Death Valley: The Middle-ish

April 03, 2018

From our base camp at Furnace Creek, we actually visited a couple of spots that are sort of closer to the middle of the park. The Keane Wonder mine, which just reopened last November, and the Fall Canyon Hike, recommended by one of the rangers. It turns out we didn’t really take any pictures of the canyon, only the wild flowers that I spotted (saving them for another post). The canyon was pretty typical of most in the park, steep walls and a gradual climb in elevation until you decide to turn around. Your hike into Fall Canyon ends at a dry waterfall, which actually had a sprinkling of water on it the day were there. Only we go to the desert and get rain! Anyway, it was pretty, but not mind-blowing in any way. I think we ended up hiking over 7 miles and climbed about 1700 foot.

The other cool thing near this canyon, if you’re up for a 1/2 day trip, is Titus Canyon Road, which is a 4WD/high clearance one way road that travels 24 miles west, ending at the trailhead for the Fall Canyon hike. You have to exit the park on the Eastern edge to access the start of the road and you re-enter the park about 3 miles down the road. The road has crazy high walls on either side and very narrow roads. After our Old Mojave Road experience, we were all good for tight, winding roads, so we skipped taking this day trip. We did however hike up about 1/2 mile into the mouth of the canyon, just to have a peek. It was pretty cool, so could see it being a fun day trip, maybe another time. We heard from others that they’d seen an REI van drop people off about a mile from the end of the canyon, so they could hike out on foot, while the van made it to the canyon exit and set up wine and cheese for them. Sadly, no one did this for us. Again, maybe next time!

We did a quick sorty out of the west side of the park after our hike up Fall Canyon to fuel up in Beatty, Nevada. I foolishly believed there might be a decent grocery store in this town. Let me save you the trip...there’s not! There’s a Family Dollar store that has every type of frozen or canned food you could ask for, but nothing fresh. But, there was cheap fuel and we did a quick drive through of the ghost town of Rhyolite, just west of Beatty. The road leading back into Death Valley is pretty epically long & straight here, so makes for a good photo.

The old schoolhouse of Rhyolite

Glass bottle house of Rhyolite

What else do you with booze bottles?

One of the original train depots of Rhyolite

Road back to the park...

OK, onto Keane Wonder gold mine. Content warning: if you aren’t really interested in mines and mining history, you can just skim through the rest of this post. As the daughter of a mining engineer, it’s my duty to give you the full rundown on this mine. (You’re welcome, Dad. Love you and your passion for this subject!

Keane Wonder Mine was built in the early 1900’s and was one of the most successful gold mines in Death Valley. The pièce de reésistance of the mine site is the aerial tram system for moving ore off the mountain. Much of it is still standing and there are even ore cars hanging from parts of it. The climb to the mine was no joke... 1500 ft in 1.4 miles. Climbing it on foot makes you realize why they built this tram system. Taking ore down by foot was never going to be easy or efficient work. The tram system was able to move 70 tones of ore per day out of the mine to the mill. By 1912, the mine had essentially been tapped out and major mining operations ended.

The National Park closed the site to the public in 2008 and spent the next decade or so restoring, stabilizing and soil testing the mine site and it only just opened to the public last November. I guess the mine was one of the most popular mine sites in the park and the most heavily trafficked. In order to make it safer and accessible for years to come, the work was necessary.

Onto the cool old stuff: