What an awesome place. The only other time I was in Death Valley was when I picked up my sister Jan in Las Vega and we headed to Mammoth Mountain. That was just a pass through drive.
You truly need to spend a few days here to see this massive area and all it has to offer. It is a geological wonder area….
Originally I was planning to start off with Titus Canyon. Paul and Roylene came by in the morning and we stopped in the Visitor’s center only to find out that Titus Canyon was closed. Turns out, Titus canyon was closed and the Hunter mountain pass was closed. These were two routes I had planned. So the three of us decided to try Echo Canyon that was just a few miles from us. The waiter last night recommended.
2.1miles from Furnace Creek Inn we hanged a left on Echo Canyon road. A good gravel 4-wheel drive road that snaked up to the mountain. We went through several slotted canyons, stopped at the Eye of the Needle before proceeding to Inyo Mine.
Inyo mine turned out to be a gem of a ghost mine with the mines not fenced off. We had quite a hike to get to them up in the mountain but was well rewarded with several mines that, according to Paul, went on and on in several ways. I didn’t have a light so I didn’t follow very far and Roylene was weary to venture into the mine without a canary.
Do we watched Paul’s light disappeared in the mine and we waited about 20 minutes before he resurfaced with his report of several shafts and openings.
We climbed higher and saw some mine shafts that drop deed deep into the earth and other mines openings that we a bit shakier.
We continued down the Echo Canyon trial to the end, which we were told that a short hike from the end would lead you to some paintings on some rocks. We hiked up the path for a while and it started to spit snow – that was how cold it was here. I was tired of hiking in my Sidi motorcycle boots (think ski boots) and decided to hang back and wait for a report from Roylene and Paul.
Roylene came back negative, Paul came back saying he saw the wall with about 15 paintings. I called bullshit, but I wasn’t about to hike back up there with him, so he won…
We headed back out of Echo Canon and when we got back to the highway, we headed up the road to the “Hole in the Wall” trail. This was a short 4 mile ride up a wash to unique area where it looked like woodpeckers had a filed day on the rocks.
With the mixed clouds and sunshine that we had, the landscape kept changing on us. You may look up and see a different perspective on the same angle from the last look
p.s. if you click on “View with PicLens” you can see the comments I wrote for the pictures
