Just Ice and Whiskey: Winter Road Trip

January 15th

Today was spent exploring Death Valley. But first, some things around Furnace Creek Ranch.

Mom found a little outdoor museum thing for old Borax mining equipment.

I don't think I was supposed to, but I climbed into one of the carts.

I was pretending to be Donkey Kong from the SNES game.

Wagon wheels!

Train!

This might be a rock crusher, but I'm not really sure. It kind of looks like we're in a weird jail.

First up is Dante's View.

To get up here we mostly drove, and then only had to hike out to the various peaks.

Dante's View is on the north side of Coffin Peak in the Black Mountains.

It's elevation is 5,476 feet.

Dante's View is almost directly above where we were at Badwater Basin last night. That light area is the tamped down salt and those dots are people.

Somethings grow (er...grew) here.

Looking off to the south.

Dan was taking a 360 photo, but it mostly looks like he's desperately trying to get reception.

Dan's panorama with a view of the Devil's Golf Course. It's that light looking bit in the middle.

King of the mountain!

Mom's fashionable magazine pose.

Dante's View is named for Dante Alighieri, who wrote the Divine Comedy.

Fun Fact: Dante's View was used in the filming of Star Wars: A New Hope. It depicts Tatooine and the spaceport of Mos Eisley.

We were there!

It's like land coral.

These aren't dead. They're very pale.

...except I can't find anything about them on the internet. So maybe they are dead.

We left Dante's View and headed to Twenty Mule Team Canyon.

The geology has changed drastically in appearance from up on Dante's View.

Panorama of the track running through the canyon.

Our trusty steed. Also Dan.
It's of note that this canyon is where the Tusken Raiders were seen riding their bantha.

To haul the borax out of Death Valley, wagons were pulled by 18 mules and 2 horses.

Which turned into 20 mules because it's easier to say.

The mule teams only lasted for six years (1883-1889) but have been immortalized in the 20 Mule-Team Borax Soap boxes.

Our next stop was Zabriskie Point.

It's named for the general manager of the Pacific Borax company during the heyday of the mule teams. Christian Zabriskie.

We were there!

I am Spartacus!

Zabriskie Point was used as the Egyptian mine in Spartacus (1960).

We went to see about getting lunch at the fancier lodgings, The Inn at Death Valley. They've totally terraformed it to look like an oasis. Lunch was way more expensive for what you were getting than we wanted to spend. So we moved on.

I don't remember what we did for lunch, but we ended up at the visitor's center at some point.

Next up is Mosaic Canyon.

The reason it's named Mosaic Canyon.

The beginning is narrow and winding.

ALL the layers of rock.

Mom in the canyon.

The smooth spot where everyone's hands touch to get up the rock.

Not quite ready for GQ.

A PLANT!

Another plant!

This is Desert Holly. It's very pretty.

...I think we're taking pictures of rocks.

Yes, rocks.

Dan's is a little more artsy.

At some point the canyon opens up quite a bit.

A river maybe runs through here...sometimes?....once?

It's very wide here. That black dot in the back is mom sitting on a rock.

Mom's view of us.

A little path we didn't take.

It's hard to see, but the rock actually had a lot of different colors in it.

We didn't do the full hike. It's two miles one way.

It really was more of an issue that the sun started to set and none of us had flashlights. We thought it best to get out of the canyon before it got too dark.

The beginning narrow canyon.

And more of the reason it's called Mosaic Canyon.

Our first peek at the sunset.

You can see for a long ways up here. It's probably...12 miles to the base of those mountains.

There are some sand dunes down below we thought we'd check out.

We stopped to use the restrooms at one of the few places you can do that and saw this thing. It's a STEYR. You can see its travels at www.die2hollys.de