Death Valley The North-ish
From Furnace Creek, we moved to the north end of the park, to the Mesquite Spring NPS campground. To be fair, it was windy as hell when we were there, but it was way more peaceful & relaxing and had a lot more ambiance than the other campgrounds in the park. There’s only about 30 sites, but they are large, with at least some bushes around them, making you feel like you have some privacy. The other campgrounds in the park (that fit trailers or RVs) are literally parking lots, you just back into your stall. Mesquite felt more like a typical NPS campground, in the best way.
The 2 attractions at this end of the park were both day trips, well at least 1/2 day trips. The first to Eureka Dunes and the second to The Racetrack. I would highly recommend not trying to do these both in one day. The mileage to each doesn’t seem like much, but when you take into account the quality of roads, they are not the most comfortable of drives. Both roads in one day would probably leave you with a migraine.
Eureka Dunes....the dunes are about 30 miles (by gravel road) north of Mesquite Spring campground. It doesn’t sound like much, but given the (somewhat) maintained gravel road that takes you there, it’s about a 2 hour drive. You do have some paved road towards the end, that reverts back to gravel again in no time. The dunes are the tallest in California, possibly in North America. They rise about 700 feet above the valley floor, but are dwarfed by the Last Chance Mountains that surround them, that are almost 4,000 feet.
When you look at the dunes, they don’t look like they’d be hard to climb...well, they are “sand” dunes after all. The most direct route was straight up the ridge, the most painful of routes. For every step, you slid back almost a step. The wind was also howling, so getting sandblasted was super awesome. Truthfully, getting to the top was super cool. The view is fairly spectacular, if not a touch windy this day. I didn’t know I could get sand into so many parts of my body. Turns out, you can. Trust me.
We also experienced one of the stranger things either of us have ever seen. There are lots of jet fighters that fly in and around Death Valley, given that there are military installations pretty much all around the park. We had heard them (and seen some) multiple times already during our stay in the park. As we were just coming down off the highest part of the dunes (again, 700-ish feet), we could hear a fighter jet nearby. I was scanning everywhere, Gav had his camera ready...then we spotted it.....below us! We figured it was maybe at 200 or 300 feet above the valley floor, buzzing the cars that were parked below the dunes. Moments where your brain does not interpret what it was seeing: this was one of them. Even though the jet was flying low, it was going fast. By the time Gav got his camera on it, it had flown around the dunes and was heading south through the valley. Once we got back to the valley floor, we met a Canadian couple who’d been camping here for 2 days, waiting for one of these jets to fly through. Apparently, this is a thing in certain parts of the park, getting fly-bys from the US military. Poor Canuck, he’d just laid down for a nap when the jet flew right over their camper and he missed his photo opp. Talk about right place, right time. Not for him...for us.... Sorry, dude.
The Racetrack...this was on Gav’s bucket list. He’d told me about it in the past, but I have to admit, I don’t think I really paid attention to what actually happens at The Racetrack to be interested. Let me assure you, it is really, really friggin’ cool. But first, let’s talk about the road to get there. It’s a 27 mile gravel road, from the time you leave the paved road, from the north end of the park. Twenty-seven miles of bone chattering, car shuddering, soul bruising washboard bumps. The rangers will tell you not to take anything less than a high clearance, 4WD vehicle on this road. There’s a reason. It’s not pretty, people. There is one outfit that rents 4WD Jeeps in Death Valley and there were a lot of them out here; this road is not built for Priuses. We almost rented one, but decided to go forward with taking our own truck. It was rough and we wouldn’t do it agin, not without better tires and better shocks, but it was worth it to see this really unique place.
So,, why is The Racetrack so cool? Why would you drive 2 1/2 hours on the crappiest road over to look at rocks? Because these rocks move over the playa on their own, leaving lines in the lakebed. People aren’t out here moving theses rocks, nature does it. And it’s super weird. It took years for scientists to figure out what caused this. Seriously, it took until 2014 for scientists to actually figure out what was happening. The short version is a combination of the right temperatures, just enough ice and the perfect wind speeds and the rocks straight up move across the playa (the dry lake bed). They move and leave lines in the lake bed. If you want to know the full version of how scientists figured this out, check this article: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rocks-move-death-valley-lake-bed-20140827-story.html It does a really good job at describing how 2 scientists got super lucky and finally proved what caused the lines.
The playa that is The Racetrack is a lake bed. When there is any kind of rain, the lakebed becomes super muddy. The rangers tell you to no go out on the lake bed after it’s rained, lest you leave footprints in the mud. Gav had read and seen pictures of what happens when people disregard instructions. Pictures like this:
We purposely waited a couple of days after the last forecast rain, in hopes that others would heed the warnings and not ruin the lakebed for the rest of us. There was definitely evidence of people stepping on the playa, but nothing like the photos that Gav had seen. We hiked probably a mile or so away from the parking lot and found lots of rocks that had moved on the playa, leaving evidentiary lines. So. Cool. Bucket list? Checked!
The “almost” half way mark to The Racetrack is Teakettle Junction. We so would have added a tea kettle to this collection, if we’d known about it!
The 2 attractions at this end of the park were both day trips, well at least 1/2 day trips. The first to Eureka Dunes and the second to The Racetrack. I would highly recommend not trying to do these both in one day. The mileage to each doesn’t seem like much, but when you take into account the quality of roads, they are not the most comfortable of drives. Both roads in one day would probably leave you with a migraine.
Eureka Dunes....the dunes are about 30 miles (by gravel road) north of Mesquite Spring campground. It doesn’t sound like much, but given the (somewhat) maintained gravel road that takes you there, it’s about a 2 hour drive. You do have some paved road towards the end, that reverts back to gravel again in no time. The dunes are the tallest in California, possibly in North America. They rise about 700 feet above the valley floor, but are dwarfed by the Last Chance Mountains that surround them, that are almost 4,000 feet.
When you look at the dunes, they don’t look like they’d be hard to climb...well, they are “sand” dunes after all. The most direct route was straight up the ridge, the most painful of routes. For every step, you slid back almost a step. The wind was also howling, so getting sandblasted was super awesome. Truthfully, getting to the top was super cool. The view is fairly spectacular, if not a touch windy this day. I didn’t know I could get sand into so many parts of my body. Turns out, you can. Trust me.
We also experienced one of the stranger things either of us have ever seen. There are lots of jet fighters that fly in and around Death Valley, given that there are military installations pretty much all around the park. We had heard them (and seen some) multiple times already during our stay in the park. As we were just coming down off the highest part of the dunes (again, 700-ish feet), we could hear a fighter jet nearby. I was scanning everywhere, Gav had his camera ready...then we spotted it.....below us! We figured it was maybe at 200 or 300 feet above the valley floor, buzzing the cars that were parked below the dunes. Moments where your brain does not interpret what it was seeing: this was one of them. Even though the jet was flying low, it was going fast. By the time Gav got his camera on it, it had flown around the dunes and was heading south through the valley. Once we got back to the valley floor, we met a Canadian couple who’d been camping here for 2 days, waiting for one of these jets to fly through. Apparently, this is a thing in certain parts of the park, getting fly-bys from the US military. Poor Canuck, he’d just laid down for a nap when the jet flew right over their camper and he missed his photo opp. Talk about right place, right time. Not for him...for us.... Sorry, dude.
The Racetrack...this was on Gav’s bucket list. He’d told me about it in the past, but I have to admit, I don’t think I really paid attention to what actually happens at The Racetrack to be interested. Let me assure you, it is really, really friggin’ cool. But first, let’s talk about the road to get there. It’s a 27 mile gravel road, from the time you leave the paved road, from the north end of the park. Twenty-seven miles of bone chattering, car shuddering, soul bruising washboard bumps. The rangers will tell you not to take anything less than a high clearance, 4WD vehicle on this road. There’s a reason. It’s not pretty, people. There is one outfit that rents 4WD Jeeps in Death Valley and there were a lot of them out here; this road is not built for Priuses. We almost rented one, but decided to go forward with taking our own truck. It was rough and we wouldn’t do it agin, not without better tires and better shocks, but it was worth it to see this really unique place.
So,, why is The Racetrack so cool? Why would you drive 2 1/2 hours on the crappiest road over to look at rocks? Because these rocks move over the playa on their own, leaving lines in the lakebed. People aren’t out here moving theses rocks, nature does it. And it’s super weird. It took years for scientists to figure out what caused this. Seriously, it took until 2014 for scientists to actually figure out what was happening. The short version is a combination of the right temperatures, just enough ice and the perfect wind speeds and the rocks straight up move across the playa (the dry lake bed). They move and leave lines in the lake bed. If you want to know the full version of how scientists figured this out, check this article: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rocks-move-death-valley-lake-bed-20140827-story.html It does a really good job at describing how 2 scientists got super lucky and finally proved what caused the lines.
The playa that is The Racetrack is a lake bed. When there is any kind of rain, the lakebed becomes super muddy. The rangers tell you to no go out on the lake bed after it’s rained, lest you leave footprints in the mud. Gav had read and seen pictures of what happens when people disregard instructions. Pictures like this:
We purposely waited a couple of days after the last forecast rain, in hopes that others would heed the warnings and not ruin the lakebed for the rest of us. There was definitely evidence of people stepping on the playa, but nothing like the photos that Gav had seen. We hiked probably a mile or so away from the parking lot and found lots of rocks that had moved on the playa, leaving evidentiary lines. So. Cool. Bucket list? Checked!
The “almost” half way mark to The Racetrack is Teakettle Junction. We so would have added a tea kettle to this collection, if we’d known about it!
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