California Expedition - September '06
Bryce Autin, Dane Faucheux, Jason Hughes,
Taylor Lasseigne, and Trey Regan
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| Death Valley National
Park |
Mt. Whitney - Inyo National
Forest |
Sequoia National Park |
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Death Valley National Park
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| Jason Hughes was the
only one of us to actually write down a complete account of the trip.
Unless otherwise noted, you are reading his words.
(Upon reaching Las Vegas) The first
thing that caught my attention was the extreme heat I felt outside
the airport building. No humidity, just an extreme blast of hot
air, as if the covered areas for arrivals and departures were designed
to catch as much wind as possible. After a quick bus ride, we arrived
at the car rental site and picked out our ride. We decided to go
with a silver Jeep Commander. It looked slightly larger than the
Grand Cherokee and I thought to myself that the new model would
be nice. We had to do some strategic packing to fit everyone's gear
into the vehicle. With the last row of seats folded down and all
the gear jammed in the back, you could not see out the rear of the
vehicle. We fit three people in the second row of seats and two
in the front. We drove out in search of some quick dinner and enough
water to last us for the next few days. A few miles later we passed
by a health food store (similar to Whole Foods Market) where everything
was generally overpriced. We stocked up on water, then drove to
an In-n-Out Burger joint for dinner. From there we headed out into
the desert.
(Near Amargosa) Hours later we stopped at what we figured would
be the last gas station before entering Death Valley National Park.
There was a huge billboard
sign stating that we were at the Yucca Mountain Travel
Center, last stop before Area 51. Behind the gas station was the
Cherry Patch II . Inside was an assortment of junk one usually finds
at truck stops in the middle of nowhere, in addition to a wide selection
of alien t-shirts, posters, postcards, coffee mugs, etc. I recall
seeing a local paper by the door. The headline read something to
the effect of "Local Residents Concerned with Blinking Traffic Light".
Headline news right there. I believe Taylor asked the store clerk
if she had seen anything strange out here. She gave her UFO story,
then we all left. Just outside, adjacent to the store, was what
I suspect was Mabel's Whorehouse. There was a plywood cutout of
an alien and human where you could stand behind it for photos. We
didn't find any camp fuel here, so we crossed the street to the
neighboring gas station. This place was a bit more disturbing than
the store we had just left.
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| What a way to start
the trip - Dane and I at Mabel's Whorehouse near Aramagosa, NV. |
As you walked in, to your left were rows of video poker, manned by some scary truck driver looking zombies. To the right was your standard gas station junk. They had a life size Yoda atop some shelving, in addition to Watto. (A shrewd and gruff proprietor of a junk shop in Mos Espa, from Star Wars Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones) I don't think we found any camp fuel here either. Taylor inquires about any strange sightings in the area and receives another UFO story. After picking up some postcards, I stepped outside with Trey. He points out an off-duty tumble weed, parked next to the Jeep Commander. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot an old, blue full-size pick up truck with the driver's side door open, parked next to the fuel pump. Behind the truck door is a naked man pumping gas. This demanded a second examination, so I briefly glance again in that direction before quickly turning away again. Perhaps I was hallucinating? Trey sees the expression on my face and inquires as to what was wrong. I tell him not to look over near the gas pump, but there's a naked man in the parking lot. Trey immediately looks over to the gas pump. We both decide to go back inside the store. I quickly spread the word to the others. "Time to leave!"
During the drive to the park, 11 o'clock creeps up, and the radio is tuned into the radio show Coast to Coast AM. The night's discussions included secret NASA Moon missions (The Pilgrim Project) and Shadow People. Good stuff. If you ever felt you weren't getting your daily level of weird, just tune into Coast to Coast AM. That show will fix you right up. We arrive at the entrance to the park and pull over for pictures. Being in the middle of nowhere, you can see millions of stars. The Milky Way band is prominent across the sky. Staring long enough, you could see shooting stars and even orbiting satellites. We managed to find the camp site afterwards and begin to set up our tents. Taylor was really hoping to check out the sand dunes at night, so we all piled back into the Commander for a 30 minute drive into darkness.
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| Taylor: When we stopped at the Death Valley entrance to snap a few photos of the sign, I expected to be in and out of the truck. Then someone turned the lights of the Commander off and the universe was unveiled! We stood out there for a while, all of us with our heads cocked back, fixed on the heavens. I don't know about the rest of the guys, but I'd never seen the cosmos so clearly. |
| I'm not sure how he determined we
were in the right place (the sand dunes), but Taylor pulled over and
we all piled out of the vehicle with our headlamps. We begin hiking
out into the sand, crossing over several dunes. I couldn't really
see much, except for the sand in my shoes. Within ten minutes or so,
we spot another light off in the distance. It seemed to be moving
along, heading in our general direction. It appeared to be moving
side to side, occasionally shifting quickly from one place to another.
I wasn't seeing any of our headlamps moving in that fashion. Someone
suggested it was a vehicle on the road, but I didn't recall the road
stretching in that direction, nor could I hear any engines. At some
point we all decide to switch off our headlamps. The light was still
moving. We scurried across the sands, making our way back to the Commander.
With a bit of relief being next to the vehicle, we decide to head
back to camp. Dane wanted to return to the dunes to uncover the mystery
of the light, but he was out-voted. |
| It was hot. Ridiculously hot. No breeze
blowing through the tent. Every twenty minutes or so I'd sit up, then
lay back down in the pool of sweat that had accumulated atop my sleeping
mattress. At some point Bryce left the tent to sleep on top of a picnic
table. |
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| Taylor:
The sun emerges over the Funeral Mountains and spills onto our camp
at Furnace Creek - 196 feet below sea level! (The Funeral Mountains
are a subrange of the Amargosa range that forms the Eastern wall of
Death Valley) |
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| Left to right: Trey
breaking down camp, Jason getting dressed, and Bryce organizing gear.
To beat the heat at night, Bryce abandoned his tent and made that
table his open-air bed. |
| We awoke around 5:40AM or so, with
light just starting to creep over the hills. We weren't staying here
another night, so everyone got busy packing up their gear and tents.
Breakfast consisted of MREs, provided by Dane. We decided to strap
the majority of gear to the top of the Commander this morning, making
space for one person in the last row of seats. From there we headed
over to the Death Valley visitor's center. We were a bit early; they
didn't open until 8:00AM. Some of us took a bird bath in the sinks
of the bathroom. It was a relief to find cool air blowing from the
hand dryers. I would find out later that even in the afternoon, when
the temperature was over 100, that those hand dryers were still blowing
cool air. Crazy. I'm assuming they must have disabled the heating
element for that to happen. We collected more water from an outside
faucet. When the visitor's center opened, we went inside and bought
miscellaneous stuff. |
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Bryce posing before the Furnace Creek Visitor Center. We arrived before any of the other tourists, so the area was undisturbed. As we pulled up, a coyote slinked out of the parking lot, across the road, and out of sight into the desert. |
| From here we drove to Golden Canyon.
I think this is where one of our bags decided to jump ship. We were
cruising down the road when all of a sudden a bag swung down off the
roof and slammed into my window. We pulled over and recalculated the
method used to strap equipment to the roof. We reached Golden Canyon
and hiked along the trail for a while, eventually deviating off onto
what seemed to be a trail leading up through the hills. It looked
as if we could reach the top, but after climbing for thirty minutes
or so, we decided to head back down. |
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From the Golden Canyon Trail Guide: Golden Canyon preserves geological stories steeped in change. Like pages in a book, its rocks tell tales of ancient times when a lake once covered this land; they also speak of violent flash floods racing down the canyon, Golden Canyon is a fascinating showcase of the effects of water in an arid land. |
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Dane and Trey |
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| Taylor and Bryce |
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| Jason |
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| Brittle rock wall |
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| Left to right: Taylor,
Dane, Jason, and Bryce |
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| Trey and Dane heed
the warnings and carry plenty of water - one gallon per person, per
day. |
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| Bryce and Jason checking
out a huge boulder. |
| The next stop was the Devils Golf
Course. This was basically a huge field of dried up salt, with strange
looking formations stretching in every direction. |
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| Taylor:
I read in a guidebook, that after rains you can sometimes her the
earth snap and crackle as the arid atmosphere sucks the land dry!
Due to the incredible serrated and jagged spires, it is believed that
"Only the Devil could play golf on such rough links." |
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| Trey at Devil's Golf
Course |
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| The gang at Devil's
Golf Course - left to right: Jason, Dane, Trey, Bryce, and Taylor. |
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Next was a natural bridge formation. We hiked a mile or so into the hills
again. We reached the bridge, and Dane proceeded to climb it. Taylor and
Trey made friends with a man and his son who were sporting pith helmets.
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| Bryce looking up at
the natural bridge. |
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| Dane snapped this photo
of the canyon from atop the natural ridge. |
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| The crew hikes out
of the canyon and back toward the valley, where the Jeep is parked. |
| After leaving the natural bridge,
we drove to Badwater Basin. Over 200 feet up, a sign on the rock cliff
behind us marked sea level. There was a platform that overlooked the
basin, which was barren, except for the tourists. There was a small
pool of still water next to the platform. |
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| This platform provides
visitors with a great view of the small spring-fed pool at Badwater
Basin. The salt flats surrounding the spring deem the water undrinkable.
This point marks the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere. |
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| Jason's Dell
Axim registered an elevation reading of -320.54 feet. We were at such a low altitude, I think the computer was confused. |
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Click here to see a close up of the water. |
| Past the platform there was a wide
path that lead to the middle of nowhere. Everyone else was walking
it, so we followed. The dried mixture of salt and dirt on the ground
sounded like packed snow as we walked across it. After some unspecified
distance, we took some photos, then headed back to the Commander.
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| Salt flats at Badwater |
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| Taylor, Jason, Bryce,
Dane, and Trey out on the salt flats at Badwater. |
| We returned to the visitor center
for some lunch and shade from the sun. MREs were on the menu again.
The visitor center parking lot was no longer empty and there were
quite a few people walking about. Many Europeans and Asians, but very
few Americans. After lunch, we drove to Zabrinskie Point. |
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Taylor: As stated in the guidebook, "Zabrinskie Point is surrounded by a maze of wildly eroded and vibrantly colored badlands." This, in conjunction with its proximity to the visitor center, makes it one of the park's most visited spots. I remember feeling surprised by how difficult it was to walk even the quarter-mile to the scenic overlook. By this time, the temperature had peaked at 113º and the atmosphere was simply intolerable. I felt the danger of Death Valley like a giant hair dryer in my face. I took my photos and got back to the truck swiftly. |
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| Taylor:
On our way out of Death Valley, I talked the guys into stopping at
the sand dunes one more time. Maybe we could solve the mystery of
the peculiar light from the night before. We all hopped out and examined
the scene. Someone noted that, due to the road's direction, the light
couldn't have come from there. I pointed out into the dunes and said,
"I'm going to run to that big dune over there." Everyone
looked at me and simultaneously laughed and went back talking about
the unidentified light. I took off straight for the dune. I crossed
over the first ridge of dunes and instantly lost my bearing. I climbed
up onto the next bunch of dunes and realized how much longer this
excursion would take. Feeling the heat creep up on me again, I snapped
a photo and ran back to the truck. |
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| Sand Dunes near Stovepipe
Wells Campground |
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(On our way out of Death Valley) There was a relatively small range of mountains (Inyo Mountains) we had to cross first. Here, the Commander's performance began to suffer. We couldn't drive faster than 40mph, and the transmission was constantly switching gears. A breakdown seemed imminent. We made it out though, and some time later arrived at the Easter Sierra Interagency Visitor Center. The smaller mountains we had just driven through were to our east, with the serious mountains to the west. At the visitor center, we picked up some more souvenirs, in addition to wag bags.
Taylor: It is worth noting that we acquired Mt. Whitney wilderness passes here, at the Interagency Visitor Center. These passes are incredibly difficult to obtain, but they are necessary if your party wants to stay in the "Mt. Whitney Zone" overnight. To get the passes you must first enter a lottery system. I put our five names into the lottery in October '05. It wasn't until March 18, 2006 that I received a letter from the Wilderness Permit Office, stating that we had secured August 2-4 on the mountain. |
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| View of the Sierras
from the Interagency Visitor Center. |
| Our next stop was Lone Pine. In Lone
Pine, we rented bear canisters for our food at a local supply store.
I inquired about bear repellent, and was told that "unless you plan
on exchanging punches with the bear, the bear spray was strictly for
Europeans." After consulting with the team, we decided we were all
Americans and placed the repellent back on the shelf. We took our
canisters and headed across the street for dinner at the Mt. Whitney
Restaurant. |
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| View of the Sierras
from Lone Pine, CA. This town is the last populated place for those
on their way to Mt. Whitney. Here, climbers stock up on food and supplies
before heading out into the wild. |
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| Death Valley National
Park |
Mt. Whitney - Inyo National
Forest |
Sequoia National Park |
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