In the Middle of Nowhere

Good morning from a campsite in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere. It's a good place to wake up super early and greet the sun as it rises over the surrounding mountains. It's also a good place to have pancakes for breakfast! Oh, the fun you can have when you travel in a van! This campsite in Ballarat is actually pretty amazing. Sure, it's  just a big gravel patch in the middle of a ghost town, but so is the rest of the desert. But there are fully functioning washrooms, and a shower, which we only discovered this morning! Had we known, I think it would have been our first stop before even parking the van last night, but alas, we have places to be this morning. The camp host(and maybe the entire town's host, I'm not sure) has drawn up a crude map of the town, with explanations of the buildings/ruins scattered about, so we take a walk with our cameras and our morning apple juice, taking in the "sights"! Then we roll REALLY SLOWLY down that awful stretch of washboard gravel road(only negative about this whole place), back to the pavement, and towards Death Valley.

Mario checking out the truck

View from the Block House / Store

Hello from the tip-top of one of the steepest climbs I think we've done in the van this trip. Ballarat is in the valley next to Death Valley, and we climbed from below sea level up the Towne Pass, at 4,956 feet in elevation, to then descend back into Stovepipe Wells, one of the towns in the National Park. Again, it amazes me how life can be sustained so comfortably out here. We stop for gas, we browse the giftshop that has all sorts of Star Wars-themed paraphernalia. We learn that parts of Star Wars IV : A New Hope, was filmed in various location in the valley, and unbeknownst to us, we'll be visiting some of them! 

The steep climb UP

The descent DOWN into Death Valley

Down the road, we greet the giant sand dunes in Mesquite Flats. Here, you can explore the entire area, and so we pick a dune, and begin to walk the spine of the great mound of sand. From one to the next, and the next, we walk, getting further and further into the sandy area. Our footprints are the only ones we see, besides those of a desert fox, or maybe a cat. We lie down on the soft, warm sand. We scour the skyline for lost droids, or maybe some Tuscan Raiders off in the distance. No luck.

Mario walking along the dunes

Cathy posing in the dunes

Next up, we head over to the Golden Canyon trail for a visit. This trail winds through the most geologically crazy mountains I think I have ever seen. Rocks layers run at a bizarre 45-degree upwards, the layers are rainbow-coloured in some places, or deep red, or sage green, and the rock is incredibly crumbly. I'm talking erosion EVERYWHERE. We walk to the end of the trail where we stop in from of the Red Cathedral rock formation for PB&J, then turn around to come back. Along the way, there is a turnoff for the Gower Gulch loop, which would ALSO take us back to the parking lot. Now, we've been somewhat offline recently, which means we have no idea what this trail looks like. We take a guess that, since we've done nothing but climb into the canyon thus far, the rest must be all downhill, right? Okay, off we go. 

Heading towards the Red Cathedral formation

Pausing for lunch in the shade

Around the next bend, a steep climb up a crumbly limestone mountain. Surprise! I have serious regrets at this point, and despite Mario's insistance that we can just turn around, I press on. Oh, how glad I am that I did. What views! What a trail! It winds around the middle of the mountain, not 2 feet wide, steep slope going all the way down to the bottom of the gulch. It's crazy that this even exists, and yet it does, and I am walking along it, maybe leaning a little bit to the inside because, well, that's a steep slope. But those views. Wow.

The trail eventually DOES start descending, into the bottom of the wide gulch, and we follow the flow of the dry river bed all the down to its exit from the area. We walk through wide stony sections where the presence of a river erode deep grooves in the valley floor. We scramble through tight section, barely wide enough to fit through, and I can only imagine how intense the water flow must be when the valley floods. The colours of the rocks continue to amaze me. Finally, we find the sun again, and hug the outer edge of the mountains all the way back to the parking.

We rush down the road to get to Badwater Wash before sunset, so we can say goodbye to the sun and the park. Badwater Wash is a giant salt flat in the middle of the park, and it honesty looks and sounds like a giant field full of crunchy snow. At least it's not as cold! We walk out a ways just as the sun dips behind the mountains, casting an orange glow over the canyon walls. Here, we are at 282 feet BELOW sea level, and that is a pretty cool thing to think about, standing in the middle of a sea of white, while saluting the end of another beautiful day. Not only that, we turn around to be greeted by the glow of a big round full moon. It lights out way back to the van, and all the way out the park. 

Up close with the crystals

Shadows on the salt in the sunset

Another night, another BLM site for us - we're hidden up in the mountains above Las Vegas, along Lovell Canyon road. We're surrounded by lots of desert scrubs and scruffy-looking trees, and there is an abandoned ATV in the bush behind our van - we are in good company.