{"id":7590,"date":"2017-01-12T00:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T08:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/?p=7590"},"modified":"2022-11-14T10:06:16","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T18:06:16","slug":"why-i-like-to-hike-death-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/trails\/why-i-like-to-hike-death-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Like to Hike Death Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bighorn sheep standing watch atop painted cliffs, sunlight and shadow playing atop the salt and soda floor, a blue-gray cascade of gravel pouring down a gorge to a land below the level of the sea\u2014these are a few of the many awesome scenes I\u2019ll always remember and why I like to hike Death Valley National Park.<\/p>\n

Hike Death Valley National Park<\/em>? The Forty-niners, whose suffering gave the valley its name, would have howled at the notion. \u201cDeath Valley National Park\u201d seems a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron of the great outdoors.<\/p>\n

\"Enjoy<\/a>

Enjoy a hike around the rim of Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley National Park.<\/p><\/div>\n

Park? Other four-letter words are more often associated with Death Valley: gold, mine, heat, lost, dead. And the four-letter words shouted by teamsters who drove the 20-mule team borax wagons across the valley floor need not be repeated.<\/p>\n

\""Hike<\/a>

“Hike or Die, Death Valley” license plate frame–hopefully just for fun.<\/p><\/div>\n

Hike? Well, \u201chike\u201d is a four-letter word not commonly associated with Death Valley. However, we who like to hike Death Valley intend to subvert the dominant paradigm and share the park\u2019s many intriguing trails.<\/p>\n

In fact, \u201cDeath Valley\u201d got its name from some hikers\u2014all be it some very unhappy ones. Looking for a shortcut to the California gold country, two groups of travelers with about 100 wagons got lost in the huge valley for weeks in December of 1849. After slaughtering their oxen and burning the wood of their wagons to cook the meat, they finally located a pass and hiked out of the valley. One of the women in the group is reported to have said, \u201cGoodbye Death Valley!\u201d and the name stuck.<\/p>\n

Even the hiker with little or no interest in geology can be awestruck by Death Valley, where the forces of the earth are exposed to view with dramatic clarity: a sudden fault and a sink became a lake. The water evaporated, leaving behind borax and above all, fantastic scenery. Although Death Valley is called a valley, in actuality it is not. Valleys are carved by rivers. Death Valley is what geologists call a graben.<\/em> Here a block of the earth\u2019s crust has dropped down along fault lines in relation to its mountain walls.<\/p>\n

Death Graben National Park?<\/p>\n

Nope. Just doesn\u2019t have the right ring to it.<\/p>\n

Many of Death Valley\u2019s topographical features are associated with hellish images\u2014Funeral Mountains, Furnace Creek, Dante\u2019s View, Coffin Peak and Devil\u2019s Golf Course\u2014but the national park can be a place of great serenity for the hiker.<\/p>\n

At 3.3 million acres, Death Valley is the largest national park outside of Alaska. The very notion of hiking the desert in general, and at a place like Death Valley in particular, is a surprising one to some people\u2014even to some avid hikers. The desert that seems so huge when viewed from a car can seem even more intimidating on foot.<\/p>\n

Compared to forest or mountain parks, Death Valley has a limited number of signed footpaths; nevertheless, hiking opportunities abound because roads (closed to vehicles), washes, and narrow canyons serve as excellent footpath substitutes.<\/p>\n

The distances across Death Valley are enormous. If you only have one day, stick around the Furnace Creek Visitor Center. Take in Harmony Borax Works, Badwater, Dante\u2019s View and hike the interpretive trail through Golden Canyon.<\/p>\n

For the average hiker, there\u2019s a week or two\u2019s worth of hiking in the park, though you can get a fair sampling of this desert in three to four days. Although it\u2019s tempting, don\u2019t over-schedule. Death Valley is vast, with abundant sights to see and hikes to take.<\/p>\n

\"Sunrise<\/a>

Sunrise at Zabriskie Point (photo Daniel Mayer)<\/p><\/div>\n

To see as much of the park as possible, choose a different entrance and exit highway. Several routes lead into the park, all of which involve crossing one of the steep mountain ranges that isolate Death Valley from, well, everything. If you enter on Highway 127 through Death Valley Junction, exit on the scenic byway through the Panamint Valley. If you entered from the Panamint side, take your leave of the park by following Badwater Road (Highway 178) south from Furnace Creek, across the Black Mountains and Greenwater Valley to intersect Highway 127 at Shoshone.<\/p>\n

A particular highlight of hiking Death Valley is encountering the multitude of living things that have miraculously adapted to living in this land of little water, extreme heat and high winds. Two hundred species of birds are found in Death Valley. The brown whip-like stems of the creosote bush help shelter the movements of the kangaroo rat, desert tortoise and antelope ground squirrel. Night covers the movements of the bobcat, fox and coyote. Small bands of bighorn sheep roam remote slopes and peaks. Three species of desert pupfish, survivors from the Ice Age, are found in the valley\u2019s saline creeks and pools.<\/p>\n

In spring, even this most forbidding of deserts breaks into bloom. The deep blue pea-shaped flowers of the indigo bush brighten Daylight Pass. Lupine, paintbrush and Panamint daisies grow on the lower slopes of the Panamint Mountains while Mojave wildrose and mariposa lily dot the higher slopes.<\/p>\n

In reality, Death Valley celebrates life. Despite the outward harshness of this land, when you hike Death Valley, you see it in a different light. As naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch put it: \u201cHardship looks attractive, scarcity becomes desirable, starkness takes on an unexpected beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hike smart, reconnect with nature and have a wonderful time on the trail.<\/p>\n

Hike on.<\/p>\n

The Trailmaster John McKinney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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