lost. Darkness settled in and navigating through the canyons was impossible (even with Michael's crazy headlamp) and we had an anxious night of no water and thus no food. In the morning we awoke to realize that our decision, in the dark, to just go to bed landed us on a spring. Yes, we woke up with water 10 feet from our head! After filling all of our water bottles and eating a good breakfast we decided our best option was to leave the desert the way we came in. On our way out we encountered a crazy wind storm. Branches were blowing out of the cottonwoods, some rangers estimated the gusts to be 40-50mph. Since we didn't bring a tent we had to take cover for the night in some bushes. We cleared out a hovel and hunkered down until morning.

In the morning we finished our hike out to the car. The broken sway bar on the car didn't cause any problems on the way out. And all in all our hike was gorgeous and will be quite memorable!