Death Valley

The next morning, I drove north in the valley, the day clear and already warm below sea level.

 Death Valley is a marvelous place, where there is almost no vegetation, leaving the bone sof the earth exposed.  It is all rocks and stones and more rocks.

I parked along the road and hiked up a broad alluvial fan, headed for Red Walled Canyon sevveral miles away.

distances in the desert are always deceiving, and I was fooled again, hiking for a long time before finally reaching the mouth of the canyon.  But it is fascinating country to just wander in.

After a rest in the welcome shade, I wandered up the canyon, all cliffs and red rock

And then, a squash? of some kind, who knows from where.

and then rock and more rock, the canyon gradually narrowing

In almost all of these canyons, sooner or later there are walls across the canyon, cliffs polished by water.  Sometimes other hikers have left aids - here both a ladder and a rope

going up is the easy part, but, especially if you hike alone, you might want to be pretty sure you can get back down.  It is always harder coming down, and it looks a lot higher from the top.

I decided to climb down and hike out of the canyon, enjoying everything about it - the light, colors, textures, the heat, the slightest little breeze

 Just as far down as it was up, it turns out

a big fan across the valley, a challenge for another day

 Driving north, more enormous alluvial fans

 to Willow Springs campground, far from any store, quiet, the perfect place to end the day

Kingman to Death Valley, through Las Vegas

The next morning, I left Kingman driving north toward Las Vegas, surprised by the houses spread across the desert.  Growth across the country has been so uneven the last thirty years, with many town shrinking slowly toward oblivion, many others exploding across the landscape.

but after fifteen or twenty miles it thinned to trailer houses and shacks scattered across the desert.

 always mountains in every direction

 a glimpse of the Colorado River in the canyon

 The new highway passes over the Colorado River gorge on a high bridge, so now you have to detour down the old road to see Hoover Dam.

Plenty of  outlets for colorful stuff in Henderson

 then over the hill and down into Las Vegas (literally "the meadow").  Maybe once upon a time.

 Looking good in downtown

 Nice old motels, looks promising

 But the strip itself is midwestern glitz, good to drive through but it didn't call to me to stop.

If nothing else, Las Vegas reminds us that there is more money in this country than we know what to do with, if we can waste it on this stuff.

If

I wound through the city and out past Red Rocks, a beautiful canyon west of town, many folks hiking and biking.

 Small Joshua trees

 Then over a pass on Hwy 160 to Pahrump, and odd smear of casinos, fireworks stands, and RV parks. Who knows what holds the place together, if it is together at all.

Slow times in Pahrump, it seems.

  Just past Pahrump I turned west on a narrow road that ran over yet another range of mountains to  Death Valley Junction

 Then over more mountains and down into Death Valley.

Furnace Creek, always a surprise of water, grass and date palms in the middle of the lowest, hottest and driest place in the country.  In the winter, it also features a parking lot full of old folks in their big RVs, sitting around doing not much- waiting for happy hour it appears.

As on other visits, I was prepared to criticize this extravagance of green in the desert, but this moderated my opinion.

November 6, no wonder the old folks are here and not in, say, Portland.

I camped up above in Texas Spring campground, where I camped years ago, half a lifetime ago in fact.  Whew.  But the place, the valley is still one of the best in the land.