Just the pictures, thanks: http://tinyurl.com/2vkwdd
The long term forecast looked good (so much for long term forecasts). We had two weeks before we had another obligation to be home. We delayed leaving for one day to get our tomatoes planted.
Packed, all on board including our kitty, off we went. It was so green and beautiful and there were so many California poppies blooming, especially near San Luis reservoir – thousands blanketing the ridges on the hills. As we hit I-5, we started seeing all the fruit and nut trees blooming. The farmers put beehives out to pollinate the billions of flowers – unfortunately, the bees don’t know to not cross the interstate, so we felt like bee murderers as a couple dozen expired on the windshield. It is a sight to see thousands of acres of trees blooming – almonds, pistachios, apricots and probably many others we don’t recognize.
We arrived in Lone Pine after dark – hmm, chillier than we expected. We camped out in the Alabama Hills and were up fairly early.
Next day, we went back to town for breakfast (I wimped out on cooking in the cold) and to pick up the Alabama Hills climbing guidebook (the real reason for going to town). I was hopeful that we’d find something easier to climb than the stuff we tried last fall. After we told her we were climbing noobs looking for easy routes, the friendly proprietor at the climbing store (“Elevation”) went through the guidebook with us and pointed us to some of the easiest routes. Back to the hills. The first formation we came to was the Shark Fin; when you look at the pictures the reason for the name will become obvious. We took a few pictures then decided to try a sport route that looked promising. On belay, I made good progress and then came to a really thin spot that I would have tried on toprope, but wasn’t willing to try on this day on lead. The route was rated 5.6 in the guide book; it climbs like a 5.9 in our gym – really thin – did I already say that? I backed off which is kind of interesting because if you don’t make it to the top anchors and don’t want to leave gear behind, you have to down climb what you’ve climbed and remove the protection as you go. “Fun”. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I wasn’t real high on the route – just broken bone high, not dead high.
We spent the rest of the day looking around and matching the various formations to the guidebook and picking routes. We did climb one route Carol found with trad gear. I was trying to simulate alpine climbing so I carried no cams – made it interesting. I used the piece I should have had 3 or 4 of for the first piece so it got more and more interesting. Later we picked out another promising trad route, but it called for 4″ gear which I have none of yet. Toward the end of the day the discussion was what to do now – it was pretty chilly, so we decided to go to Death Valley. After all, we could always come back if it was getting warmer.
Less than a couple hours later we arrived in Panamint Valley and drove out toward the Panamint dunes to camp. Sometime later in the evening we were sitting around and heard noises – it didn’t take long to figure out it was a herd of burros, then we heard another herd off in another direction. They were within a mile or so of us and kept us entertained all night – thundering hoofs, snorting, squealing, hee-hawing, etc. – apparently the male spends some amount of energy keeping his herd in line.
Next morning while making breakfast, we spotted one herd – we heard them first and then picked out the motion. Fortunately, I had packed the binoculars so we got a pretty good view. While driving out, we got a pretty good snapshot of the herd. We did hear the other herd in the morning, but didn’t ever spot them.
We went over the pass into Death Valley and decided to go explore Mosaic canyon, which Carol and I had last seen in 1989. Mosaic canyon is quite popular and touristy, but worth it. We started hiking about 11:30 am and right away got a good dose of “hiking in the heat of the day” – actual sweat appeared at times. At one point, I thought we were at the same place as we were in 1989 when I took one of my favorite Carol pictures. Carol wanted to recreate the picture with me in it. Needless to say, as evidenced by the two pictures, Carol is more photogenic.
The farther we got up canyon, the thinner the crowds got, until we came to an “unclimbable” 25 foot fall. Backtracking, we found a bypass trail – and what a bypass. We climbed like 200 feet to get over the 25 foot fall – and the part of the canyon immediately above the fall. We were now alone. We kept going until we came to another big fall which we could have climbed up, but would not have wanted to down climb. Out of water anyway, we turned around. On the way back we kept looking into the part of the canyon we bypassed wishing we could get into it because it looked really interesting. We tried a couple spots and finally wound up at our last chance – which just kept going and then I found myself in the bypassed canyon. Carol followed and we explored. Good stuff in there. Climbing out and back into the lower canyon, we soon found a pretty good headwind blowing. By the time we got to the trailhead, it had passed into unpleasant. From the trail head we could see the huge dust cloud coming from the north end of DV and after a couple drinks, we decided we didn’t want to spend the night in DV. We drove up into Towne pass and got out of the truck to let kitty do some business – and it was just as windy but at 5000 feet in Towne pass it was really cold. Driving on, we got out of DV NP and then decided to head out on Saline Valley road and look for a camping place.
Carol spotted a side road and we drove out. At some point I figured out I was driving on a foot of volcanic ash and sand and started thinking about how much fun it would be to get the BFT stuck in a foot of ash. For some reason, I decided not to shift into 4WD because “I could do that if we got stuck”. Stopped the truck at a level spot, got out – and man the wind was blowing and it was cold. A quick dinner, set up the cat and into bed.
Next morning we did the minimum to get roadworthy and started heading out. Or, since the front axle was so cold, and I’d left the truck in 2WD and couldn’t shift into 4WD, we backed out all the way to the road more or less in the same tracks we drove in on. I guess it was like having front wheel drive, only in reverse. Ha. I felt pretty good when we got to the road. I probably won’t wait to go 4WD again…
Back to Lone Pine for breakfast and a new weather outlook. It looked like cold and blustery in Lone Pine for the foreseeable future or hot and blustery in DV. We didn’t really want to drive 200 miles south to Joshua Tree only to find the same there. Hmm, it was warm and beautiful when we left San Jose, so – home!
~Rick