From California to Arkansas and Back
At the end of the year, David's grandfather passed away after a long and active life. He lived in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, and we quickly found out that getting…
At the end of the year, David's grandfather passed away after a long and active life. He lived in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, and we quickly found out that getting…
I had a whole day planned for hiking in Canyonlands, but the hard part was picking out what to do. The Syncline Trail around Upheaval Dome was strongly recommended, but…
A continuation of our Thanksgiving trip report.On Monday morning we awoke to fresh snow covering the peaks that surround Eureka Valley. Clouds still hung around the ridges but they were…
I've only recently finished posting my photos from our annual Thanksgiving trip to Death Valley. It's kind of fun going all the way back to November to relive this trip,…
Death Valley has several sets of dunes. The most accessible (and therefore crowded) are the ones a few miles east of Stovepipe Wells. A bit less accessible but still regularly visited are the Eureka Dunes in the northern part of the park. There are more dunes located throughout the park in even less accessible locations. It was one of these locations, the Panamint Dunes, that we visited on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
These dunes aren’t particularly difficult to get to, but the minimum six mile round-trip hike to their edge deters many casual visitors. The road to the parking area isn’t great either – while it’s passable in passenger car I definitely would not feel comfortable taking one on it! 2WD is okay but the blowing sand and washboarding make having a hearty vehicle a must.
From the parking spot the dunes are plainly visible across the desert. They don’t look too far away but the scale of Panamint Valley really messes with distance perception. It is a three mile walk across the desert to reach these dunes. It is dry and sandy and they never seem to be getting any closer. Additionally, the barely detectable uphill slope (1000 feet of gain) wears you down. But eventually you’ll get there.
And when you do – hopefully you’re the only one to have made the entire trek with energy to spare in recent times. If so, you’ll have unbroken, footstep free dunes to play on and photograph. Good luck getting that by Stovepipe Wells! There were two major dune crests that we climbed and played on. We got to experience some fun dune phenomena like singing sand – sounding much like the drone of an airplane in the distance. And the best part of all – we had the dunes to ourselves.
On our last full day in the Mojave we visited the Cow Cove petroglyphs in the northern end of the park. This is an amazing collection of petroglyphs and this…
Almost every year, Dave and I head down to the desert for Thanksgiving. This year we spent four days in Death Valley. Although we’ve been to the park many times before, this time we tried to see things we hadn’t seen before.
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