DVA Trip Planning & Live Blog

With our upcoming one week Spring 2012 Death Valley trip fast approaching in early March, I have been working on selecting family friendly destinations.  A number of family members and close friends will be joining me for this trip, so most of the destinations will not be long hikes to desolate places in the park.  We will mostly be hiking relatively easy canyons and peaks.  The two exceptions to this will be my hikes to Middle Hidden Bridge Canyon and Crescent Bridge Canyon.  These are longer hikes, especially Middle Hidden Bridge, and I will probably hike these either solo or with just 1 or 2 people.  The highlight of our Spring 2012 DV trip will be our Star Wars day.  We are going to spend one entire day visiting all 8 of the Star Wars in Death Valley filming locations to get some brand new photos and match up scenes.  Upon returning home, I will completely revise the page and use only the newer photos from this trip.  (Note: I have already revised some aspects of the page in preparation and included a map.)  As a special part of this, all involved in the pictures will be wearing Star Wars costumes for the day.  This will surely result in our receiving some strange looks from tourists along the way.  Below, you can see a preview picture of me as Anakin Skywalker, testing out my costume in preparation for the trip.  One other thing that I should mention, which makes me kind of sad, is that this trip will mark the end of regular week-long trips every Spring and Fall of each year.  After this trip, due to circumstances, I will be confined to mostly 2-3 day trips for the foreseeable future.

Spring 2012 destinations under consideration– Middle Hidden Bridge Cyn, Crescent Bridge Cyn, Thimble Peak (and Titus Cyn drive), Marble Main Side Cyn, Eureka Dunes & Eureka Peak, loop of 2 major canyons in between South Smoke Tree Cyn & Sand Cyn in the Owlsheads, Ashford Mine & Cyn, Room Cyn (trip report not allowed), and Ubehebe Crater & BM.

Steve will travel to DV as Anakin Skywalker

Now that my week long Fall 2011 Death Valley trip has wrapped up, I will be working on publishing some brand new trip reports covering some of the places that I hiked to.  The list of destinations below will be highlighted with a link and the date that the new report was published, once it is finished and posted online.  It will probably take a few weeks to finish up all the reports for this trip.  The reports will be posted in the order that the hikes were taken.  Also, I have uploaded my new site introduction video to the Introduction Page.  Finally, I am working on providing some updated Google Earth maps for some of our older trip reports.  New maps so far have been added to: Nova Canyon, Sand Canyon, Grey Wall Canyon, and Dry Mountain.

Fall 2011 destinations– Corkscrew Peak (posted 12/13/11), Upper Moonlight Canyon (posted 12/16), Red Amphitheater (posted 12/18), Upper Fall Canyon via Upper Titus Canyon (posted 12/19), Upper Hidden Bridge Canyon (posted12/20), Pyramid Canyon (no report until Pyramid Peak is hiked and then the two will be combined), Star Wars in Golden Canyon (posted 12/27), and Leaning BM (posted 12/26).  There is an extra picture below from the summit of Leaning BM. It shows a pile of rusted nails that I cleaned up on Leaning BM. I didn’t include this in the report, but part of the reason we were up on Leaning BM was to do some cleanup work of leftover wire, nails, and debris from the original BM survey crew.

A pile of rusted nails we cleaned up on Leaning BM

Lately, I have been trying to include a hike to an obscure BM into my DV trips. Leaning BM was suggested to me and it caught my interest because it is located right at the mouth of Dry Bone Canyon. This would give me a chance to finally hike up the Dry Bone Cyn fan and get a glimpse into the area I plan to backpack into in the near future. It would also present a grand view of the Grapevine Mountains and central Death Valley north of Stovepipe Wells. Leaning BM definitely delivered some great views and it was an excellent hike. So that’s it for me until the Spring, where I have unfinished business in Middle Hidden Bridge Canyon.

The summit of Leaning BM with the entrance to Dry Bone Cyn in the distance (above)

Today was another day off from major hiking destinations. In the morning, I solo hiked out to Pyramid Canyon (about 4 miles RT) and explored the narrows there a bit. There are a couple of really pretty sections. The 2nd major boulder blockade had a bit too much exposure for me, so I turned around there. According to an online resource, I didn’t get as far as I was supposed to. But that’s okay. When I’m solo hiking I like to keep the risk level down. I also filmed an introduction video for my site while in the midst of the narrows. In the afternoon, we finished up our Star Wars in Golden Canyon film location match-ups. We successfully found and photographed all 5 locations that we had been searching for. When I get home, I can update my Star Wars TR. Tomorrow, it’s one final hike and then time to head home for a few months. But I already can’t wait to get back and backpack out to set up a base camp near Lower Hidden Bridge Cyn, to search for a way into the mysterious middle canyon.

Solo hiking in Pyramid Canyon's best narrows (above)

Jawa spying on R2D2 in Jawa Canyon (Golden Canyon)

Steve spying on hikers passing through Jawa Canyon

Today we made an epic journey out to Upper Hidden Bridge Canyon in the Cottonwood Mountains.  I had come up with a creative route which would follow some potentially unexplored side canyons.  The canyons were very interesting, as we found several arches and spotted 5 Bighorn sheep.  We got some nice pictures of the sheep, as well.  Once we reached Upper Hidden Bridge Canyon, we dropped in and explored the narrows we were hoping we might find there.  The narrows were outstanding.  However, we ran into a problem.  We couldn’t find a way into the middle canyon to explore some outstanding narrows we had seen from the ridge above.  Time was very limited because the canyon is so far away from any road and the days are short right now.  We ended up reaching the edge of a 40 foot dry fall with a view into the slot narrows below.  Thus, I am now going to have to break Hidden Bridge Canyon into three parts now: Lower, Upper, and now Middle.  This Spring, I plan to backpack in and find a way into Middle Hidden Bridge Canyon.  Because the narrows we could see from above looked very nice.

Gorgeous narrows and dry falls in the Upper Hidden Bridge area (above)

Unbelievable slot narrows of Hidden Bridge Canyon

I realized something while hiking today.  On each DV trip, my hikes tend to fall into three categories: discovery hikes (searching for something new and special), obligation hikes (covering an area because I feel like I have to), and adventure hikes (challenging hikes into remote places).  There are other categories of course, but those are the main three.  That being the case, today’s hike was the adventure hike of this trip.

Having mapped and planned this route out at home, today we drove Titus Canyon and parked just after Leadfield at a major turn.  We hiked up to the Fall-Titus Divide and enjoyed outstanding views all around.  Then, we took a side canyon down into Upper Fall Canyon.  The side canyon was unassuming at first, but the second half of it was very pretty with lots of red and purple colors.  There were 2 major dry falls and countless minor dry falls.  But the bypasses were not risky.  Basically, it was a lot of fun.  We finally dropped into Fall Canyon and hiked up to Fall Canyon’s 2nd dry fall.  Most people bypass this one, but I climbed it on the left side.  Right above, we encountered the legendary 3rd dry fall, which has 3 possible ways up depending on ability and risk willingness.  I went up the 2nd way (middle) and came back down the 3rd way (right).  It’s definitely intimidating and not totally safe, so I can see why some previous hikers and backpackers have turned around at this point.  We hiked on a bit above the 3rd dry fall and then retraced our steps to our vehicle.  Upper Fall Canyon ended up having more beauty than I was expecting to find there.

A dry fall in the side canyon we took down from the Fall-Titus Divide (above)

Climbing the 2nd dry fall of Fall Canyon (above)

Today was what I call a day off. After epic hikes like what we did in Upper Moonlight Cyn yesterday, we usually need a day to recover before we can do another big-time hike. For our day off, we chose to hike out to the real Red Amphitheater using a unique route starting from Hwy 190. My old trip report on the area was badly in need of an upgrade. Now I can fix it by making a new one when I get home. The route we took had some excellent views of Pyramid Peak and Pyramid Canyon. We also passed by Strange Place, which is the odd pyramid-shaped rock about 2/3 of the way there. The whole hike was less than 5 hours round-trip. Later on, we went into Golden Canyon and matched up 4 of the 5 Star Wars photos we had from the area. We will head back in there to do some more matching work on our next day off (and maybe also hike Pyramid Canyon).

The real Red Amphitheater (above)

One of my best ever days in Death Valley and sure to be the trip highlight.  In below freezing weather (as low as 18 degrees F), we hiked Phinney Cyn Rd. from our parking area up to the saddle and down to its end (on the closed portion).  And then we hiked cross-country through brushy countryside the rest of the way into Upper Moonlight Cyn.  Wow.  We could not believe our eyes.  The narrows went on seemingly forever and they were breathtaking.  And an incredible 2/3 of the Moonlight Cyn narrows are located in the upper canyon, above the 3rd dry fall.  (Note: there is no 3rd dry fall bypass, so courageous hikers not afraid of exposed bypasses must hike both halves of the canyon separately to see all of the narrows.)  I had already placed Moonlight Cyn as my #2 canyon in the park without even seeing the upper canyon, just based on the lower narrows.  But now that I have seen the upper narrows… welcome to my #1 spot, Moonlight Cyn.  I took 208 pictures today and have no idea how I’m going to narrow them down.  This is the best set of pictures I have ever taken here.  Oh yeah, and we saw wild horses, too.  Wish I could show you more pictures now, but they’ll have to wait for my upcoming TR.  So will my stories about Moonlight’s dry falls 4-6 and the bypass we used.

In the middle of Moonlight Cyn's spectacular and lengthy upper narrows (above)

Reaching the top of the 3rd dry fall, where we had been stopped 1 year earlier (above)

We kicked off our Fall 2011 trip with a loop hike up Corkscrew Peak. We took the easier route up and then came back down the more difficult way. The way we came back down had some nasty areas and I didn’t really care for it. Except it does have some better views of Corkscrew Peak, Little Corkscrew Peak, and the route we took passed by the spring. But I’m glad we ended up doing it, because on the way down we spotted 6 Bighorn sheep. There is an arctic chill in the air here and the wind comes and goes. The trip is off to a good start.

Hiking back down from Corkscrew Peak (above)

I have now finished up all of my trip preparation for our upcoming Fall 2011 Death Valley trip, which will take place in late November.  Once I arrive in Death Valley, I will try to blog regular updates with photos every day or two from Stovepipe Wells.  Trip preparation involves choosing destinations, but also preparing for those destinations.  And that can take a lot of work, as maps, photographs, route information, and GE imagery all have to be printed out.  I also use the internet to research previous trip reports so I can learn more about the destinations and best routes to take.  Of course, not all places that I visit have reports that I can check out, so a lot of time needs to be spent studying topo maps and Google Earth imagery.  The destinations I prepared for include Corkscrew Peak, Pyramid Peak, Upper Moonlight Cyn, Upper Fall Cyn via Upper Titus Cyn, Upper Hidden Bridge Cyn, Upper Scotty’s Cyn, Lower Dry Bone Cyn & Dry Bone Main Side Cyn, and Dolomite Cyn.

GE map showing route from Upper Titus to Upper Fall