After a couple days of fun in Las Vegas we hit the road to join a group of friends in Death Valley for Thanksgiving. Our meeting place was the old trailer park on BLM land just outside of the park. This is an interesting place – once a trailer park for local miners, it is now a makeshift overflow campground for visitors to Death Valley. Old trailer slabs are now convenient flat spaces to set up camp, the old paved road makes it accessible to all vehicles, and firepits have been built around the old slabs. It’s a minimal facility campground though – no running water or rest rooms to make things nice.
We met Sooz, Robin, and Joe at the trailer park late in the afternoon on Thanksgiving. Gary showed up shortly after. Everyone had planned ahead to bring pieces of the Thanksgiving meal, and it was an incredible feast. Turkey, rolls, stuffing, potatoes, green bean casserole, wine, and pumpkin pie. It was incredible, considering the conditions we were working in to get the meal ready.
Overnight, Lewis and the two Toms showed up. We hit the road and headed out Greenwater (past Dante’s View) to hike Funeral Peak. We dropped our cars on the side of the road and hiked up the easy peak. We got to enjoy some history along the way. Tom G spotted some incredible petroglyphs and we spent some time exploring the area for more. There was a large (~3 ft tall?) headless shaman-like figure with a head in its hand, among many others.
A short time later we ran across an old mining claim post. These aren’t unusual in the Death Valley back country, but this one still had the claim paper in it. Prospectors would put up a post to stake their claims, and then roll up a sheet of paper containing copies of the documentation and stick it in a hole in the post. It’s very unusual to find a claim post with a paper still in it.
Funeral peak was a simple hike but it was a lot of fun with our group. It was a bit disappointing to arrive on the summit and find that someone had actually gone through the trouble of stealing the benchmark.
Friday night was a bunch of fun around an exploding campfire. We even saw chickens fly.
Saturday was one of the highlights of the week. Tom G and Lewis had some vague information about the location of some pictographs (which are painted, rather than carved like petroglyphs) in the southeast area of the park. We decided to spend the day hiking the area and searching for these pictographs. We spent the morning wandering around the canyon, searching every nook and cranny of every rock that looked like it had the potential to hold pictographs or petroglyphs. By lunch we were starting to feel a little discouraged, although we were having fun hiking around and enjoying the views in this beautiful canyon. Tom G had spotted some signs of Indian inhabitants, including hunting blinds and campfire caves, so we were encouraged that we were on the right track.
By 2 pm we were thinking about heading back to the trucks so we could get back to camp before it got dark. We decided to follow one last side canyon, and it was here that we were successful. Actually, David was the successful one. He ran ahead and caught sight of the cave we were searching for in the next canyon over. We worked our way over to this cave and were treated to some spectacular pictographs and remains (chips, arrowheads, mortars, grinding stones, and tools). There were other pictographs in the region as well.
As we hiked back to where we left the vehicles, chatting happily about the day’s experiences, we found some signs of more recent inhabitants. We found the dump behind what was once likely a ‘refreshments’ stop for miners coming up the canyon. Carved in the rock by the piles of ~100 year old glass was the name of the likely proprietor of the saloon. A cold beer would have been lovely after the day’s adventures, but unfortunately the saloon is long gone.
On our way back I got to see a little bit of the town of Death Valley Junction. We stopped by the local cemetery and the fascinating Amargosa Opera House.
Saturday night consisted of a few more bottles of wine, a few more flying chickens, and many more laughs. I always enjoy this trip so much, and look forward to next year’s adventures already!
I came for the El Toro info and stayed for this. You can count me as subscribed. I love looking for (finding is optional) secret areas in Death Valley. This one sounds interesting and it looks like you left just enough clues to start with.
I’m adding this to my list, along with the jayhawker expedition’s signatures and beveridge canyon for this year.
Went to the pictograph cave last month. Comparing your photos from 2007 to ours from 2009, I didn’t see any signs of vandalism. There was a smudge pot with some sage in it for a burnt offering so someone had been there recently. I’m curious about some of the paintings. Could the upside down bear signify that it was dead? And could the long somewhat horizontal red painting be a boat with several stick figures in it?
I go to your website every once in a while and I just have to mention that I like your template!
Can you provide some additional details on finding the funeral peak pictographs?
If you have not already done so, please consider joining the American Rock Art group and list.
Funeral Peak only had petroglyphs (as far as we found) and it was in the wash we followed on the way up. No GPS coords, unfortunately (wouldn’t publish them publicly if I had them either…)